The emergence of a new default shopping behavior, researching online and then buying in store (45 percent of in store purchases are influenced by online research (Forrester 2009), and 87 percent of internet users used the internet to browse, research and compare products in last year (eMarketer). The number of product or brand queries issued to Google Maps rather than Google Search is increasing, as shoppers seek to make the transition from the online to the physical world. Google research shows that online advertising increases physical in store footfall. To capitalize on the O2S trend, Google are indexing local availability and integrating, in stock nearby data into location aware mobile queries.
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