Google

The hype around daily-deal websites and mailings, and the rush of established online companies like Google and Facebook to get into the space, has some industry watchers wondering whether consumers will quickly tire of the offers. 

A fast-paced session titled 60 Ideas in 60 Minutes for Your Distribution Center at the National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment in Las Vegas, left attendees with a bevy of new strategies and solutions that they can implement in their businesses. Timothy Holody, COO/general manager of cross-channel retailer Seta/Palm Beach Jewelry, Lance Curran, warehouse director of online apparel retailer Threadless, dispensed the tips in rapid-fire format.

Google has caught Overstock buying links to boost its search rankings and that's a big no-no for Google. Therefore it dragged Overstock down in its search rankings. Overstock said that Google dinging its search rankings has cost it 5 percent of revenue.

If you've ever spent your Saturday calling different stores or driving around town in search of one specific product, then it probably occurred to you that there must be a better way. We're announcing Local Product Availability on Google Place Pages —  a new feature that automatically brings your offline catalog to the web, letting customers view your products and search your local inventory on your Place Page before visiting your store.

Facebook commerce was a big topic of discussion by attendees and speakers at the 2011 ChannelAdvisor Catalyst Conference, which took place in Durham, North Carolina this week.

Google launched a third generation of its commerce search tool that is specifically designed for retailers' e-commerce websites. Note that Google Commerce Search is not geared for the small seller — pricing starts at $25,000 per year and is based on the number of product SKUs and number of search queries.

Data, data everywhere. No wonder retail marketers are overwhelmed with the volume of data available in today's marketplace. But what to do with it all? With this enormous volume of data comes not only opportunity, but also responsibility. No longer can retailers simply get by on marketing what they want. They must now listen to the voice of the consumer, and market how the consumer wants.

The future of e-commerce is going to feel a lot like walking into a store 50 years ago, according to a Google executive. Osama Bedier, vice president of payments at Google, told an audience at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco that e-commerce is about to go through a radical transition. And the more online retail changes, the more it will feel like shopping at your local corner store.

I was out of the country and out in the jungle the week the Google Panda/Farmer update hit. None of our sites or client sites were really affected, but that meant I had no real information on the direct effects of Panda other than what was reported in the press.

Google is teaming up with MasterCard and Citigroup to embed technology in Android mobile devices that would allow consumers to make purchases by waving their smartphones in front of a small reader at the checkout counter, according to people familiar with the matter.