While Google may have its Google Checkout payment platform, it's not really a player in the ecommerce space. Considering the billions of dollars being exchanged on thousands of retail websites every year, that's a big market that Google isn't monetizing.
Perhaps that's why we're surprised that it took them this long to launch Google Commerce Search, a new search engine that online retailers can install on their websites to provide Google-style speed and efficiency for customers when they search for products.
The product is straightforward: it is meant to help consumers search and sort through the items a retailer is selling online. The interface can be customized, searches can be filtered, and results can be tracked via Google Analytics. It's hosted on the Google cloud, which means that holiday traffic spikes won't take it down, but that retailers have to give up some control over search.
While the features are great, the key to whether Commerce Search gains adoption is its conversion rate. If (as we suspect) more users buy products through Google Commerce search than the custom interfaces many retailers have, those companies will switch. Just a 1% conversion upgrade on $1 million in sales is significant, though the exact cost of using the search engine isn't clear yet.
If you're interested in learning more, Google as usual has created a useful YouTube video that explains the basics. Let us know what you think in the comments: