Using Google Base

Google’s VP of global sales, Margo Georgiadis, is leaving GOOG to work for daily deals service provider, Groupon. Georgiadis managed the local and commerce businesses, running the businesses to provide services such as Checkout, Google Places along with product search. She will become Groupon’s Chief Operating Officer.

Google also launched their new “Offers” service. According to press releases, Offers promises 50% discounts on local goods and services via email. The service is available in New York, San Francisco, and Portland. Google says it will “partner with some of the best local businesses in your area to bring you great deals at 50% off or more.”

What will this launch mean for local search? Too early to tell, but to play there as a retailer you have to be willing to lose money on the Groupon or Offers deals in the hopes of gaining long term repeat customers.

I need to do a bit more testing, but it looks like Google Base listings are starting to have some conversion problems.

Way back during the Christmas buying season, Google Base, or Froogle, was just awesome! The conversion rate from a click from Froogle was 2 to 3 times that from a Google adword ad. Now that we’re in 2nd quarter and in the summer retail slump, “Google Product Search” (as they’re now calling it) is hitting the retail wall as well.

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Yes, I said that using Google Checkout is like getting free money.  Here’s the announcement that leads me there:

“Free Transaction Processing for Google Checkout until 2008
Google Checkout is now free for merchants until 2008. That means all of your Google Checkout transactions for the next 11 months will be processed at no cost. Google Checkout is an alternative checkout process that works alongside your website’s existing checkout process, letting customers use a single name and password to buy from you quickly and securely. A safe and fast environment is a happy environment for buyers. And when they buy, you’ll process their orders for free. “

This means that if you spend $500.00 on your AdWords campaigns in a month, Google will process $5,000 worth of transactions through Google Checkout for free.  When you figure that merchant account fees are anywhere from 2% to 4% depending on your credit risk, that’s an extra $100 - $200 that can flow down to the bottom line (or back into your advertising campaigns, which is where Google hopes it will go.)  Read the rest of this entry »