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Where can I get a…?
By Cameron Ferroni | October 22, 2007
I love to shop. It is definitely right up there in the top five ways I like to spend my time. Just yesterday, with an hour to kill I went to the local record shop and bought three albums (yes, vinyl - Hot Rocks, Houses of the Holy, and a DJ-Kicks album I’ve wanted to check out) and went to Electronics Boutique here in Seattle to pick up a Nintendo DS Lite, along with Brain Games 2 (gotta stay sharp) and Zelda. I, like many others do, did some online research first, before leaving the house. I started on www.openlist.com and did a search for vinyl in Seattle - that was enlightening, but not quite what I was looking for. Then I did a search for LPs - that worked much better - in fact, without seeming biased, it was the best result set of any local search I could find. Using the map, I knew I wanted to go to Zion’s Gate Records, since it was on the way to downtown Seattle. For the games, I just went directly to www.ebgames.com - mostly because I knew where I was going to buy them, but wanted to check prices/ratings ahead of time.
Now, this is a pretty common story - various studies indicate that anywhere from 60-90% of purchases that start on the Internet end up actually being purchased in a physical store. I totally get it - at the end of the day, there is nothing like the experience of being in the store with other people, and more importantly, getting the item in my hands instantaneously (in the above case, I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to vinyl and playing Zelda, with a little brain training thrown in). So what’s my point? Well, it’s the same as many other peoples’ points around this - the actual process of finding a store that has the items you want, in stock, is at best very hard, and at worst, impossible. More broadly, my experience reinforces what analysts like Greg Sterling, the folks at the Kelsey Group, and others have long maintained: That local search definitely extends to physical storefronts and that making it easier for people to find the -right- stores in their chosen localities is really what local search is all about.
In the above example I had a couple things going for me - I like a lot of different music, and the “browse” element at the local record shop is a key part of the experience for me. And when it comes to video games, I already know that EB games will generally have what I’m looking for. But if I want something specific, it’s impossible. Try finding that obscure used video game shop and figuring out online if they have that Japanese import you are looking for. Trying finding a shop that sells real Schweppes Lemonade that you need for a party - tonight. Try finding someone that specifically carries kitchen islands that you can go look at before you purchase. Try finding a backsaw. Frankly, if the store doesn’t have a full online shopping presence (e.g. Best Buy, EB, or even a local cutlery shop like www.epicedge.com) the likelihood that you can see in stock items/information is extremely low. So you are relegated to doing searches to find businesses that might have what you need, and then getting on the phone to see if they actually have what you are looking for. Which at the end of the day seems so 80’s doesn’t it?
In any case, this is clearly a problem that is just looking for an answer - and it turns out that I’m not the only one that thinks so - just check out this blog post on SearchEngine Watch: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070511-024425. They have all the stats and research you could ever want - now we just need to solve it!
Topics: Local Search, Content |
November 9th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
[…] Where can I get a…? I love to shop. It is definitely right up there in the top five ways I like to spend my time. Just yesterday, I went to the local record shop and bought three albums … and went to Electronics Boutique to pick up a Nintendo DS Lite, along with Brain Games 2 and Zelda. […]