October 27, 2021

Despite the strong ad revenue in the third quarter, Google’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler said that purchases are not being made entirely online, as shoppers are still prioritizing physical stores and are more than willing to do so if the world returns to how it was before the pandemic.

For him, “We’ve seen explosive growth in digital over the last 20-some months, but as the world begins to reopen, shoppers are returning to stores. Brick-and-mortar isn’t dead. Instead, omnichannel is in full force.”

To back up his point, Schindler pointed to Google Search queries where searches for “open now near me” grew four times as fast globally as in 2020.

Schindler also pointed to some of Google’s strategies to make it easier for companies to view the local services they offer through Google Search. These include local inventory ads that highlight products that are currently in stock and when to select them.

Another feature allows retailers to add “free shipping” and “easy return” annotations through searches and shopping, while Google Lens helps retailers create “instantly shoppable” images. Google has also introduced a new visual browsing experience on Search.

For more information, read the original story in ZDNet.