Google announced a new hosted search product, Google Commerce Search, to power online retail stores and ecommerce websites. Targeted as an enterprise level search tool, it appears it will compete with services such as SLI Systems hosted search offerings. The pricing model for Google Commerce Search is based on the number of products/items (SKUs) in the merchant's data feed and the number of search queries entered on the site each year - merchants must contact Google directly for pricing information.
Google said Commerce Search offers retailers speed, ecommerce-specific search features, integration with Google Analytics. But perhaps most importantly, it offers integration with Google Product Search. According to the announcement, "E-commerce vendors benefit from providing a single feed of their catalog items to power Google Commerce Search for their website store and for indexing on Google Product Search. This helps retailers reduce costs and increase consistency across their inventory."
Online channel-management service Mercent announced its support of Google Commerce Search, stating it provides complete data feed integration with the GCS platform through Mercent Retail.
