Walmart does drones, GML: AI, automation & images are future, Local inventory ad unit mimics 3-pack

05/27/22 • 25 min

Walmart announced that they were rolling out drone delivery in 6 states this week, offering upto 100,000 picked in the local store. Meanwhile Gorrila (Europe’s largest food delivery company announced massive layoffs and UberEats continued to struggle to find a profitable path forward. Walmart’s many rural & suburban stores gives them a unique advantage in driving their own, same day delivery service. Interestingly Amazon’s drone work seems to have stalled.

Google is moving full steam ahead on a vision of search and advertising that includes an ever increasing amount of AI driven automation and an ever increasing amount of images and other visuals in the search results. They noted at the GML event that “we're transforming the SERPS into an endless stream of visual ideas”. Google sees automated retail ads and local as their path to compet with Amazon

Google testing new Local inventory ad unit that looks like the 3-pack

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 66

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Google testing new Local inventory ad unit that looks like the 3-pack

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 66

Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Previous Episode

Mourning Bill Slawski, Will people use My Ad Center? Baby formula shortage shows CTR impacts rank

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Bill was instrumental in helping me understand Local search. Over the years he shared his knowledge willingly and unsparingly and he will be missed.

My Ad Center - will people use it or is it just another data harvesting tool?

Shotland showed a radical increase in rankings for a particular page on a client's website that was talking about baby formula. Over the last X number of weeks, he said the page was on page two plus, and it's now skyrocketed up to the top. His theory? That top ranking national retailers were out of formula and when users left those sites and found the lower ranked ones that did have formula, they stuck around leading to a ranking increase. Shotland made some astute suggestions on how to quickly cope with shortages.

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 65

Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Next Episode

Apple search engine, GBP product kerfuffle, Walmart stores to be used for 3rd party local delivery

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Rumors have surfaced that Apple will roll out a general purpose search engine at WWDC this week. Will it be browser based? Available on the desktop? Apple has historically favored “search as a feature” over the years as they have slowly built out Siri, Spotlight and Safari search. The UI/UX could use a refresh and it could become more obvious but will it be a Google replacement? Probably not.

The disappearance of the Product feature from the Google Business Profile caused lots of speculation.

Whether it was a bug or a very small test that was not meant to be seen, the removal of the Product feature from the Google Business Profile (and to be replaced by Merchant Center) last week lead many to soul search about the role of real time inventory in Google’s push for ever more granular data. Google has been taking a holistic commerce strategy (online and in-store inventory) to create a more complete consumer offering than Amazon.

Walmart announced that they will offer last mile same day delivery to 3rd parties from their stores

Walmart continues to push the boundaries of on-line/offline commerce and publicly shared that they will be using their many locations as a warehouse and point of delivery for 3rd party resellers. Can their retail stores efficiently function in this capacity? Can they compete with both Google AND Amazon with this strategy?

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 67

Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

The Near Memo - Walmart does drones, GML: AI, automation & images are future, Local inventory ad unit mimics 3-pack

Transcript

Greg: Welcome back everybody to the Near Memo where David, Mike and I talk about the week's events in search social commerce with a local lens. And we're excited to be talking to you today ahead of our. Memorial day weekend. We don't know when you'll be listening to this, but if you're listening to it ahead of, or during the weekend, have a great weekend.

Well, if you're not anyway as always a lot of news and a bit of, a bit of a mishmash of this week, we're goin