Take A Plunge

Yesterday Google announced a new Blue Dot feature on the mobile version of Google Product Search. This feature shows whether a product is in-stock at nearby stores. It poses a threat to startup Milo , which highlights local inventory in product search results both on the web and mobile devices.

Milo’s co-founder Ted Dziuba subsequently responded to Google’s new inclusion with a Tweet  that read “Google Product Search has availability for 5 retailers vs. Milo’s 49. Super cool web service, bro.”

When launched Google only has partnerships with Best Buy, Williams-Sonoma, Sears, Pottery Barn, and West Elm. However, Milo’s list of merchants is a huge one with retailers, from BestBuy and Nordstrom to Midwestern regional department store Blain’s Farm and Fleet.

See the pictures below. Milo’s Palo Alto office is at 165 University Avenue, (yes the same place where Google’s first office was back in 1999). The picture also has a few of the famous faces from Google’s original team.

The building is legendary  in Silicon Valley. The same building also had PayPal office. This 2007 New York Times article  details the building’s history and apparent lucky karma.

Milo feels that their offering is more comprehensive than Google’s Blue Dot specials. At present Milo is expanding its merchants both regionally and nationally. It also wants to partner with mom and pop shops in cities. Right now, Milo indexes 2 million products.

Forrester reports that the “online research, offline buying” consumer market represents $917 billion in consumer spending, which is 30 percent of all U.S. retail sales.