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October 13, 2004
Google launching Froogle in Britain
Google is starting its Froogle.co.uk shopping search engine in Britain. The company says it already has many merchants signed up to provide goods through its new shopping service
The service, which is now live at www.froogle.co.uk and contains a range of goods in the low millions
Froogle is free to both merchants and to buyers. In order to have their products included, retailers need to provide a feed containing a description, an image and a price. Current prices therefore depend on how often companies update the product listings they submit to Google.
Cosmos Nicolaou, Google's Engineering Director told us, 'We have been waiting for the market to mature before launching Froogle in Britain which as been driven by the takeup of broadband. We have decided to launch the product now to catch the Christmas buying season.'
As with many of Google's spin-offs Froogle remains 'in beta'. Nicolaou explained that while the product was stable, 'we are still listening to feedback it indicates to people that we might change the interface or something later on'.
Britain has caught the online shopping bug in a big way. According to research firm IMRG, 20 million British shoppers will spend £17bn online this year and the figure is set to rise to £80bn by 2009. Meanwhile figures from NOP suggest that some 10 per cent of all purchases in the UK are now made online.
Source: Computer Buyer
Posted by nakul at October 13, 2004 12:46 PM | TrackBack