All Shopping Is Local

According to a new survey from Nielsen/Netratings, online holiday shopping was up 30 percent over last year, to more than$30 billion. Unless we are talking government spending, $30 billion is a biiig number.

Consumer electronics grew by 109 percent, closing in on apparel and computer hardware as the top online holiday categories. Shopping.com likewise said traffic was up 30 percent over last year.

This is all good news for online purveyors of products. However, the line between offline and online sales is going to be increasingly blurred as people integrate online and offline searches in their consumer quests.

For commodity items, shopping online is fast and the most efficient method of getting the best price. But for some items that usually require hands-on experience, using the web to find local stores offering the goods has the potential to be huge. For example, if you are going to buy a rocking chair or baby stroller (which was my weekend fun), you probably want to see and touch the items up close before you buy. In issues of safety and comfort, the virtual experience just doesn't cut it.

That's where a "buy this locally" feature that combines local marketing with shopping engines could make a splash. After pinpointing the product that appears (online) to be the best for you, you could click on a link and find the 5 closest retailers who FOR SURE are selling that product, along with the prices. Then you can go see for yourself, and decide based on price and convenience whether to buy in person or online.

Google is the most likely to get there first, by combining Google Base, Froogle, Local and Maps, to put this all together. Of course this requires consistently matching product numbers, because the last thing you want is to drive to a store only to be told that it's not available.