Vendio Acquires SingleFeed

It was just recenlty announced on techcrunch that Vendio has acquired SingleFeed.

Amazon Experinaces Technical Issues

Amazon has posted a Technical Notification of an issue they are curently experiancing for product ad merchants

FTC to issue subpoenas in Google antitrust probe - Google Shopping is included.

By Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A published report says federal regulators are preparing to issue subpoenas to Google and other companies as authorities gather information for a broad antitrust probe into the Internet search leader’s business practices.

Technology Partnership between Ciao & ePages

The UK based comparison shopping giant Ciao has partnered with ePages.

Shopping.com System Maintenance Notification

Shopping.com will be conducting maintenance on Monday, June 20 beginning at 10am PST until 4pm PST.



During this maintenance, FTP access will be restricted as will the ability to upload a datafeed into the Merchant Account Center.



Please note that all other functionality of the Merchant Account Center will still be accessible during this time.



Any changes to the datafeed or uploads to the Shopping.com ftp should be completed prior to 10am PST or after 4pm PST on Monday, June 20

Google Instant Pages

Google today announced at the their annual Google Inside Search Event a new feature called "Instant Pages". It save on average from 3 - 5 seconds on the page load time of the landing page.

Google wants to make the web as quick as switching a channel on your TV and they are really take a step towards this.

What does this mean for CSE? Honestly it doesn't look like it would effect it at all.

Product Specific Advertsing Using Google Adwords API

Merchant Advantage, one of the leading data feed management providers, recently announced their new "KeywordControl" tool. Some of the things they promise it can do are

• Auto create a Google ad for each of your products.
• Update and insert current product pricing in each product ad.
• Automatically stop an ad from showing when inventory is low.
• Customize ads for each product during a specific promotion.

No More Checkout Badges on AdWords ads

As of June 2011, the Google Checkout badge has been removed from AdWords ads.

This change impacts badges that appear on Google.com search results. This includes the standard and promotional Checkout badge for both merchants and non-profits.

Badges and filtering on Google Product Search results are not impacted by this change. Learn more about displaying badges on Product Search results.

Google Shopping tax & shipping requirements update

On March 14, Google announced a new set of data requirements for Product Search merchants. As part of these changes, Google communicated that shipping and tax information would be required in your data feeds as of June 6.

However, based on feedback they’ve received from merchants, they are extending the deadline until September 1, allowing you more time to modify your data feeds. They are also permitting estimates for tax/shipping information. However, they recommend reviewing the submission options and submitting the most accurate information that you can, as this ensures the best experience for shoppers.

Here is a summary of what’s changing:

For Feeds Targeting the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany: The June 6 deadline for providing shipping information has been extended to September 1.

For Feeds Targeting the United States: The June 6 deadline for providing tax information has been extended to September 1.

Read the blog post