Amazon enters local retail advertising space!

By JimBonfield

By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Amazon.com is mapping the streets of the United States in an ambitious digital photography project to drive people into local businesses.

The online retailer's search unit, A9.com, is masterminding the project, which will eventually pair digital photos of storefronts and their surroundings with more than 14 million U.S. business listings from around the country.

Early Thursday, the company announced the first phase of its service, called A9.com Yellow Pages, with 20 million images from 10 cities, including Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.Full Story

Consider the impact this will have in reaching the small business owners across the country... "My storefront is pictured on Amazon"???!!!

They will have to log-on and see for themselves...And, when they do...

I am sure they will find an easy way to advertise, self-serve style, on that same page. This advertising will take the form of keyword searchable "feeds" that will produce results directly from their advertising and/or inventory, or special that they have added to the searchable DB by simply up-loading their own price and item information similar to what Travidia will soon offer with it's small merchant Ad builder product line.

Now, those who have traditionally not been able to afford regular advertising with local media companies, may not have to worry about it any longer.

Agree/Disagree? Tell me about it stud...Email

Reader Views on this...

Chris Eckland
Director – Market Analysis

I’ve been reviewing this a bit this morning also. Interesting model; I mapped out a Starbucks in SF on Market Street and viewed photos of the whole block. Pretty slick. Very integrated with Amazon also which may be a bit scary for local advertisers as their product will be advertised within the Amazon framework; potentially lots of opportunity for price/item comparison, etc. Good for the consumer and the efficient retailers – maybe not so good for the inefficient ones. I agree that Amazon would be wise to enable some self serve advertising in the search space; of course that will also give them the contextual info they need to display their own product. We shall see – depends on which side of the house Amazon wants to feed with this