The diabolical designers of Westfield's most complicated mall layouts may have their MC-Escher-style floormaps nutted out soon by Google's indoor street view.
Lost at the mall? Pretty soon, you may be able to find the shopfront you’re looking for – from your smartphone or Web browser. At least, that seems to be the plan after reports suggest the Internet behemoth is extending its Google Street View services to include views of the inside of retail shops.
Online reports via Search Engine Land suggest that Google’s latest project could bring an entirely new dimension to the term ‘comparison shopping’. The company is working with retailers to go, with their permission, and photograph entire retail outlets in 360-degree splendour.
New York company Oh Nuts, an online and real-world seller of bulk candy with four outlets in the vicinity of New York City, was among the first subjects. The owners of Oh Nuts reported that Google staffers photographed the inside of the shop at two-metre intervals, in all directions, and photographed the products the store carries.
The feature could be a boon for consumers, who could use it to “walk” through the door and into a store while in Street View mode – sort of a more realistic version of Second Life. Applied to larger retail environments such as shopping malls, the service could be a massive timesaver – and have significant e-commerce implications. Walk through a virtual representation of a mall, and Google could not only let you stroll through participating stores, but could let you pick items off of shelves and order them with a single click.
There is one small problem: saving consumers the bother of physically going to a shopping centre isn’t exactly the kind of thing that will make Westfield and its kin happy, since they depend on foot traffic to set rents for retailers.
Furthermore, allowing Google to photograph entire shopping centres and retail outlets would seem to contradict long-standing prohibitions on doing just that – with fear of competitors or even terrorists often cited as reasons for anti-photography rules. Detailed store layouts would certainly make it easier to plan robberies and other untoward activities.
With retailers’ support, though, the possibilities are tantalising: imagine virtual shelves linked to RFID-based inventory tracking systems that can not only show where in the store a product is located, but how many are currently in stock and when more are expected to arrive. Google Maps could use built-in compass and GPS capabilities to track customers’ movement through stores, making the feature a lifesaver in dizziness-inducing retail environments like Ikea and Costco.
Of course, GPS doesn’t work indoors, which would force Google to figure out a better way of tracking customers through its virtual retail environments – possibly through mobile phone base station triangulation. This presents unique challenges compared with other outdoor Maps features, which include views from public streets and, more recently, Google tricycles that are expanding the service with views of publicly-accessible walkways in places like Taronga Zoo and, overseas, university campuses. Assuming the boffins at Google figure it out, however, it may not be long before you never get lost in your local shopping centre again.