Launching Google Wallet on Sprint and Working with Visa, American Express and Discover

(cross-posted on Official Google Blog and Google Mobile Blog)

In May we announced Google Wallet—an app that makes your phone your wallet—with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC).

We’ve been testing it extensively, and today we’re releasing the first version of the app to Sprint. That means we’re beginning to roll out Google Wallet to all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over-the-air update—just look for the “Wallet” app. Here’s a demo of Google Wallet in action:


Google Wallet enables you to pay with your Citi MasterCard credit card and the Google Prepaid Card, which can be funded with any of your existing plastic credit cards. As a thanks to early adopters, we’re adding a $10 free bonus to the Google Prepaid Card if you set it up in Google Wallet before the end of the year.

When we announced Google Wallet, we pledged a commitment to an open commerce ecosystem. We appreciate Citi and MasterCard for being our launch partners. And today, Visa, Discover and American Express have made available their NFC specifications that could enable their cards to be added to future versions of Google Wallet.

Our goal is to make it possible for you to add all of your payment cards to Google Wallet, so you can say goodbye to even the biggest traditional wallets. In fact, we’ve got a video of our first customer, someone who is ready to replace his famously over-stuffed wallet. We hope Google Wallet gives him “serenity now.”

This is still just the beginning and while we’re excited about this first step, we look forward to bringing Google Wallet to more phones in the future. You can learn more about Google Wallet at google.com/wallet.


Posted by Osama Bedier, Vice President of Payments

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Reminder: Google Product Search Data Feed Changes This Week

On September 22, we'll begin enforcing the new Google Product Search data feed specification and policies, which we announced in July. If you've already made the required changes to your feed, we recommend running a Test Data Feed to make sure that your updated feed complies with our new requirements.

If you've not made the changes, we highly recommend reviewing the materials cited in our announcement and follow-up blog posts, updating your feed, and testing the revised feed using the Test Data Feed.

Starting September 22, we'll gradually begin enforcing the new requirements by removing items from Google Product Search that do not meet the new requirements and, in some cases, suspending accounts that do not comply.

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Product Search Team

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Introducing Nearby Stores and Local Availability in Europe, Australia, and Japan

Last year, we announced a Nearby Stores feature to help online shoppers in the U.S. and U.K. find products offline. When a merchant stocks an item in their online store, we make an educated guess that they might also stock it offline - and recommend you “call for availability” to see if they have it in their store nearest you. This week, we will be launching this feature for online shoppers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Australia.

We’re also launching a beta version of our Local Availability feature in Japan, the U.K., France and Germany, together with some top retailers in those countries, including Yodobashi Camera, Argos, Debenhams, HMV, Boulanger, and Hornbach. With Local Availability, we work directly with the retailer to tell you what they have available in their stores, and at what price. Whether you’re shopping for a last-minute gift or simply don’t want to deal with shipping, you can quickly and easily find what you’re looking for.

So head to Google to start shopping locally - and if you're a retailer with store locations in our launched countries, follow the instructions in our Help Center to make sure you’re included in our Nearby Stores feature. Local Availability is currently in limited beta in the U.K., Japan, France and Germany, but we hope to make it more widely available in the future.

Posted by Jens Münch, Strategic Partner Developer, Google Shopping

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Google Offers kicks off ‘Gourmet Ghetto’ week with sponsorship of the North Berkeley Spice of Life Festival

Since the launch of Google Offers in San Francisco and the East Bay in July, we’ve partnered with some great Bay Area businesses to provide people with relevant deals for the places they love to eat, shop and play. This week, we’re delighted to engage with the East Bay community even further by sponsoring the 9th annual North Shattuck Association’s Spice of Life Festival on Saturday, September 17th.



The Spice of Life festival is a celebration of North Berkeley’s ‘Gourmet Ghetto’ area, and will feature live music, cooking demos, food and wine tastings, and more! Stop by our Google Offers booth at the festival to meet a few members of our team and learn more about our upcoming Google Offers ‘Gourmet Ghetto’ week--a week of great deals from local favorites such as Kitchen on Fire, Edible Excursions and Soop.

Visit www.google.com/offers to sign up ahead of time so you don’t miss these awesome deals from local East Bay businesses.

It should be a great event and we hope to see you there!

Posted by Teresa Jung, Product Marketing Manager, Google Offers

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Google Content API for Shopping adds more metrics for merchants

We are happy to announce that the Google Content API for Shopping, which is used to upload product data to Google, now exposes performance (click) data. This data informs merchants how often their products have been clicked on Google Shopping within any given time period.

The data is easy to grab by adding URL parameters to product retrieval requests, specifying the start and end dates for which performance data is required. The returned product data contains new elements with the number of clicks per day for each product, for example:

We hope this feature helps merchants track these important metrics. For more information, please visit the documentation, and if you have any questions, please raise them in the developer forum.

Posted by Thomas Kotzmann, Technical Lead, Content API for Shopping

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Google Offers Beta in Five More Cities: Austin, Boston, D.C., Denver and Seattle

This summer we’ve brought you some amazing deals from fantastic businesses in Portland, the Bay Area and New York City with Google Offers beta. Now, we’re expanding to five more areas: Austin, Boston, D.C., Denver and Seattle.

Here’s more on Wednesday’s offers from our five new Google Offers zones:

• In Austin, the first Google Offer is from Juan in a Million with $5 for $10 worth of food and drink. The menu at this locally-adored Mexican restaurant includes the legendary “Don Juan”-- El Taco Grande of the Breakfast Taco Challenge that defeated Adam Richman on the Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food series. Visit the Google booth at the ACL pre-party Thursday night to learn more. 
• Toscanini’s Ice Cream in Cambridge down the street from MIT, is running our day-one Google Offer in Boston. Spend $5 for $10 worth of gourmet ice cream, choosing from delectable flavors like Burnt Caramel, Ginger Snap Molasses and Grape Nut.
• Falafel is on the menu in our nation’s capital, with today’s Google Offer of $3 for $6 of food and beverage from the fun and funky Amsterdam Falafelshop in D.C. Redeem it for their world-famous falafel and make room for creative toppings like crunchy onions, garlic cream sauce and house-made pickled veggies. 
• In Denver, get $20 of merchandise for $5 at all three locations of Tattered Cover Book Store, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Meet your new favorite author, cozy up with a latte and a magazine or browse through thousands of books and unique gift items in antique filled stores, each with its own indie ambiance. 
• The Seattle Aquarium has a Google Offer you “otter” buy today with $9.50 for one day’s admission worth up to $19, that can also be applied toward an individual or family annual membership. See sand crabs, harbor seals, sea urchins and jellyfish frolic in the waves at this beloved Seattle institution. Check the calendar for upcoming events like underwater pumpkin carving.

Note: each of Wednesday’s offers will be redeemable starting on Thursday, September 8.

You can subscribe to receive deals of the day in your email inbox from as many places as you like at google.com/offers. You can also find and buy Google Offers from all eight regions that are currently part of this trial in the Google Shopper app for Android in the “Today’s Offer” tab, and don’t have to subscribe to buy. If Google Offers aren’t yet available near you, please sign up to receive a notification and we’ll let you know when we launch in your area.  

Posted by Eric Rosenblum, Product Management Director Google Offers

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Special Packages to Andrea Bocelli Live in Central Park through Google Offers Tomorrow

We launched Google Offers to give our users access to amazing deals for great places to eat, shop and play in their city. Tomorrow we bring New Yorkers a special opportunity through Google Offers to attend the upcoming Andrea Bocelli's Live in Central Park concert in New York City.


Internationally acclaimed tenor Andrea Bocelli will perform on Central Park’s Great Lawn, Thursday, September 15 with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by its music director Alan Gilbert, as a special gift to New York City.

While all the complimentary tickets have been distributed, tomorrow on Wednesday, September 7 at 6:00 AM ET, we will offer vouchers through Google Offers for exclusive packages of two general admission tickets and two t-shirts to this once in a lifetime musical event for $10. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of the packages will be donated to the Central Park Conservancy. This will be a one-day offer with limited quantities available, but you can subscribe to Google Offers now at google.com/offers to receive this spectacular offer in your inbox as soon as it becomes available tomorrow.

For a preview of Andrea Bocelli’s Live in Central Park, you can watch the video here.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Posted by Yaoshiang Ho, Business Development, Google

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