Local search will disrupt today’s ecommerce channels, as consumers increasingly find what they want in local stores, according to Piper Jaffray’s Safa Rashtchy, who addressed Kelsey’s Drilling Down conference. “Local search could consume as much as 50 percent of all purchases online, he told attendees. “The first phase is the addition of real time inventory,” using RFID (radio frequency ID).
Rashtchy anticipated that the ability to add inventory and drive users will drive up the number of local online advertisers over the next five years. Today’s local online advertisers, variously estimated from 300,000 to 500,000, might swell up to four million. Much of the growth will come from franchise operations finally incorporating the Web into their overall marketing, he predicted.
Rashtchy, of course, is just guessing – and views on the importance of online inventory widely vary (see yesterday’s post on ShopLocal). I tend to side with the group that doesn’t believe it is very important. But his line of reasoning vis a vis local search does begin to explain Amazon’s unobvious investment in A9 search and Yellow Pages.