We will be performing system maintenance March 20th; the interface will be unavailable at this time. Tracking will not be interrupted and reporting data will be restored shortly after the interface comes back online.

We anticipate the interface will be unavailable from 9 a.m. through 6 p.m. EDT (GMT 1 p.m. -10 p.m.).

Reposted from the Google Retail Blog

Last but not least, our final learning for the rest of 2010: the evolution of multi-channel behavior.

With searches for "buy online, pick up in store" up by as much as 100% this past December, multi-channel shopping has evolved as the new face of commerce, the norm rather than the exception. In fact, when asked, 34% of consumers researched online before buying offline and 21% researched online and offline, before purchasing online.

As we see, consumers leverage both the online and offline worlds in making their final purchase decisions so retailers must also integrate their strategies to reach the "nonline" consumer.

Source: Google/OTX Post-Holiday Consumer Study, January 2010. Q12 Thinking about your recent Holiday shopping experience, in which of the following ways did you approach your Holiday shopping? Select all that apply. n= 1850.

Originally Posted by Eric Lopez, the Google Retail Team

Recently we asked some members of our publisher community for feedback on a number of network features.  Based on the responses we received, we felt that folks could benefit from more live help.

Our publisher support team has since launched live office hours.  These live chats will be hosted through WebEx and the first session will take place on the Friday, March 26th, at 12:00pm CST.  A publisher support representative will take questions from the group on a first-come, first-served basis.  Responses will be provided live to the group.

We will announce the meeting details and login instructions in our Discussion Forum on Monday, March 22nd.  If you’d like live feedback on lingering questions about our network and interface, bring them along to the meeting.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Google Affiliate Network Publisher Support