A $500 Device Helps a Mom and Pop Toy Store Find Shoppers on Google

Talbots Toyland used to buy full-page newspaper ads during the holiday shopping season and hope for the best. Now the San Mateo, California, store is connecting with Bay Area toy shoppers on Google’s search engine and attracting customers it might otherwise have never found.

Google for years has offered tools to help small merchants increase their online visibility, but only if those retailers had digital records of what was on their shelves. Like many small businesses, Talbots lacked digital records of what was in stock and never got around to building one for its mammoth inventory of 65,000 products, which include everything from Lionel Trains collectibles and the latest must-have Legos.