Color me surprised to discover Google operates an online merchandise store aptly named Google Store, courtesy of @newsycombinator. Google-centric blogs like Google Blogoscoped have understandably been aware of this for quite some time, but I had no idea. There’s no mention of it on the Google corporate website (although it’s linked at the bottom here), and even the Wikipedia entry simply redirects to a list of all its products. They’re apparently even running ad units for it on their network (see below).

Apparently, created back in 2006 several years ago, the online store features a big inventory of items featuring Google brands for sale, ranging from adult and kids clothing to accessories like lava lamps, mugs, Yo-Yos and lip balm. There’s even a recently launched section reserved exclusively for YouTube-branded stuff, and I’m definitely tempted to purchase one of those exquisite YouTube Snap Bibs for the next newborn in the family.

Two questions pop into my head: when’s the Bing Store coming (the domain name has already been secured by Microsoft), and how much revenue is Google getting out of this well-hidden Google Store?