Skip to main content

Google offers views of festive store window displays in NY City and beyond

google offers views of festive store window displays in ny city and beyond business view
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Doing all of the holiday shopping online is a no-brainer for an increasing number consumers. Curled up in your favorite armchair or burrowed deep inside a warm bed, you can get all the presents sorted with a few simple swipes and taps, leaving sharp-elbowed street shoppers to battle it out in stores, and freeze their bits off as they scuttle between them.

If you’re a big Christmas fan, one of the downsides of this particular approach is that you miss out on all the extraordinarily lavish window displays painstakingly created by department stores in a bid to provide you with a bit of light relief from the stressful job in hand. Of course, if you live far away from a big city, you don’t even have the option.

The good news is that thanks to Google’s Business View service, it’s now possible to get an eyeful of these festive displays simply by hitting the Web. The Mountain View company recently rolled out images of window decorations at Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, and Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan.

Alternatively, you can head across the pond to London to discover what Selfridges and Liberty have come up with to entertain passing shoppers.

“Holiday shopping in London may be blustery and cold, but the lovely, inviting window displays are sure to warm the heart,” Google’s Soufi Esmaeilzadeh wrote in a blog post announcing the latest addition to Maps.

The festive imagery give Google a chance to promote Business View, a service linked to Street View that lets stores, restaurants, hotels, and other similar businesses offer interior views of their premises.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
How to find archived emails in Gmail and return them to your inbox
A smartphone sitting on a wooden table, showing the Gmail app's inbox on its screen.

If you’re looking to clean up your Gmail inbox, but you don’t want to delete anything permanently, then choosing the archive option is your best bet. Whenever you archive an email, it is removed from your inbox folder while still remaining accessible. Here’s how to access any emails you have archived previously, as well as how to move such messages back to your regular inbox for fast access.

Read more
Samsung Spring Sale: Save on monitors, phones, TVs, and more
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in Titanium Gray with S Pen on back.

Samsung, one of the most trusted brands in the electronics industry, has rolled out monitor deals, phone deals, TV deals, and price cuts for other types of devices in the Samsung Spring Sale. While it's going to run until March 10, it's highly recommended that you finish your shopping as soon as you can because for some of the popular offers, there's a chance that their stocks run out quickly. To help you make a quick decision, we've highlighted our favorite bargains below, but feel free to look at everything that's available in the ongoing sale -- just do it fast to make sure that you don't miss out on the savings.

What to buy in the Samsung Spring Sale

Read more
Is there a Walmart Plus free trial? Get a month of free delivery
Walmart logo.

Take a moment and think about how often you shop at your local Walmart. Is it weekly? Daily? If either of those is the case, it might be time to upgrade your shopping experience. The Walmart Plus free trial is your chance to check out what the retail giant has to offer. Walmart Plus is basically Amazon Prime for Walmart. You get free shipping on most orders, early access to deals and new product drops (like PS5 restocks), the best grocery delivery, and more. If Walmart is your go-to option for the best smart home devices or the best tech products in general, you should get a membership. If you want to test out the service, you can sign up for a free trial. We have all the information you need right here.
Is there a Walmart Plus free trial?
There is a Walmart Plus free trial available, and it’s one of the best free trials we’ve seen in terms of how many great features and conveniences you’re able to access. This is really a reflection of how great the Walmart Plus service is, as the Walmart Plus free trial is essentially a 30-day experience of what it would be like to be a paid Walmart Plus subscriber. A Walmart Plus membership can help you save over $1,300 per year, so taking advantage of the 30-day free trial is a great way to get in there and see what those savings will look like. And if grocery delivery is what you're really after, an alternative you might consider is the Instacart free trial -- they have more than one program to try!

As part of a Walmart Plus free trial, you’ll get free shipping with no minimum order, so even small orders will qualify for free shipping. You’ll get fresh groceries and more with no delivery fees, and all at the same low in-store prices Walmart shoppers are used to. Walmart Plus members, and Walmart Plus free trial members, get exclusive access to special promotions and events, as well as a savings of up to 10 cents per gallon on fuel. A new addition to the perks of being a Walmart Plus member is free access to Paramount Plus, a top-notch streaming service with more than 40,000 TV episodes and movies. All of this is accessible for 30 days through a Walmart Plus free trial, and once those 30 days are up, Walmart Plus is just $8.17 per month or $98 annually.

Read more