Forecasts released in anticipation of the holiday rush say that online shopping will go head-to-head with the real mall shopping experience. Let’s face it,  the reality is that many people will still opt to visit the concrete stores to shop for Christmas presents and other holiday season gifts. However, more than half of these purchases are influenced by searches and advertisements over the internet.

As more and more consumers rely on online stores, developers capitalize on this fact and stepped into the “upgrade mode” to entice more people, especially with holiday season fast approaching. Here are the top 4 articles in SiliconAngle that talk about various sites’ updates that attempt to draw more shoppers into the virtual shopping mode.

Local Shopping Sites Get Aggressive as Holiday Shopping Sets In

This report focuses on the billion dollar coupon and discount deals. Milo has introduced real-time online shopping with coupons that are honored in more than 28,000 local stores. Google on the other hand, adopted Hotpot to Places and Deals to check for recommendations and promotions of local stores. Gowalla also joined the others as it announced its partnership with Disneyland.

Holiday Shopping Made Easy with Google Product Search Updates

Google has upgraded its Product Search just in time for the holidays. This revamp within the search giant aimed to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping locally. With this social shopping tool, one will be directed to stores that have best deals in town.

Dropbox Apps Directory Gives a Helping Hand for Holiday Shopping

Dropbox offers apps directory for cloud consumers and is available for both iPhone and Android mobile phones.

Visual Search Cues for Shoe Divas, Now on Amazon

The world’s largest online auction site, Amazon.com has recently launched a feature that will allow shoppers to search for shoes based on what they exactly look like. This new capability allows customers to hunt for a shoe style of their choice without having to go through a tough time identifying what kind of style it is. The visual search technology analyzes search descriptions like shape, color, appearance, and then groups related products together.