In a deal reportedly worth €147m (£125m) the Irish start-up Pointy allows retailers in the USA and Ireland to show stock inventory in their stores in real-time.

Retailers that use Pointy can plug in a small device to their barcode scanner or install the app on their point of sale system, which keeps online shoppers up to date with the ‘what’s in store’ section of a retailer’s business profile on Google Search.

Pointy founders Mark Cummins and Charles Bibby said: “Over the past several years, we’ve developed a very close partnership with Google. It became clear that we shared the same vision of how technology can improve local retail businesses.