Big G makes the Google Shopping showcase free to “help retailers in difficulty” and counter Amazon’s dominance in online sales. Also announced a partnership with PayPal.
With a news published on the official Google blog on April 21, 2021, Bill Ready declared that Google Shopping will soon be free for all retailers.
The news has come in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and, according to official statements, is intended to rush to the aid of all economic operators who are currently in enormous difficulty due to the forced closure of physical stores.
The imperative is to give an answer to the encouraging data coming from the digital world.
In fact, the rapidly growing consumer searches are not limited to basic necessities, but also include toys, clothing and household items.
We are facing a real boom in online purchases and this evolution of Google Shopping aims to facilitate the meeting between supply and demand within the most used search engine in the world.
For troubled businesses it is a real opportunity to reconnect with their customers and in Menlo Park they are rushing preparations to allow free access to all merchants who want to sell online through Google.
Within a few months, merchants from all over the world will be able to upload and display their products in the appropriate Shopping section without being forced to start paid advertising campaigns .
This new feature will be activated in the United States as early as April 27 and will also be extended to Europe by the end of 2021.
How to access the free Google Shopping showcase and what changes for advertisers
Once this novelty has also been introduced in Italy, with Google Shopping for free it will be possible to upload your products by selecting the free option directly from Merchant Center .
The first question, however, for those who regularly invest in shopping campaigns to promote an e-commerce , is only one: what will change for advertisers? Nothing will tend to change at all, paid shopping ads will continue to appear at the top of search results just as they normally do with Google Ads text ads .
To be picky, however, this implementation will improve the scenario in which our advertisements will be published.
In fact, more products will improve the overall user experience, allowing Google to offer more relevant responses to an ever-growing volume of searches.
A response to Amazon’s growth
While absolutely commendable, the willingness to rush to the aid of struggling merchants declared by Bill Ready, number one in Google’s Commerce division, is not the only cause of this change.
In recent years, in fact, Google has gradually lost ground towards Amazon which has managed to establish itself as a real search engine and price and product comparator.
At the same time, users have also grown within Google to use queries that associate “amazon” with the name of the article they are looking for.
Without major changes of direction, Amazon’s current dominance in the e-commerce sector is likely to remain unchallenged for many years.
Also in 2020, in fact, the growth of Jeff Bezos’ giant was confirmed by the Global 500 , the annual report on the most valuable brands drawn up by Brand Finance .
Amazon has won the title of Most Valuable Brand in the world for the third consecutive year , with a value of 60 billion more than Google which ranked only in second place.
The partnership with PayPal
Among the ways that Big G is trying to take to try to catch up with its competitor is that of aiming for direct payment without redirecting users to the sellers’ portals.
To gradually achieve this goal, a new partnership between Google and PayPal was announced with the aim of “allowing merchants to link their accounts”, thus allowing users to complete purchases through Google Shopping without having to go through the sites of the various online stores .
In short, the challenge has been launched and none of the contenders seem to want to settle for second place.
