Google Now Allows Anyone To List & Sell Products For Free; Amazon’s Ecommerce Dominance Challenged?

With the physical stores shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail sector is facing many threats. The demand for non-essential items like apparel, toys and home goods  is also on the rise.

Google is making a change to its product search offering. This means that the unpaid listings will be picked by algorithm and will dominate results displayed on the Google Shopping tab instead of mostly paid product listings. 

Read to find out more…

Google’s Change in Algorithm!

This move by google presents as an opportunity for struggling businesses to reconnect with consumers, regardless of whether they advertise on Google.

Google’s President of Commerce division, Bill Ready wrote in the blog post, “In light of these challenges, we’re advancing our plans to make it free for merchants to sell on Google.” He also said, “With hundreds of millions of shopping searches on Google each day, we know that many retailers have the items people need in stock and ready to ship, but are less discoverable online.”

The search results on Google shopping tab will be implemented at the beginning of the next week as per the blog post. The search results will then primarily comprise of free listings rather than paid ones.

These changes will take effect in the U.S. before the end of April.

Ready also wrote, “The aim is to expand this globally before the end of the year. Our help center has more details on how to participate in free product listings and Shopping ads.”

With millions of people stuck at home and many physical stores shut down or with heavily restricted access, online shopping has seen a huge boost.

How Will it Help the Consumers and Retailers?

The retailers will gain free exposure to millions of people who come to Google every day for their shopping needs. 

The consumers will benefit from a large variety of products from more stores, discoverable through the Google Shopping tab. 

Google is also using the new free product listings feature as a value add ‘carrot’— to encourage advertisers to (keep) paying it for ads. For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be escalated with free listings.

An existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings. As for the new users of Merchant Center, Google will continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months.

An existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings. As for the new users of Merchant Center, Google will continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months.

Will this move prove a tough competition for other e-commerce platforms like Amazon?

Google to Partner with PayPal!

Google is also set to roll out a new partnership with PayPal to allow merchants to link their accounts. This will speed up the onboarding process and ensure surfacing the highest quality results for the users. The blog post suggested that it is in talks with its existing partners that help merchants manage their products and inventory, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. This will ensure more access to digital commerce for businesses of all sizes.  

In conclusion Ready wrote, “Solutions during this crisis will not be fast or easy, but we hope to provide a measure of relief for businesses and lay the groundwork for a healthier retail ecosystem in the future.”