In response to the global pandemic, retail challenges, and competition from Amazon, Google announced yesterday that they are going to open up the shopping channel to organic product listings.
This is big news for smaller product and e-commerce businesses in particular, as well as the retail industry as a whole.
The shopping channel historically was free, back in the days of Froogle, but has been dominated by paid listings since 2012. Now you’ll be able to do both – paid product listings and organic.
The Google Shopping tab results “will consist primarily of free product listings” starting next week in the USA. It will be rolled out “globally before the end of the year”.
You will need to setup a Merchant Centre account and a shopping feed in order to be eligible. But now is the time to start preparing your business for this launch in the UK.
Google have also announced a new partnership with PayPal as well as some of the major e-commerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce.
To find out more, read the announcement from Google’s President of Commerce.
