In an attempt to drive e-commerce during COVID-19 restrictions, on Tuesday, Google announced that it is making significant changes to its Google Shopping platform by allowing all merchants to list products for free.
Since 2012, Google has charged business owners whose products show up when online users click onto their products under ‘Shopping’ on Google. This notable change will come into effect within the US starting from April 27th, which will be rolled out around the globe within the next few months.
This change comes as the retail sector is struggling now more than ever, facing significantly large threats due to the coronavirus pandemic. These new changes will thus make way for those in smaller businesses to be seen and heard in their respective hypercompetitive retail sectors.
In line with this change, Google is partnering with PayPal to offer merchants to effectively link their accounts for online payments, which speeds up onboarding processes. To make digital commerce effective and efficient for smaller businesses, Google is working alongside existing partners such as Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce will help to manage inventory as mentioned by Bill Ready, President of Google Commerce.
Moreover, adopting a similar system to Amazon (who only charge their merchants to promote highly searched products), Google is eager to have more merchants utilise the Google Shopping platform to list their products, which will subsequently result in an increase in ad revenue for themselves.
Amidst this change, existing merchants can now list full inventories that they once had to pay to promote on Google Merchant Center, whilst new business owners will have to apply to place their listings for free.
All in all, this announcement will make shopping on Google more accessible, quick and easy at a time when businesses globally have had to say goodbye to brick-and-mortar stores. Moving online for some business owners has proven to be difficult, which is why Google sees this shift in free listings keeping smaller businesses afloat.
Looking to get your business online with Google Shopping? Contact the Colewood team now.
