Google’s new personalized shopping “destination” is now live in the U.S., the company announced Thursday.
As we reported when Google first teased the U.S. release of the revamped Google Shopping experience in May, Google is bringing personalized Shopping, local inventory and better checkout to Shopping. The experience first debuted in France earlier this year.
Buy on Google. One thing you’ll notice immediately is the prominence of the colorful shopping cart icons and calls to “Buy on Google”. This is Google’s cost cost-per-action program for retailers, currently called Google Shopping Actions. It enables users to buy via Google’s checkout with the payment information stored in their Google accounts. This is a significant piece of Google’s strategy to push back on Amazon is to establish partnerships with retailers and provide universal checkout. Google described the new Google Shopping as the “merger of the best of Google Express with Google Shopping.”
Lowest prices. The new experience is also pushing the ability to find the lowest prices — something Google is often criticized for. A price-tracking feature lets users tag products they’re looking for to receive notifications when the prices on those items drop.
Personalized, omnichannel recommendations. Consumers will see shopping recommendations based on their shopping histories, search histories and lists. Users will also be able to buy online or locally with buy online/pick up in-store, if that’s supported by the retailer. Google says it has mapped more than 2 billion products to local retailers.
Why we should care. This is a significant initiative by Google to remain relevant in the retail sector. Now that this new experience is live, it’s even more clear that merchants will need to adopt Shopping Actions if they want to get prominent visibility in Google Shopping. That will be the key going forward to retail advertising on Google and its various properties. As it does with Amazon, revenue share for Shopping Actions varies by category.
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