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Our friends at Google and our team here at Brandstar Digital recognize that the retail sector has faced many threats over the past few years, which have only increased during this pandemic.
With most physical stores shuttered, digital commerce has become critically important for retailers and their manufacturers and suppliers. As consumers increasingly shop online, they’re searching not just for essentials, but also things like toys, apparel and home goods. While this increased search volume in Google presents an opportunity for struggling businesses to reconnect with consumers, many cannot afford to spend on advertising at this time.
In response to these challenges, Google is advancing their plans to make it free for merchants, including retailers, to sell on Google. Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free product listings — helping merchants connect better with consumers, regardless of whether they advertise on Google or not. With hundreds of millions of shopping searches on Google each and every day, we know that many retailers and other merchants have the items people need in stock and ready to ship, but these businesses have been less discoverable online as of late.
For retailers, this change means free exposure to millions of people who come to Google every day for their shopping needs. For shoppers, it means more products from more stores that are discoverable through the Google Shopping tab. For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings.
If you’re an existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping Ads, you don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings. For new users of Google Merchant Center, trusted partners like our team at Brandstar Digital Marketing can assist with the Google ads setup and management.
We anticipate these changes to take effect domestically before the end of April, and this will expand globally before the end of this calendar year. Contact Seth Rand and the team at Brandstar Digital Marketing for more details on how to participate in the free Google product listings and shopping ads.
Google is also kicking off a new partnership with PayPal to allow retailers and other merchants to link their Google and Paypal accounts. This will speed up our onboarding process for the free product listing ads on Google and collect payments from the sales generated, while we help to ensure that Google is surfacing the highest quality results for our users.
For those with existing e-commerce websites on BigCommerce, WooCommerce and Shopify, this will be even more efficient.
We are excited to help your business get your products on Google Shopping and help grow your business in a cost-effective manner.
In addition, Google has also announced that they are offering $340 million in ad credits to help small businesses stay in front of customers and remain up and running.
To ensure you use this program to its fullest advantage, our team of experts can assist with ad setup, management and optimization.
