Google expands its partnership with Shopify and introduces a simplified process for all 1.7 million merchants to get their products listed with a few clicks.
In addition, Google is enhancing the ecommerce experience with more ways to shop, including the ability to find products depicted in screenshots.
Here are highlights of all the shopping-related related announcements from Google I/O on Tuesday.
Google Shopify Partnership Expands to All Merchants
To help more ecommerce stores get discovered, Google is expanding its partnership with Shopify to all 1.7 million merchants.
Along with this expansion comes a new, simpler process for getting products featured across Google, which the company says can be done in “just a few clicks.”
This new collaboration with Shopify enables merchants to get discovered by high-intent consumers across Google Search, Shopping, YouTube, Google Images, and more.
All retailers who sell products through Shopify will be able to take advantage of Google’s free shopping listings, an initiative launched over a year ago at the start of the pandemic.
Since eliminating fees, Google says it’s seen a 70% increase in the size of its product catalog, and an 80% increase in merchants.
With all the data gathered from Google Shopping the company has been able to develop this next highlight from I/O, the Shopping Graph.
Google Shopping Graph
At Google I/O the company shared details about a new technology it’s using called the Shopping Graph.
The Shopping Graph is a real-time dataset about products, inventory, and merchants. It connects users with over 24 billion listings and helps them find products available to buy right now.
Bill Ready, President of Commerce and Payments at Google, states:
“The Shopping Graph is a dynamic, AI-enhanced model that understands a constantly-changing set of products, sellers, brands, reviews and most importantly, the product information and inventory data we receive from brands and retailers directly — as well as how those attributes relate to one another.”
Having a deep understanding of products allows Google to help users find products in new ways, such as searching within images.
Shop From a Screenshot
Taking screenshots is a common way for users to keep visual notes of products they see in online images to look them and potentially purchase later.
A photo isn’t much to go off though, and even if the product can be identified it’s not always easy to find a website that sells it.
That’s where Google’s new shopping feature comes in. It lets users look up products within any screenshot in Google Photos.
To use this feature open a screenshot in Google Photos and look for the new option to “search inside screenshot.” That will prompt Google Lens to analyze the photo and return search results for the products it can identify.
More ways for consumers to find products is always a good thing as it can lead to more sales for retailers.
To that end, if you’re an ecommerce store owner it may be worthwhile to test this feature and find out if your products are optimized for Google Lens searches.
Take a screenshot of a photo featuring one of your products. Then see if Google Photos can identify the product and return the appropriate page where people can buy it.
Yet another discovery engine to be ready for in the ever changing ecommerce landscape.
Source: Google
