Google is taking a significant step of making a change to its product search offerings for google shopping which is known as organic listings. The Google shopping tab results will consist of primarily of free product listings.

Recently, Bill Ready, the president of Google’s commerce division, announced shopping results being determined by paid ad auction to mostly free listings. Making shopping listing free is one way the tech giant can support struggling retailers through the COVID-19 crisis.

The retail sector has faced many threats since the years, and these threats have intensified during this Covid-19.

To tackle this problem,Google has now announced a free product listing for shopping.

As we know, eCommerce online stores are a boon for shoppers, and digital eCommerce has become a lifeline for retailers. As consumers are shopping, almost all the industries have set an online store now. This also comes with a lot of challenges, and the decision of free product listing is going to help tackle these challenges.

As the search results on Google shopping tab will consist of free listings, it will help the online merchants to connect with the customers easily whether they advertise on Google or not. There are millions of users searching for something online every day.

Many retailers have the product that people need in stock and ready to ship but are less discoverable online, and this change is going to help these retailers in tackling this issue.

With this change, Google is helping cash-strapped retailers during this time of pandemic when there is economic crisis everywhere. Everyone is doing their bit to fight with this crisis because it has shaken the economies of many countries.

During this pandemic, millions of people are stuck in their houses, and physical stores are entirely closed. During such time, online stores are the saviours, and online shopping has seen a considerable uplift.

Since the lockdown has begun, Amazon is the notable winner as it has added $24 billion to his wealth. On the other hand, ad giants like Google are facing heavy exposure to the crisis.

Therefore, to compete with shopping giants like Amazon, Google is now also using free product listing features as a value add “carrot” to encourage advertisers to pay for the ads.

This change will result in free exposure to millions of users who use Google every day for shopping online. For shoppers, it will result in more products from more stores, and for advertisers, paid campaigns will be augmented with free listings.

How does it work?

The existing users of Google Merchant centre and shopping ads who already have opted for “surface across Google program” don’t need to do anything else.

Those who need to opt it can do it by selecting “growth” and then “manage programs” in the left nav menu and then choosing the “surface across Google” program card.

“You can add products to your product feed to make products discoverable in these free listings”, stated Google.

Google is paying more attention to shopping these days. Last year, it also merged its google express shopping service with Google shopping.

It also took on Pinterest’s visual search experience by integrating Google lens into Google shopping to guide customers to find similar products.

These changes in Google’s product listing will take effect from by the end of April, and by the end of 2020, Google will expand it globally.

Who is eligible for Google free product listing?

All the retailers can opt for free product listing to show their products on Google for free after they submit their products feed to Google merchant centre.

All the US-based retailers will be able to take benefit of these free listings before the end of April.

Which Shopify plugins you can use for Google shopping?

You can use Shopify eCommerce plugins for online stores. These Shopify apps can help you connect with Google shopping listings.

There are three such Shopify plugins that can be helpful to you. Those are-

Feed for Google shopping is a Shopify plugin which improves the Google shopping ads spend by Google Shopping Feed + FB. Use this Shopify plugin for your Google shopping.

This Shopify plugin is used to reach shoppers and get discovered across Google’s network easily. You can use this plugin if you want to reach out to many shoppers in lesser time.

This Shopify plugin is useful for retailers as it works as a product feed for Google shopping. You can get this app at $7 per month or use it for 14 days free trial and decide for yourself.

These plugins can be useful for all the eCommerce retailers out there. Give these plugins a try. All of these plugins are available for free trials so that you can decide properly.

How will this change affect the Google shopping ads?

Existing Google shopping advertisers will continue to show their ads on Google shopping tab. Nonpaid listings will take the remaining real estate within the tab.

Retailers can show their paid ads along with these free organic listings. When their products are approved in Google Merchant centre, a retailer can create Google Shopping Campaign within Google ads and promote products on Google.

This is one major shift made by Google, and its effect will speak for itself. By the end of April month, the product listings will be free, and all the retailers will be able to take their benefit.

The shopping results from Google search result page, search engines, images, Google display network, and YouTube will still feature paid shopping ads right now so that the advertisers don’t lose their shopping ads traffic.

So get ready to face this major shift which will become global by the end of 2020. Let’s hope this major shift turns out to be successful and beneficial for every retailer in the years to come.