With Christmas fast approaching more and more people are choosing to avoid the pushing, shoving and queuing that goes on in stores at this time of year and do their shopping online, in the comfort of their own home. Realising this Google is streamlining its shopping function to make it as easy and stress free as possible for shoppers to find the products they are looking for online.
Shopping related searches on mobile devices has now surpassed the number made on desktops, so Google is making shopping ads more discoverable for both browsing and buying on mobiles this holiday season. They have redesigned Google Shopping to be faster, more seamless, and also intuitive.
The first change they have made is to help shoppers who are searching on broader search terms, to narrow down their search and work out exactly what it is they are looking for. When looking at the shopping results users will now see most commonly searched categories to help them narrow things down. Also results will be grouped by attributes that people commonly shop by, such as features, brand and price.
They’ve also made it quicker and simpler to browse through lots and lots of products without having to load entirely new pages to see more. Simply tap on the product that you want to see more about and you can flick through images, skim through the reviews and scan the product information.
When finding the product that you do want you can then easily see pricing, stock and distance to in-store availability. This is also good if you are in town doing your shopping as you can see the prices of in-store items and how far away they are:
What does this mean for advertisers?
The Christmas period and events such as Black Friday can be extremely important for some retailers – the busiest time of the year for many – so it’s important that all your ducks are in a row and you are as visible as possible this time of year.
Google Shopping is a great way to do this if you have an ecommerce site selling products that make good Christmas gifts, and Google has created a handy checklist for advertisers to help them create the best shopping campaigns they can. See it here.
