As Google Shopping prepares to move from free to paid listings tomorrow (Wednesday 13 February), marketing and e-commerce company Summit has warned that retailers may not be making the most of the opportunities the switch over is providing.
“The percentage of retail sales that are made through online search continues to grow exponentially. While many retailers may focus on the cost of paid for listings, the opportunities for boosting sales are huge as Google adds new features such as catalogues, offers and shortlists,” comments Summit CEO Hedley Aylott.
From 13 February retailers will need to set up trial paid Product Listing Ads (PLAs) with Google as well as actively managing product feeds to ensure product data is both relevant and up-to-date. With shoppers increasing searching in store as well as online the demand for up-to-date search information can now affect both types of purchases.
Aylott adds: “Customers using search in-store for price comparison will be the next challenge for retailers to tackle.”
Merchants will now have to pay to be listed via Google Shopping with free listings being removed after a trial period that ends at the end of Q2 2013. To continue competing for share of voice, retailers needs to set up PLAs in Google Adwords as free listings will be removed from the search pages and outranked on Google Shopping.