Google Shopping Opens to Free Listings

[RhinoFish]

[searchengineland.com...]

Google decided to show free (aka SEO) listings in Google Shopping.
You'll need a product feed uploaded to a Google Merchant Center account.

If you already run paid Google Shopping ads, see "Next Steps" here:
[support.google.com...]

Shocking quote (about how fast this is coming):
"The Google Shopping tab results “will consist primarily of free product listings” starting next week, the company announced Tuesday."

[graeme_p]

Looks like its US only for now.

[engine]

Here's Google's announcement.
[blog.google...]

[McMohan]

This had to happen. Being paid only had limited its scope and so many deserving products were kept out of its reach. Forcing shoppers to start their search off Amazon.

[mosxu]

Could be a few reasons behind

[mcneely]

... less discoverable online ...

... because Google made it that way in the first place

Things will go back to the way it was once Google finishes all of this virtue signalling ...

[engine]

I wonder if Google's prediction that Amazon is it's main competitor is really hurting in today's markets. It's been trying to get a slice of the market for a while, but, it's really only been an ad agent.
In a similar way to it's foray into "social media", is it too late for Google?

See Google's Eric Schmidt Sees Amazon As Its Biggest Competitor In Search [webmasterworld.com]

[glakes]

There may not be enough paying advertisers to drive the CPC up, so Google figured bringing in free product listings will produce the competition needed to force existing advertisers to bid higher. Or maybe too many advertisers got tired of the zombies/poor ROI and left; leaving Google no choice but to make inclusion free.

So what does this mean for those of us that are paying now? I know my daily spend has nearly doubled in recent weeks, and I surely don't want to be paying to compete with free listings. When this goes live, should I expect my daily spend to drop substantially or do I need to adjust my bids to $0 to freeload like everyone else?

My industry is flooded with private label Chinese products which are the same products sold under many different brands. I suspect Shopping will be flooded with these as well, making it difficult for our American made products to be seen. The Chinese have this flooding down to an art. On ebay it's nearly impossible to find anything other then their products because they are being spammed under many different brands.

[thejimster]

@glakes

I have similar concerns. I typically dominate my niches with Google Shopping and actually enjoy a great ROI. If it's free, I assume product bids won't be taken into account, and I'll see competitors easily taking significant portions of our usual business.

Great, our costs will go to $0 (really?), but what happens to our sales.

[glakes]

@thejimster

My guess is the first company to pounce on the free shopping ads will be Amazon. While Amazon did stop spending on shopping ads in many industries, they never stopped in mine. I'm sure all the other big players will jump in as well, including eBay, Walmart, etc. Heck, their feeds are likely already in place ready for the switch to occur. Since free ads may display, I don't see any reason why these big players would hold back even one product from their vast selection. This change, while good for some, will ultimately hurt small businesses as the big players drown us small independent businesses out.

I'm also in Google's Shopping Actions, which is a miserably ineffective program. I get one sale a month from that if I'm lucky. Free shopping ads will also devalue the Shopping Actions program. I guess we'll have to keep a very close eye on things - particularly our expenses.

Did you (or anyone) get an email from Google announcing this change? I surely didn't. It would appear they were trying to slip this in under the radar so that we don't adjust our bids. Why else would they not send an email announcing such a big change to those currently active in Google Ads?

[thejimster]

The bigger companies didn't even occur to me. I'm just extremely curious to see how the positioning works out with no money involved. I regularly take up 5-6 of the top spots for some types of products, and I'm assuming that will not be happening anymore.

[glakes]

I'm just extremely curious to see how the positioning works out with no money involved.

I think there will still be money involved. Similar to how Google uses organics to fill in the blanks around paid ads, my guess is free shopping ads will be used to fill in the void where few advertisers exist. Regardless, I'm curious to see how all this plays out too. It would be nice if Google would recognize a shopping query and simply display shopping results - giving users choice and providing a vast selection that would compete with results produced on Amazon.

Google's official statement notes:

Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings

For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings.

I can't imagine logging into Adwords and seeing my daily spend at $0. But I'm not going to watch my cost per conversion skyrocket either as the result of paying to compete against free listings. I'll go all free on Google and reallocate that money to Bing, Facebook, etc.

As far as positioning goes, my guess is Google will continue to give big brands a boost just as they do in organics. Even if Google doesn't boost brands, the competition from marketplaces that rely heavily on selling Chinese goods to the American consumer (Amazon, eBay, etc.) will likely substantially dilute our visibility in addition to the various independent etailers out there.

[mosxu]

@glakes

I'm also in Google's Shopping Actions, which is a miserably ineffective program. I get one sale a month from that if I'm lucky.

Very interesting points you made about shopping ads I am not sure is legal to show free listings when advertisers are bidding what could be the reason?

As an advertiser if you don’t pay the price we dictate will show free listings instead.

It happens with texts ads now especially since lockdown started less and less ads show and more organic listings from favourites instead! Why show only one ad on a desktop instead of 3-4?

[JorgeV]

Hello,

If it's free to get listed at google's Shopping, at some point, there will be so many items that "your" items will be lost in the mass, and Google will come up with a paid premium placement offer :)

[glakes]

As an advertiser if you don’t pay the price we dictate will show free listings instead.

Search Engine Land offered the most forward looking view on the changes, though I'm not sure where they sourced the following information from or if it's even accurate:

Paid shopping ads will appear at the top and bottom of the page on the Google Shopping tab, just as they do on the main search results tab.

The main Google Search page is not changing, and the carousels of product listing ads (PLAs) will continue to consist of ads only.

I'm sure somewhere buried in Google Ads TOS there are enough disclaimers to limit their liability. It would also appear that at least initially free listings will be isolated to the [shopping.google.com...] domain only and not in the SERPS. Google noted in their post:

Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings

With that being said, I admit my fault in jumping to my initial conclusions. For those of us paying for Shopping Ads, the impact will more than likely be minimal. But I fully expect this change to morph into other changes that ultimately cost us advertisers more money.

[Marshall]

Nothing is truly free. The "catch" just has not surfaced yet.

[mosxu]

The “catch“ is for sites who are not exploiting shopping ads instead of their organic listings we will see free shopping ads that will educate searchers to click on PLAs (free or not) and not on organics?

[RhinoFish]

People shop heavily at Amazon for a range of obvious reasons, wide selection, low costs, fast shipping, sellers obviously are scored for pleasing the Shoppers, transparent shipping costs, buyer verified reviews, noose around email and text tidal wave, easy returns, and many more. When people shop today, more and more they begin their journey at Amazon. And if you look, when they do begin at Google, Amazon often dominates the listings.

G needs to make Shopping a far better experience, or their golden goose is cooked.

[ferozsyed]

thanks Engine

"These changes will take effect in the U.S. before the end of April, and we aim to expand this globally before the end of the year. Our help center has more details on how to participate in free product listings and Shopping ads."

it's clearly mentioned that this is efective only on US as of now.

[brodakin]

I have already completed the merchant feed and Google has validated all of our products so far, but when searching for our products in the US, they won't appear. Anyone having the same problem?

Please note: We've already been using the merchant back when we're promoting in Google Ads. We only resumed it this month due to Google's recent announcement on Free Google Shopping

[ferozsyed]

@brodakin I have read the article which is mentioned published in google support website. they said it will be active from in a week the areticle was published 1 week ago i should be activated in a 1 or 2 days. refere the above answer link is given.

[brodakin]

Hi @ferozysed, do you mean this line from their blog post?

"To opt in, select “Growth” and then “Manage programs” in the left navigation menu and select the “surfaces across Google” program card. You can also add products to your product feed, to make even more products discoverable in these free listings."

We've already selected "surfaces across Google" program card since last week but it hasn't appeared still today. Have your products appeared in Google Shopping already?

[glakes]

Is anyone seeing any of their products displayed for free yet? I haven't, and my ad spend has done nothing but grow.

As I eluded to in my previous post, I conceded these free product listings would likely have a minimal impact. How many of Google's users actually click on the shopping tab? My guess is it's not many people, though I'd like to see some factual metrics to challenge my doubt. In fact, poor traffic to Google's shopping pages may be the primary reason why Google is allowing free listings back in.

[RhinoFish]

Yes, all of our clients are seeing Google Shopping free clicks.

In Google Merchant Center, on Overview screen, look for the "Performance (unpaid)" graph.

[Zahid]

This is stunning matter coming from Google. It will show a clear path to help business activities that have checked by authority.
But I am afraid this will be for just sellers in the US.
Thanks
Regards

[RhinoFish]

I read here that later this year, the free clicks will roll out globally.
[support.google.com...]

"These changes will take effect in the US before the end of April, and we aim to expand this globally before the end of the year."