If you have a website then the new Google Shopping changes will be of interest as Google are letting you sell for free. In this guest post, Daniel Porter from Glopal walks through the changes and reveals how to list your product for free:
How to list your products on Google Shopping for free from the UK
A few weeks ago, to counter the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on businesses and commerce all around the world, Google fast tracked their plans to ease economical pressure from merchants by letting any business owner sell their products on Google Shopping for free. There are now new solutions to benefit from this opportunity from the UK.
“With hundreds of millions of shopping searches on Google each day, we know that many retailers have the items people need in stock and ready to ship but are less discoverable online. And as consumers increasingly shop online, they’re searching not just for essentials but also things like toys, apparel, and home goods. While this presents an opportunity for struggling businesses to reconnect with consumers, many cannot afford to do so at scale.”
This impactful change means finding customers on Google Shopping not only becomes a lot easier but also a lot more accessible whilst keeping costs down.
- For retailers this opens up free exposure to millions of shoppers who explore Google Shopping daily
- For shoppers it means more product choice, better shopping experience through Google shopping
- For Agencies this means campaigns can be augmented with free listings, improving customer profitability
How to benefit from this change as a UK merchant?
Free Google Shopping visibility is only available in the US market for now, however the change still creates a huge opportunity for UK merchants today : exporting to the US market for free. There are now new end to end solutions to set this up easily such as Glopal.
“With the economical impact of the coronavirus affecting day-to-day operations of UK merchants as well as buyer confidence, being able to target another market and grow international sales for free offers a huge boost and reduces risk.With the latest machine translation, payment and fulfillment technologies exporting to a new country can be enabled in just a few days without any upfront investment from merchants.”
– Herbert Knibiehly, Chief Marketing Officer, Glopal
What does the new Google Shopping experience look like?
The new changes have slightly altered how Google Shopping looks and brings improvements to a few operational aspects for merchants.
- Ads & Free listings placement
The new changes will see a split of listings in the google shopping tab. As with any platform, Ads will retain their position at the top and bottom of the google shopping searches and the carousel of product listing ads (PLA) will continue to be Ads only. However the middle of the search pages will be populated with free organic product listings.
- Product feed update
Like Ads, free listings will now be powered by product data feeds uploaded to the Google Merchant Center or by structured data markup on your website. The product data feeds are designed to give the buyer better access to information about the product, as well as user reviews to help drive traffic organically to the merchants website, improve conversion rates and improve the buyer experience.
- Easier payment integration
Google also announced their new partnership with PayPal. Small changes to the Google Merchant Center now allows merchants to link their PayPal with their Google Account, allowing Google to verify merchants faster and merchants to onboard their products easier.
What opportunities are there in the US market?
By selling internationally into the US (which Glopal can help with), you’ll not only open up your business to more buyers than ever before, but you also move away and ahead of your competition, who are currently attempting to win over the limited number of customers within the UK.
Last year the ecommerce market value for the US was $365 billion dollars. This year the forecasted value for the US is $420bn, a projected growth rate of 9.6% 267.6m unique buyers. Whilst the market has slowed down slightly due to the effects of the coronavirus, the US still remains one of the largest markets in the world. By selling across the pond, your products will be visible in a market that covers 32% of the top 10 markets worldwide.
For comparison, last year the UK ecommerce market had a value of $79bn (£61bn), with a forecasted value of $84bn (£66bn) and 60.7m unique buyers.
Whilst the UK is showing steady growth over the next 4 years, the US’s estimated 42% growth by 2024 highlights just how much potential is there for UK merchants.
Taking advantage of Google’s new changes to listing in the US market could be key for UK merchants in their sales growth not just for the short term, but for the foreseeable future.
So how do UK merchants get started?
For UK merchants to be able to qualify for free US product listings, product feeds need to be created for the US market and then localised.
Localising your store is paramount to meet the requirements google has set for merchants to qualify for their free listings program. Google’s set out rules were created to ensure quality is maintained in product listings and buyer experience meets shoppers expectations. This means as a UK merchant, your store will need to be localized into the same language and currency of the target market and provide buyers the same local experience they would expect.
As a premium business partner of Google, Glopal can enable you to sell into the US through a free end-to-end export solution that goes from localisation to international shipping. We create US feeds for your product listings and convert them into USD to enable you to meet Google’s requirements. With these requirements met, you’ll be able to launch your product listings for free in the US market.
We can help UK merchants to launch the US market
- We transform your existing UK Google Shopping feed into a US feed and import your product listings to a US Merchant Center, allowing you to meet the set requirements for free listings.
- We localise your product feeds into $USD currency, (and sizes), providing buyers with the same local experience they’d expect.
- Our payment solution allows you to accept $USD payment from US buyers via credit cards and Paypal.
- Glopal’s international shipping solution creates a seamless and simple process, enabling you to ship your products into the US at a cost effective rate.
- Get in touch with us to setup your US feed
Our hassle-free solution enables you to meet all the set criteria and start selling into the US for free.
About Glopal
Glopal enables merchants across Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce platforms to scale their international sales through Google Shopping.To understand how you can take full advantage of this change and grow your international sales on Google Shopping, get in touch with us with one of our ecommerce experts or learn more on our website: merchants.glopal.com