Google Debuts 9 New Shopping Features

Google shopping experience for users is getting an upgrade. In today’s Search On event, Google announced nine new features and tools geared to help improve the user experience.

The overarching theme of the updates is visualization and personalization.

Visualization Shopping Features

Google emphasized that users spend a lot of time researching, exploring, and discovering their options before purchasing. Four visual features for users Google announced:

• Search with the word “shop”. By starting your search with “shop” followed by what you’re searching for, you’ll now see a visual feed that includes products, research tools, and nearby inventory. This update also expands the shopping experience beyond apparel. It’s now available in all categories on mobile.

• Shop the look. For the apparel category, users will now be able to “shop the look” which showcases individual products to help create an entire outfit. Google’s tool will show complimentary products to the main product a user is searching for, such as handbags or shoes to go along with a top or jacket.

• Trending products feature. This is a new feature in Search which will show popular products in the category users are searching for. Google confirmed this will be available later this Fall.
• 3D shopping. Expanding on the earlier launch of 3D shopping for home goods, 3D visuals of sneakers are coming in the following months.

Further, Google announced a way to build and create 3D visuals because they understand creating this type of asset takes a lot of time and resources. Their tool will use machine learning to automate 360-degree spins using a few still images.

Encouraging Confident Purchasing

The next set of tools announced from Google are geared to help users make more informed decisions when purchasing.

• Guides for complex purchases. Google announced a buying guide for complex purchase decisions. The buying guide will consist of insights about that category from a range of trusted sources.
• See what others are saying. Specifically, in the Google app, Page Insights will be available. This feature bridges content on a website users are on or a product being researched, along with ratings, pros and cons, in one single view.

A More Personalized Shopping Experience

The last set of updates focuses on the individual shopping experience, including privacy preference enhancements.

• More personalized results. Users will start getting personalized shopping results based on their previous shopping habits. To protect user privacy with this enhancement, users will have the ability to tell Google their preferences directly, as well as easy-to-use controls to toggle the feature on or off.
• Shop with dynamic filters. Search filters will now adapt to real-time Search trends, meaning the filters are not static.
• Using Discover app for more inspiration. Users who have the Google app will start seeing style suggestions in the Discover tab based on their shopping behavior.If a user sees something they like, they can click on the product and Lens will open up to provide available options on where to buy.

Next Steps For Advertisers

While the Search On event focused on the user experience, many advertisers are wondering how they should prepare for these updates.

For advertisers in the E-Commerce space, make sure your Merchant Center for Shopping Ads is in tip-top shape. This can include optimizing images, descriptions, titles, and including as many specifications as possible so users can better find your products.

More information is coming for marketers to help understand how these user experience updates will affect advertisers. We’ll continue to report on follow-ups from Google as they are announced.

Featured image: Vladimka production/Shutterstock