Deck the halls with tools for shopping

I love shopping for gifts for my family and friends, but it’s not always easy. Fortunately, the Google Shopping team has built several new tools to help you (and me!) get an early and stress-free start on holiday shopping.

Explore products in 360-degree detail on Google Shopping
Having trouble imagining what a toy actually looks like from the online picture? Now, when searching for toys on Google Shopping, you can see 360-degree photos of the products. These interactive images bring the in-store feeling of holding and touching a product to your online browsing.

Look for the “3D” swivel icon on the product image to see the toy in 360-degree view, on HTML5 enabled browsers. We’ve also put together a Holiday Toy Collection featuring this enhanced imagery—explore the collection on this site. 360-degree imagery is coming for other types of products soon.

If you’re a retailer or manufacturer interested in displaying these rich images of your products on Google Shopping, please fill out this form.

Use Shortlists to stay organized and collaborate with friends
New in Google Shopping, Shortlists make it easier to research products and plan purchases with friends and family. Instead of using bookmarked websites and docs containing long lists of URLs, or back-and-forth emails with friends, you can now consolidate all your shopping research in one place. With Shortlists, you can easily:

• Keep track of products you like from Google Shopping and across the web
• View product photos, prices and specs side by side
• Share your Shortlist with friends, who can add their own ideas

Create a Shortlist by visiting google.com/shopping/shortlists or clicking the “Add to Shortlist” button as you browse products on Google Shopping.



Discover great deals and store promotions on Google Shopping
To help you make the most of your holiday budget, Google Shopping now shows discounts or promotions on the products you're viewing. If discounts or promotions are available, you can click on the link and visit the retailer’s site to redeem the offer.

That’s not all...a few more new Google Shopping features
Here are a few of the other tools we’ve created to make your holiday shopping a little easier:

• Not sure you’ve found the perfect gift? Read reviews from people you know and write your own product reviews on Google Shopping.
• Found an item that’s almost perfect but not quite? Now you can view “visually similar” results for even more types of products and categories, including jewelry, coats, handbags and more.
• Buying an important gift? Look for the Google Trusted Store logo as you shop. It indicates a store ships quickly and delivers excellent customer service.
• Shopping on the go? Browse for gift ideas, find local sales and research products with the new and improved Google Shopper 3.0, currently available for Android.
• Still need some inspiration? Browse holiday catalogs from the top retailers directly on Google Shopping.

Happy holiday shopping!

Posted by Vineet Buch, Group Product Manager, Google Shopping

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Showcase your promotions and get your customers’ attention

Shoppers are savvier than ever. They use social recommendations, web searches and smartphone apps to make informed purchase decisions. So how can a retailer stand out and get a shopper’s attention?

Today, we're rolling out a new way for retailers to reach shoppers at the moment of interest. Retailers can now add promotions to their product listings on Google Shopping to make them stand out. In addition, they can distribute their promotions on other Google properties such as Google Maps for Android and the Google Offers app, and attract shoppers to their store.

Promotions are highlighted in product listings on Google Shopping

In a few simple steps retailers can create a promotions list, map it to the right products in Google Shopping and upload to Google Merchant Center.  Our system supports user specific redemption codes and associated reporting, enabling retailers to measure the performance of each promotion.

 

Shoppers can see nearby promotions while searching in Google Maps for Android

This is one of the many steps we’re taking to provide traffic, technology and tools to help retailers grow their business. Over 25 well-known U.S. retailers, including 1-800-flowers.com, OfficeMax®, Inc., Tommy Hilfiger, Express, Chico’s, Overstock, Guitar Center, Drugstore.com and Wayfair, are already part of this program. In the coming months, we plan to expand the program to include more retailers. If you are interested in featuring your promotions on Google properties, you can learn more here.

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager, Google Offers and Michaela Feller, Product Manager, Google Shopping

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Google Shopping: momentum and merchant success

In May, we announced Google Shopping, a new way for people to find and research products, and discover where to buy those products online or nearby. Google Shopping helps people turn their shopping intentions into actions quickly and easily, and then connect directly with merchants to make purchases.

Progress, improvements and easier onboarding
We've been pleased by the rapid adoption of Google Shopping in the retail community; tens of thousands of merchants, including many marketplaces, have come on board and are participating in Google Shopping via the new model, based on Product Listing Ads (PLAs). Overall, this represents inventory from over one hundred thousand sellers.

As the transition to the new model continues, we’ve made changes that will make it easier for merchants to participate in and get more out of Google Shopping. We outlined several of these last month and are pleased to share several more:

• Google Trusted Stores annotations are appearing on product pages within Google Shopping, providing participating merchants with greater ability to attract new customers and helping shoppers to make more informed shopping decisions.
• For merchants that are not familiar with Adwords, we have created a simplified sign-up flow in Merchant Center to make participation easier.
• AdWords Editor updates are reducing the amount of time it takes to optimize a PLA campaign -- from hours to minutes, in many cases.
• Campaign Tracking URL templates have decreased the number of steps required to set up tracking in AdWords and are making the process easier for merchants.

Google Trusted Stores annotations are now appearing on Google Shopping

Of course, it’s not too late for merchants to get on board and optimize their campaigns prior to the upcoming holiday shopping season. We’ve recorded a series of Hangouts on Air to help small and mid-sized businesses transition to Google Shopping, and have made some Google Shopping best practices available here.

Some Google Shopping Superstars, and the Three C’s
We’ve seen some early success stories from a variety of retailers, demonstrating how Google Shopping has helped them to connect with consumers, drive clicks to their websites and improve conversion rates. Highlights from some mid-sized merchants are listed below; you can find the full text of all these success stories following each description.

• Adorama, one of America’s largest photo retailers and mail-order suppliers, saw their click-through rate (CTR) jump by 176 percent and their conversion rate rise by 100 percent in June 2012, as compared to a year earlier; a similar year-over increase also occurred in July 2012. The full success story can be found here.
• Campmor, a recreational equipment retailer, saw sales increase 10x between January 1 and the present, using PLAs and Google Shopping. The full success story can be found here.
• Empire Covers, an online retailer offering protective covering for cars, trucks, boats, RVs, and motorcycles, along with accessories for pet travel and outdoor living, saw their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) decline by 36 percent between April and August 2012. Additionally, CPCs dropped by 11 percent from July to August 2012. The full success story text can be found here, and a video with more details here.
• Plow & Hearth, a leading retailer of products for the home, hearth, yard, and garden that includes all of its products for all of its brands in PLAs on Google Shopping, saw a number of dramatic results: unique site visits increased by 129 percent, pages per visit increased by 6.3 percent and average visit duration increased by 14.7 percent, while their bounce rate dropped by 9.8 percent. The full success story can be found here.
• ToolKing.com, an Internet Retailer 500 company offering tools, hardware, home-improvement items, outdoor goods, and more across multiple e-commerce channels, lists all its products in Google Shopping via PLAs. Since signing up for PLAs, ToolKing.com’s traffic and conversion rates have risen by more than 50 percent, average order value is up by nearly 15 percent and the sale of thousands of items it once considered “dead” have been reinvigorated. The full success story text can be found here and you can watch a video with more details here.
• TravelSmith Outfitters, an outfitting resource for savvy travelers, used the expertise of Mercent to implement PLAs. Since then, product sales originating from PLAs and Google Shopping have increased by 200 percent. They have also increased consumer traffic by approximately 10 percent and have seen orders go up by 35 percent, with more than a 26 percent increase in sales conversions. The full success story can be found here.

There’s more to come!
We look forward to sharing more with you over the coming months -- from new merchant tools that provide more control and flexibility, to new features that will make holiday shopping easier and more fun for consumers. We’re also in the process of planning our 2013 roll-out of Google Shopping in Europe, Asia and Latin America. We’ll have more to share in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.


Posted by Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management, Google Shopping

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Helping businesses get started with Google Shopping: A new, easy way to create Product Listing Ads in Merchant Center

We announced that we’re creating a new shopping experience, Google Shopping, to empower merchants of all sizes to compete effectively. Through feedback from our merchant partners, we understand that the transition to the new Google Shopping experience may seem intimidating for first time AdWords advertisers. We take this feedback seriously and want you, our merchant partners, to know that we’re here to help.

As a first step, today we’re launching a new simplified setup flow for Product Listing Ads in the familiar Merchant Center interface. The new setup flow provides a step-by-step guide on how to create an AdWords account and set up a Product Listing Ad campaign, as well as how to control when and where your products appear in Google Shopping with bids. You can also view basic campaign reporting through your Merchant Center account.



Also, as previously announced, we’re offering two incentives to help merchants get started with Google Shopping:

1. All merchants who create Product Listing Ads by August 15, 2012 will automatically receive a monthly AdWords credit of 10% of their total spend on Product Listing Ads through the end of the year.
2. Additionally, active Product Search merchants (as of May 30, 2012) can fill out this form by August 15, 2012 and receive a $100 AdWords credit to use toward Product Listing Ads.

To create a Product Listing Ad campaign, sign into your Merchant Center account today. For more information please visit: www.google.com/ads/shopping.

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Product Manager, Google Shopping

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Google Shopping and SMBs: What you need to know

We’re excited to launch a series of Hangouts on Air to help guide small and medium sized businesses through the transition to Google Shopping. This series of Hangouts will guide you through an introduction to Google Shopping--giving you all the information you need to list your products on Google Shopping:

Session 1: Google Shopping Introduction and Overview: Friday, July 13th - 9:30am PDT
Session 2: Introduction to Merchant Center: Tuesday, July 17th - 9:30am PDT
Session 3: Creating and Optimizing Your Product Listing Ads for Google Shopping: Friday July, 20th - 9:30am PDT
Session 4: Trusted Stores Overview and Setup: Monday, July 23rd - 10:30am PDT

To tune into this Hangout On Air:

1) Visit the Google Ads Google+ Page at 9:30am PDT / 12:30pm EDT.
2) Look for the stream post (see image below for what it will look like), and click to tune in. Be sure you’re signed into Google+!

We look forward to seeing you there, but if you cannot join us, we’ll be posting each session to this blog and the Google Business YouTube channel.

Posted by Jon Venverloh, Senior Manager, Google Shopping

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Enhancing the shopping experience on Google Product Search

Shortly after joining Google from Like.com, my team and I developed and launched Boutiques -- a fashion website offering women new ways to browse and shop for apparel. Today, we’re taking the features that shoppers absolutely love from Boutiques and incorporating them into Google Product Search -- so millions of people can use them every day. This is the first in a series of improvements we’re making to Google Product Search leveraging the computer vision and machine learning technology developed by the team we affectionately call our fashion and computer nerds. We hope you’ll enjoy what’s new today, and what’s around the corner for the upcoming holiday season. A Redesigned Homepage The first thing you’ll probably notice is our new homepage. This new look and feel is designed to inspire and facilitate easy, enjoyable browsing and shopping.

Better Ways to Shop, Starting with Dresses

By increasing the size of each image, simplifying much of the text around the images, and lightening the text color, we’ve emphasized the more visual aspects of apparel shopping. We’ve also integrated the most popular search refinements from Boutiques. Using the same innovative machine learning and computer vision technologies we developed for Boutiques, you can now browse dress collections that match the color, silhouette and genre you desire.

Explore visually similar styles
And because we think browsing and discovering new items is what makes shopping fun, we’ve added a feature to Product Search that makes it easy to do just that. Let’s say a particular dress catches your eye. Now, you can explore similar styles and discover new designers by clicking on that dress and viewing dozens of visually similar ones. We think you’ll find this fun --and addictive!-- and we hope it brings that element of surprise and discovery we all love with brick-and-mortar shopping to the online shopping experience.

An update on Boutiques.com and related properties
As we continue to integrate technology and lessons learned from Boutiques.com into Google Product Search, we will be redirecting shoppers from Boutiques.com to Google Product Search. The former Like.com team, alongside the Google Product Search team, will drive new ideas for apparel shopping through one unified product. The team is excited to be a part of the shopping experience on Google and have our work displayed to millions of users every day.  
If you’re a user of Boutiques.com and other Like.com websites, you’ll soon receive an email with instructions for saving your data before those websites are transitioned on October 14. If you have any questions please email us at boutiques-feedback@google.com. 
Like other teams that have joined Google, we’re thrilled with the opportunity to showcase our experience and technology to all of Google’s shoppers.
Burak Gokturk, Like.com Co-Founder and member of the Google Commerce team

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