Whether looking for a new pair of shoes or car accessories, online shopping has enabled a world of convenience as there are now numerous online destinations from where you can find and browse product options. But given the multitude of these e-commerce options, it is often challenging to find answers to questions like “Where can I find a red short-sleeved dress” or “Where can I find the best deal?”
That’s why, Google is bringing a new and exciting shopping search experience to India. This is a personalised and will help you easily filter through offers, review prices from multiple retailers and find that right product. According to Google, this experience will get richer with usage and is available across several Google products: the first is a made-to-browse (think window shopping!) experience on the new Shopping home page.
“We are also making the same experience available to users with entry level phones, through a Progressive Web App (PWA). Further, you will also see a new Shopping tab on Google Search. Finally, we are introducing Style Search in Google Lens, an all-new visual approach to find the products you are looking for,” Google said in a blog post.
And while over 400 million Indians have embraced internet, less than one out of three buy things online. On the business front, there are 58 million SMBs in India, of which 35 per cent are engaged in retail trade. However, a very small number of them have an online presence – which clearly represents a huge opportunity Google and also for retailers to put up their merchandise to the millions of online consumers.
Retailers can now use Merchant Centre to upload product details so they can appear across Google, without paying for ad campaigns. So far, the Merchant Centre has been only available in English, but Google has now also expanded it to Hindi.
The Shopping home page is a new made-to-browse destination for shoppers to search across multiple product categories and find products from thousands of retailers. Google has also added some smart features, including price drops and a collection of the most popular products on Google.
Users will also be greeted with a new ‘Shopping’ tab in Google Search that will show a list of products matching your search, with the ability to view details and review prices across retailers. Queries can be made in both English and Hindi.
“From seasoned desktop shoppers to first-time users with entry-level smartphones, we hope these new shopping experiences will make finding what you’re looking for just a little bit easier. For merchants, we are supporting and partnering with the entire retail ecosystem -- be it shopping sites, to large retailers, to small local shops -- to give them the tools and technology to scale and thrive in today’s digital economy,” added Google.
