As we have seen the retail sector facing several threats over the years but now that the Coronavirus pandemic has occurred, the threat has reached its peak. Now that the physical stores shuttered we have digital commerce to rely upon! This has become an opportunity for struggling businesses to rebuild themselves.

There is a rise in online shopping and not just for the essentials but for home goods, clothes, medicinal, etc. Due to this Google has made Google shopping Free! Yes, that’s right! To increase its market share in product searches Google has now made Google Shopping Free.

Google has allowed Merchants to show their products across Google Shopping, results on the Google Shopping tab will provide free listings same like on the Google search results page. So if you want to sell your products on Google you will have to create a Google Merchant Center account for free from here https://accounts.google.com/. Sign in to your Merchant Account and from this, you will create a feed for your products.

• ID- An alphanumeric ID which will be unique for each item that you will see.
• Title- The product you are selling should have a title, it will serve as the main link text from your listing
• Description- Describe to your audience how your product is unique.
• Link- Your product landing page.
• Price- The price of your product price as listed on your landing page.
• GTIN- it stands for Global Trade Item Number which is used by manufacturers to identify their products across retailers. Don’t worry, if you are unsure about your product’s GTIN because Google will help you find yours.

Now if you are an existing Merchant Center and shopping ads user, you have to opt for “surfaces across Google”. For that go to-

• Merchant Center Dashboard
• Choose “Growth” from the left menu
• Then choose manage programs
• And then you will see on the screen “surfaces across Google”.

Who is eligible for a free Google Shopping listing?

All retailers can opt to show their products across Google for free after they submit their product feeds to Google Merchant Center.

• But, Google does restrict listings for illegal, regulated, or sensitive products.

Are all Shopping Ads are Free of Cost?

• No, retailers who want to achieve high level of reflectivity from their Product Listing Ads will have to pay to be shown in top positions. So, paid PLAs will be presented to them.

How to optimize free Google Shopping Listings?

Information about your product from the shopping feed will be pulled by Google within Google Merchant Center. Getting the most of these free listings one must be sure to prioritize optimizing your Google Shopping feed. Optimizing attributes within it will help both your free Google Shopping Listings and your Google Shopping Ads. So start by-

• Good Title– Your product title is the highlight that will be appearing alongside your product and is weighed heaviest in Google’s ranking of your product.
• Images– An image can help your product to stand out on a busy SERP, so pay good attention to your product’s photography.
• Detailed Information– Your products will be listed only need to have few attributes to show by providing more information will help Google match your items to a user’s search and help it show in filtered product search. Feel free to include relevant feed attributes as much as you can like the product category, type, color, condition, and size.

So it’s a win-win situation when we talk about Goggle Shopping Free and it will reduce the overall expenditure which is spent by organizations on advertising and retailers will get more chance to be discovered!