Search engine giant Google will soon launch Google shopping tab in India, allowing customers to look for products to shop for and directing them to sellers websites or e-commerce platforms for product listings, two people familiar with the organization’s plans informed ET.
In the works for several months, the Google shopping tab might be piloted quickly, prior to a full-fledged launch before the end of the year, one of the folks said.
Confirming the development, a Google spokesperson in an emailed response stated, “we’re constantly exploring alternatives to assist consumers to find the goods they need to buy more quickly and successfully from local traders.”
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Google is already in talks with e-commerce players including Flipkart, Paytm Mall, and other e-commerce companies to partake within the Google shopping tab initiative, according to one of the persons mentioned earlier. ET couldn’t independently verify the same. To make sure, a couple of sources ET spoke with clarified that Google will no longer, for the instant, fulfill online buying, both through its payment product or otherwise.
Besides large e-commerce websites, Google is also predicted to tap into its big network of registered small and medium organizations or SMEs — from neighbourhood Kirana shops to high-end handicraft stores — to assist customers to find out products they want. Those traders need not necessarily list on platforms like Amazon or Flipkart.
“They (Google) will associate with shops of all sizes — it could inform the user where the product is available, is it available online, and so on.,” said another person in the know. For now, this service is being provided free of cost.
“it is like how Amazon launched price comparison website Junglee.com before foraying into e-commerce full-fledged once they got customer statistics,” said one of the individuals cited above. “Google may also first understand Indian buying traits through the shopping tab.”
Google’s foray into product search comes at a time whilst the tech giant is stated to be losing market share to Amazon on product searches in the US, which translates into declining ad revenues.
The US online retail market is ruled by the powerful network built by Amazon via its prime programme, which analysts consider is tough to overcome by using some other tech organisation.
“within the US, 50-60% product search begins at Amazon, bypassing Google and cannibalising its marketplace,” said Arpan Sheth, an associate at consulting firm Bain & company. “Google is losing online consumers because of this and it is taking a hit at their marketing sales.”
earlier this year, media reports said that Flipkart and Amazon had reduced their ad spending on Google by as much as 30%.
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Google’s annual ad revenues are over $95 billion as of end of 2017. Amazon’s annualised ad sales is a lot lower at over $6 billion, however, it’s growing at around 132% quarter-on-quarter.
Similar to the ‘news’ or ‘images’ tabs on the Google search page, the ‘shopping’ tab permits users to go through different merchant listings of the product they may be looking for.
At present, on-line customers generally visit an e-commerce website directly to search for a selected product
while Google already lists products through its ‘product list ads’, the Google shopping tab will supply customers a lot of extra control. For example, users can filter out the product they may be searching out primarily based on price or some other attributes, whilst also getting greater details of the product by going to the ‘details’ page.
On the merchant side, each person with a product feed can plug into Google’s merchant centre to be indexed on the shopping tab, said the second person noted earlier.
“The concept is that of an open ecosystem. Google wishes partners of all shapes and sizes — offline, online, pureplay, omnichannel,” the character stated.
With 80-85 million online shoppers, India is an essential market for Google.
Google presently runs a shopping tab in over 30 international locations, and company assets said it has seen an excessive degree of conversion, due to robust user intent. on the consumer side, the tab has additionally seen excessive rates of engagement, largely because of the specificity that product search allows (filter by attributes like color and shape.
earlier this year, Google invested in omnichannel fashion commerce organization Fynd, which provides an online platform for brands to display their store stock, besides backing hyper-nearby delivery service Dunzo.
ET had reported last week that the search giant plans to release an online storefront for its branded hardware products next month.
Courtesy_ Economic Times
