Google Takes On Amazon With Added Shopping Features

As Amazon gradually encroaches on Google’s business of digital ads, Google is trying to score by enhancing its shopping capabilities.

At Google’s Conference Marketing Live on Tuesday, it announced a range of brand new products related to shopping, which included Google Shopping a personalized homepage allowing customers to filter by brand or price and compare, and additionally giving them the option of buying directly from Google’s retailers from a store nearby or anywhere online.

Amazon was predicted to eat into Google’s advertising business by this year, but its spread seems to have slowed down. These announcements come in the wake of Google and Amazon facing off in other segments of the retail: Wing, Alphabet Google’s has been approved by FAA in April and certified as the world’s first carrier for drone delivery service – beating Amazon.

Google Images, Discover feed and later YouTube will now have ads for ‘showcase shopping’ whereby customers can purchase goods without diverging from those sites. Google’s travel and shopping VP, Oliver Heckmann said from late 2019, when users are watching a video of a product, they can choose to buy the product, while that video goes on playing.

Through various shopping ads, Google will also make it easier for merchants to allow customers to buy online and collect the products in-store.

Heckmann explained such products are intended for Google users to have a more fulfilling experience and to give marketers more opportunities to reach customers.

Giving examples of Google Maps to locate a pet store nearby, or YouTube videos of unboxing products, Heckmann added that their mission will be to find products on Google and make them all available to shop. Thus, retailers can connect with customers throughout the whole shopping journey.

Google made many more announcements about ads on Tuesday, including campaign across different ad units in YouTube’s home feed, Gmail Social and Promotion tab as well as the Discover feed. Gallery ads, a new unit for ad search, will have a visual more interactive format.