Google just announced a significant change to its Google Shopping platform which should make it easier for e-commerce websites  to increase online sales.

Free listing on Google Shopping

Starting April 27th any business owner selling products online will be able to list their inventory for free on Google Shopping without paying for ad placement.

For shoppers, it means more products from more stores, discoverable through the Google Shopping tab. For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings,” is how Ready pitches the switch.

Paid and Organic Product Listings in Google Shopping

“What we’re seeing is that they are many, many retailers and small businesses that stand ready to serve shoppers, but don’t yet have a great way to connect with them digitally,” Bill Ready, Google’s president of commerce

How to apply to free listing on Google Shopping

Existing customers will now be able to list their full inventories in the event they were only paying to promote some products on the platform. New users can now apply to place listings for free through Google’s Merchant Center.

Strong support to retailers

Google Shopping has been made more accessible at a time when due to COVID outbreak many businesses around the world had to shut down brick-and-mortar retail stores and move (when possible) online. According to the Commerce Department, total US sales, which includes online and offline retail sales and food and beverage spending, dropped 8.7 percent in March. According to The New York Times The decline was by far the largest in the nearly three decades the government has tracked the data.

As part of the effort, Google is also partnering with PayPal to help merchants implement online payments.