Google Shopping Holiday Roundup – What They've Done to Prepare for This Holiday Season
To gear up for this year’s Holiday Season, Google has been whipping out every tool in their belt to separate their comparison shopping engine from the rest. We shouldn’t be surprised either, considering Google has the resources to optimize their consumer experience in as many ways as possible. Here they are:
Google Catalogs/Extended Categories
Google has compiled a comprehensive collection of high-quality product catalogs from a variety of retailers. Any retailer with a .pdf of their monthly or yearly catalog can submit it to Google and start here. The catalogs feature tags of specific products that, when clicked on, show individual product photos as well as what should be a link to the product page.
However, I’ve experienced (using Chrome) a current glitch where there’s just white space where the product info (price, description) should be.
Google Holiday Toy Collection
Shopping has also rolled out their “Holiday Toy Collection,” which features around 20 products each for 4 different children’s age groups. Every product is featured in “3D,” where the shopper has the ability to view the toy from every angle by rotating it 360 degrees. The tool is great for dumbfounded parents who need to find out what’s relevant to buy for their young children this Holiday Season.
An obvious question would be, how did Google decide which products get featured, particularly on the “our favorites” section on the homepage? While some merchants compensate Google to be featured on this collection, others can fill out this form to potentially have their products featured in “3D.”
Google Shopping Shortlists
Google shortlists, linked to a Google+ account, are essentially product wish lists that can be compiled from any part of the web, including Google Shopping itself. The tool allows a shopper to make notes about each product in a saved short list, share it with your friends, and have those friends add other products into and comment on the products in your short list.
You can check out a quick video about making Google Shortlists here.
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