As you may know, we recently launched the Google Commerce blog to share updates on all of the exciting things happening at Google in the shopping space. To simplify how we share information, we’ll begin posting all merchant-related updates to the Google Commerce blog, and this will be the last post to the Google Merchant blog. We encourage you to update your feeds and follow the Google Commerce blog to stay up to date on Google Product Search, Google Offers, Google Wallet, Google Catalogs for tablets, and more. Posted by Lisa Coffey, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping
As we announcedin July, the new Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies will go into effect on September 22, 2011. After this date, accounts that do not comply with the new requirements may be suspended. New tools to help you prepare
First, use the new Test Data Feed feature in Google Merchant Center (under “Data Feeds”) to test whether your updated feed complies with the new requirements. You will be able to download a full error report and resolve any issues prior to submitting your actual live feed. Rest assured, your test feed won’t appear on Google Product Search.
For additional guidance, you can now view our new video tutorials:
We are revamping the "Data Quality" tab in Google Merchant Center to enable you to quickly view the most critical data quality errors, and learn how to fix them (coming soon).
Understanding the new requirements
We’ve received a few questions about specific attributes and have addressed these below. It’s a lot to read, but should save you time in the long run. Also, before you cancel vacation for your IT staff, please note that many of the requirements only apply to certain countries and categories.
Google Product Category (aka GPC): This attribute ensures that your products appear in the right category (you wouldn’t want that Harry Potter DVD showing up under “Books”) and that we apply the correct set of enforcement rules for a given category.
GPC is only required for feeds targeting the US, UK, Germany, France or Japan
You don’t necessarily have to send us this attribute. It is only required for items that belong to one of the following seven categories:
1. Apparel & Accessories > Clothing
2. Apparel & Accessories > Shoes
3. Apparel & Accessories
4. Media > Books
5. Media > DVDs & Movies
6. Media > Music
7. Software > Video Game Software
For items falling under these categories, you must include one of these seven values appropriately for each item.
More granular categorization is always preferred, but don’t stress out about this. If you can follow the level of categorization above, then you’ve satisfied our requirements.
Images: We made image_link required for all products. Images are especially important for product in the “Apparel & Accessories” category, where shoppers love to see the different variations of a product.
Required worldwide (except Japan)
For products that fall under “Apparel & Accessories” (and all corresponding sub-categories), we require unique images for products that differ by the variant attribute ‘color’, or ‘pattern’, or ‘material.’ No one likes seeing a black sweater when they click on the red one.
We recommend sending separate images for variant products in other categories as well, but these are only required for “Apparel & Accessories.”
Apparel/ Variants: Variety is the spice of life, and we’re working to create a richer shopping experience for apparel & accessories that come in multiple colors, patterns, sizes, etc.
Apparel variants are only required for feeds targeting the US. For feeds targeting other countries, the attributes are recommended and may be required in the future.
Variant-level information is requiredonly for products in the “'Apparel & Accessories' category, and all related subcategories
You only need to send us data for variant attributes if your product varies by that specific attribute. So, if your shirts are all made of cotton, there’s no need to send the “Material” attribute. However, if your shirts were available in three colors and three sizes, you would send us nine separate line items, varying by color and size.
There is no penalty for not sending variant level data for other categories
If you include variants, you also need to ensure that you send an “item_group_id” to connect those variants and that these group of variants share the same common title. More on this below.
Item_Group_ID: We use this attribute to cluster together all the variants you send us for a given item. Sort of like Crazy Glue for variants.
This attribute is required only for variant Apparel products in the US.
If you have a “Parent SKU” shared by all variants of a product, you can provide that as the value for 'item group id'.
If you send us an item_group_id attribute, we will automatically look for variant attributes. Conversely, if you did send us Item_group_id, you should ensure you send us at least one variant attribute.
Size: This is an important Variant attribute for “Apparel & Accessories.”
Size is only required for feeds targeting the US.
Separate your products into different line items in the feed (each line will have a different “size” attribute, and maybe even vary by other attributes)
There’s no need to send separate images for separate sizes (unless the appearance of the item changes because of the size)
Please refer back to our detailed Product Feed Specification and Help Center for more information. We hope these tips will help you be more fully prepared to make the most of Google Product Search as we head into the most important selling season of the year for online retailers.
Shop On!
Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Product Search
The people we know and trust have a big influence on our purchase decisions. I bought the chef’s knife I use every day on the recommendation of my friend Eliot, who more than knows his way around the kitchen. And I always try to bring my friend Brian along when I’m music shopping, since he has a knack for pointing out great albums I’ve never heard of.
We’re excited about the +1 button because it brings these personal recommendations to a place where many purchase decisions start -- the Google search results page.
Adding +1 buttons to your product pages makes it easy for your customers to recommend the products they love on your site with a single click. And thanks to recent improvements to the +1 button, they can take the conversation even further by sharing your products right away on Google+.
From there, +1 annotations can help your products stand out. Potential customers might see +1’s from their friends and contacts on your search ads, your organic Google Search results, or even on your page itself.
We’ve worked with Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews to make it even easier to get the +1 button on your pages. Both companies have extensive experience in social commerce, and can help you develop the right strategy for implementing +1 buttons on your site.
Looking for a couple examples of retailers using +1 to help their products stand out on Google search? Jockey (working with PowerReviews) and Golfsmith (working with Bazaarvoice) have already added +1 buttons to the product pages on their sites.
If you’d prefer to add the +1 button to pages yourself, it’s easy to do. Just install a small snippet of code wherever you want the +1 button to appear. For advanced implementation FAQs and documentation, you can visit the +1 button page on Google Code.
As more retailers add +1 buttons to their sites, we’re excited about how much more helpful search results will get. The next time I need a new frying pan, I won’t need to call Eliot up -- his recommendation will be right there waiting for me.
Updated 7am PST to include updates on China and Australia.
In 2011, we are committed to making Google Product Search an even better shopping experience for our users. Our goal is for shoppers to quickly and easily find the information they need on Google Product Search - and in turn to send more shoppers to our merchants.
To support this effort, we’re announcing a number of changes to the Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies. Starting on September 22, 2011 we will be taking action against accounts with feeds targeting the United States, France, United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany that do not comply with the new specification and policy requirements. We will be sending emails to those accounts with feeds targeting China, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, with more information about changes in those countries.
Summary of Changes
We are confident that the new feed specifications will have a strong impact on the user experience. Below are several examples of how the feed spec is changing in the United States; please note that other countries have slightly different requirements:
Availability: We’d like a user to be able to find your products even when they are out of stock. For this reason, the [availability] status of all your items will be required.
Google Product Category: We have added a new required high-level attribute called [google product category] that contains the category of the item in Google’s taxonomy (currently only required for a select number of categories). This is in addition to the current [product type] attribute.
Images: We’re making [image link] required and we encourage you to submit up to 10 additional product images through [additional image link]. This way, you can improve the visual representation of your products.
Apparel: In order to create a better experience for product variants such as dresses or shoes that are available in multiple colors or sizes, we ask you to include information like [size] and [color] in your product feed. In addition, we require you to provide [gender] and [age group].
Data Freshness: We will continue to regularly check feeds for accuracy of pricing, availability, and general product information, and take action against accounts that violate our standards.
Merchant Resources
Below you’ll find the new feed specification and policies and resources to help you prepare for these changes.
We will also provide a video with a more in-depth look at the changes soon. Check back for more information.
Enforcing the new Product Search Feed Requirements and Policies
After September 22, 2011, we will be taking action against accounts with feeds targeting the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and France that do not comply with our policies (please review the policy document referenced above for details). Note these changes only apply to Google Product Search - not to Google product ad formats or Google Commerce Search.
Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center
On March 14, we let you know about a new set of data requirements for Product Search merchants. As part of these changes, we communicated that shipping and tax information would be required in your data feeds as of June 6.
However, based on feedback we’ve received from merchants, we are extending the deadline until September 1, allowing you more time to modify your data feeds. We are also permitting estimates for tax/shipping information. However, we recommend reviewing the submission options and submitting the most accurate information that you can, as this ensures the best experience for shoppers.
Here is a summary of what’s changing:
For Feeds Targeting the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany: The June 6 deadline for providing shipping information has been extended to September 1.
For Feeds Targeting the United States: The June 6 deadline for providing tax information has been extended to September 1.
Posted by Robin Zuger, Product Manager on the Google Shopping Team
As we announced in December, the Google Base API will soon be decommissioned, and current Google Base API users are encouraged to migrate to the new Shopping APIs as soon as possible. Below you’ll find an updated timeline for the Base API deprecation and resources to guide you through the transition.
Updated Timeline As of June 1, users will no longer be able to create a new Google Base account. However, current Base API users will have a one month grace period to continue using the Base API until July 1. After July 1, users will no longer be able to submit or access content through the Base API. The login at base.google.com will be removed as of June 1.
At an event in New York City today, we announced Google Wallet, an app that will turn shoppers’ phones into their wallets. Google Wallet will enable consumers to store their credit cards, coupons, loyalty and gift cards securely on their phone, so they can pay, redeem offers, and earn loyalty points - all with a single tap of their phone. It is in a field test now and will be available to all consumers this summer.
A key benefit to retailers will be the integration of coupons, or offers, into Google Wallet. We’ve been testing a variety of offers - from discounts directly within search ads to check-in offers to offers in Google Places. Over time, consumers will be able to save each of these offers directly to their Google Wallet. That means consumers will get the benefit of carrying their offers with them at all times, bringing retailers targeted foot traffic.
The integration of offers into Google Wallet will enable merchants to close the loop by directly connecting their online and mobile advertising with offline purchases. In addition, Google Wallet provides merchants with a way to engage with customers in-store, enhancing the customer experience. Many leading merchants are integrating Google Wallet into their stores.
From the outset, Google Wallet will be compatible with more than a hundred thousand merchants nationwide that are part of the MasterCard PayPass network - a merchant point of sale service that enables consumers to tap to pay.
We’re also working with leading retailers and point of sale systems companies to integrate Google Wallet into their physical store experience. Participating retailers include: American Eagle Outfitters, Bloomingdale’s, Champs Sports, The Container Store, Duane Reade, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Foot Locker, Guess, Jamba Juice, Macy’s, Noah's Bagels, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, RadioShack, Subway, Toys“R”Us and Walgreens.
Google Wallet is currently being field tested, and we plan to release it soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more at our website: www.google.com/wallet.
Posted by Spencer Spinnell, Director of Commerce Partnerships
If you’re a retailer, you've probably seen the shopping results on Google.com and Google Product Search. These results are generally based on product feeds that retailers submit, for free, to the Google Merchant Center.
There are four key benefits for retailers who upload product feeds: Free, Qualified Traffic through Google Product Search, a shopping search engine that helps consumers discover product information, compare prices and find a retailer from whom they can make a purchase. This is free traffic to your retail website, which you can only benefit from by submitting a product feed. Richer AdWords Formats such as product extensions use the product feed to automatically display your products within AdWords ads where relevant. Improve On-Site Conversion with Google Commerce Search. Commerce Search leverages your product feed and innovations of Google.com to deliver a powerful search and discovery experience on your e-commerce site. Among other things, Google Commerce Search provides an interactive shopping experience - which includes features like automated promotions and instant results - found only on the top retail websites, as well as a powerful merchandising suite that helps you integrate business goals and adapt to market dynamics. Reach Mobile Shoppers through Google Shopper, our shopping application for Android and iPhone, Shopping for Mobile, our shopping website, and Google Commerce Search on your mobile website. On-the-go shoppers will be able to discover goods you submit in your product feed.
To take advantage of the unique features associated with the merchant feed, first submit your product data feed at the Google Merchant Center and then explore the hyperlinks listed above.
The Google I/O developer conference is coming up next week, on May 10-11, 2011 in San Francisco, California. The first day of the conference will feature the first-ever Commerce track, and we want to give you sneak preview of the Google Shopping Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) session.
Shopping APIs have two main components: Content and Search. The Content API makes it easy to upload items as well as quickly change price or availability of your items. The Search API brings the power of Google search to your e-commerce website. In this session, we will walk you through code samples and various use cases for uploading data to Google using the Content API for Shopping. We also show you live demos of retail sites using Search API for Shopping and Google Commerce Search to power e-commerce on their site.
We are excited about Google I/O and look forward to seeing you in San Francisco.
Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager and Ali Afshar, Developer Programs Engineer
As we announced on March 14, and in emails to all Product Search merchants, today we will begin requiring unique identifiers for products in all categories except for apparel, custom, and one-of-a-kind items. These requirements are part of an ongoing effort to make Product Search better for our users. Our unique identifier requirements enable us to build detailed product pages to help shoppers learn about products and compare prices from across the web. These unique identifiers are required for Google Product Search and Product Ads, and this policy will not impact Google Commerce Search.
We will be gradually enforcing this policy over the next few weeks, with full enforcement in effect on June 20th. During this time, products that do not have correct unique identifiers may not appear in our product listings. If you have products that do not have correct unique identifiers, we recommend that you make the necessary changes as soon as possible.
Please note that in the weeks after June 20th, we will begin disapproving the feeds of merchants who have a significant percentage of items that do not include the correct unique identifiers.
For more information on unique identifiers, and what we require, please see our Help Center. If you did not receive the email informing you of this change, please make sure to update your contact information in the "Settings" tab of the Google Merchant Center. The unique identifier requirement is part of a broader set of changes we plan to announce in the coming months. By checking this blog often and providing your contact information in your account, you can stay up to date with our requirements. Thank you for helping us improve the Product Search experience for our users.
Posted by Karen Corby, Product Manager, Google Product Search
It’s fair to say Europeans love to shop online. According to industry analysts comScore, three quarters of Europeans visited an e-commerce site in January this year, spending an average of 52 minutes on e-tail sites during the month. That’s why we’re delighted to announce that Google Shopping (also known as Google Product Search in the US) is now available in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. We're also launching both the Google Merchant Center and Google Shopping in Australia today.
If you’re already submitting a feed to the Google Merchant Center and you'd like to reach more customers in these countries, you don't need to create a new account. Just create a new feed for each country, and make sure it complies complies with our policies. Then, when registering your feed, choose the target country from the drop-down menu. If you're a new merchant, we recommend reading the "Getting Started" articles in our Help Center.
In conjunction with Google Shopping, retailers that choose to advertise their product catalogue can now do so through AdWords product extensions in these countries as well. Product extensions use the product information submitted by the retailer and automatically displays this information within ads, where relevant. To learn more about product extensions, visit our AdWords Help Center.
Happy shopping!
Posted by Amy Gepfert, Program Manager, Google Shopping
Back in December, we announced that on June 1, 2011, the Google Base Data API will be decommissioned and it will no longer be possible to submit or access content through the Base API.
To replace the Base API, we’ve introduced two new Shopping APIs: Content API and Search API. If you currently use the Base API for managing your products on Google Product Search, you should prepare for the June 1 change by migrating to the new APIs as soon as possible. These resources will guide you through the transition:
If you are a retailer using Google Commerce Search to power search and navigation on your e-commerce site, you will also need to ensure that you are fully migrated over to the new Shopping APIs by June 1. In addition to the documentation above, please also make note of the Migration Guide for Google Commerce Search. Furthermore, if you require any technical support, please submit a request through the Support Portal.
Posted by Kirill Kounik, Product Manager, Google Shopping
Last month, we announced a few upcoming changes to merchant feed requirements for Google Product Search listings. This is a reminder that on May 3, we’ll begin requiring unique identifiers for all products (except apparel and one-of-a-kind items) for feeds targeting the US, UK, France, and Germany. After May 3, products without unique identifiers may not be listed on Google Product Search. As you’re preparing for the May 3 data requirement, keep in mind that on June 6, additional data requirements will also take effect. View the original blog post to learn more and get a head start on these changes.
Posted by Enrique Munoz Torres, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center
If you've ever spent your Saturday calling different stores or driving around town in search of one specific product, then it probably occurred to you that there must be a better way. Today we're announcing Local Product Availability on Google Place Pages - a new feature that automatically brings your offline catalog to the web, letting customers view your products and search your local inventory on your Place Page before visiting your store.
When you provide Google with local product availability data, your Google Place Page will now automatically include a new section, ‘Popular products available at this store’, featuring five popular products along with price and local availability. For shoppers unfamiliar with your business, this section shows the types of products available in your store.
If shoppers are looking for a specific item, they can click ‘Search within this store’ to search your product inventory to see if a particular item is in stock nearby.
Getting started To automatically display local product availability on your Google Place page, you’ll need to first share local availability data with Google through a Merchant Center account and claim your a Google Place page. For instructions on sharing local product availability with Google, read this Help Center article. Learn how to claim your Google Place page here.
Posted by Paul Lee, Senior Product Manager, Google Product Search
As we announced on the Official Google Blog, we’ve just launched the third-generation of Google Commerce Search – our search solution for e-commerce websites. For the many retailers already submitting their product data feeds to Google via Product Search, our solution may be an interesting consideration for powering search and browse capabilities on your website.
Google Commerce Search uses your existing product search data feed to power a relevant and completely customizable search experience on your e-commerce website. In fact customers like Woodcraft Supply, HealthWarehouse.com and BabyAge.com have all leveraged this exact data feed to quickly improve their web experience and deliver strong business returns – in the case of Woodcraft.com increasing search revenues 34%.
With the new release, we’re making shopping more interactive, introducing multi-channel product discovery, and providing sophisticated tools to help retailers manage the shopping experience on their site.
Here are some of the cool new features in this release:
Search As You Type: Search is quickly becoming a more interactive experience. Search As You Type provides instant gratification to shoppers – returning product results with every keystroke, right from the search bar.
Local Product Availability: This year, 46% of retail sales will be influenced by online research – but more than 90% of total retail transactions will occur in-store (eMarketer, June 2010). Local Product Availability helps retailers bridge online and offline sales by showing shoppers when a product is also available in a store nearby – in-line with the search results.
Enhanced Merchandising: Retailers need to be agile to effectively respond to shopping trends and market dynamics – for example ramping up certain underdog basketball team apparel going into the Final Four! Our new merchandising tools allow retailers to easily set query-based landing pages, and to create promotions that display alongside related search queries in retailer-designated banner areas.
Product Recommendations (Labs): To help consumers discover related products, Product Recommendations show shoppers what other people viewed and ultimately bought.
With this release we're also welcoming three new retail partners: Forever21, General Nutrition Company (GNC) and L’Occitane. GNC implemented Google Commerce Search in less than a week on their mobile website, while Forever 21 and L’Occitane are currently working to implement various new features of GCS, such as Search as You Type and Local Product Availability. Here’s what Christine Burke, VP of International E-Commerce at cosmetics staple L’Occitane had to say about GCS 3.0:
“L’Occitane is unique in that our beauty products center around ingredients - such as lavender, shea butter and verbena. As our customers visit our re-designed website to shop and research our products, we are excited about the speed and accuracy of on-site search results that will be provided to us through Google Commerce Search. We are also very excited about the potential of the new local inventory feature, which can help us connect our customers with their favorite products in one of our 170 US boutiques.”
Learn how you can provide the latest in retail technology on your website with Google Commerce Search. Sign up for our upcoming webinar (details below). You’ll hear from Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager, in conversation with Google Commerce Search customers about how these new features are transforming retail for the better.
To help Google Product Search shoppers accurately compare prices and learn more about products they want to buy, we’re making some changes to our data requirements and our feed specification. Please note that these changes will only affect Google Product Search listings and will not apply to Google Commerce Search or AdWords ad formats.
For Feeds Targeting the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany
Unique Product Identifiers [required for most categories]: With user reviews, prices, related items, and videos, "product pages" (example: Canon S95) help users make decisions about what to buy. To help us match product listings to these pages, we ask merchants to provide “unique product identifiers.” Starting May 3, we will require unique identifiers for all products except apparel and one-of-a-kind items. Products without unique product identifiers may not be listed in Google Product Search, though the feed may not be disapproved. To learn more about these identifiers, please visit our Help Center.
Shipping Information [required] When shoppers are trying to find the best deal, online or offline, they need to know the full cost of an item - including the cost of shipping. To help them accurately compare prices, we will begin requiring shipping information for Google Product Search on June 6th. After that date, we may disapprove feeds from accounts that do not include this information. Please visit this Help Center article to learn more about how to specify shipping costs either at the account or item level.
For Feeds Targeting the United States
Tax Information [required]: To ensure that shoppers have a seamless experience when they click through from Google Product Search to your site, we’re making tax information required for all feeds targeting the United States. As we’re doing with shipping cost information, we will be making this change on June 6th; after that date, product listings that do not include tax information at the account level, or in the “tax” attribute, may be rejected. You can learn more about providing tax information in this Help Center article. (Please note that feeds targeted to countries other than the United States already require inclusion of VAT in the “price” attribute.)
New Sale Price Attributes [recommended] Shoppers everywhere love sales. To help make sure your sale price is included in Google Product Search, and for the right duration, we’re adding two attributes to the United States Product Search feed specification, “sale price” and “sale price effective date.” The attributes are recommended for the items that you have put on sale, but are not required. If you do include these new attributes, you should continue to provide the “price” attribute with the non-sale price from your website. You can learn more about these new attributes in our Help Center.
Posted by Enrique Munoz Torres, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center
Now that you’ve settled into 2011, you’re probably thinking about what you need to do to make it a great year. To help get you started, we’d like to offer two suggestions to improve your Google Product Search experience:
Include “rel=canonical” tags on your website. Many merchants have several identical product pages for each item. With the rel="canonical" tag, your webmaster can indicate which URL you'd like to include on Google.com. This tag is necessary for participation in Rich Snippets, and also allows you to provide clean, user-friendly URLs that don’t include excess tracking or category navigation parameters. You can read more about the “rel=canonical” tag in a previous blog post.
Update your technical contact in the Google Merchant Center. If you’ve ever wondered why your feed didn’t process, then you should ensure that your contact information is up-to-date in the Google Merchant Center’s Settings page. We'll send an email to this address if there are technical issues with your account, such as problems with the content you submitted. We may also send you helpful suggestions on topics like data quality.
Posted by Natasha Prats, Partner Manager, Google Product Search
Later this year, we plan to launch Google Shopping*, our shopping search engine, in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. To participate in this free service, merchants use a site called the Google Merchant Center to submit and track their product data feeds. To give all merchants time to submit their products and be included in Google Shopping when it launches, we have opened the Google Merchant Center for these countries early. Once Google Shopping has launched, products submitted through the Google Merchant Center may also appear in relevant 'Shopping results' on Google.es, Google.nl, and Google.it.
If you're a new merchant and would like to start submitting your products to Google for Spain, Italy, or the Netherlands, we recommend checking out the 'Getting Started' articles in our Help Center, and then reviewing the data feed instructions and requirements for your target country. Existing Merchant Center users now have the option to select Spain, Italy and the Netherlands from the target country drop-down menu when registering their feeds in the Merchant Center.
As we launch in new locations, we want it to be easy for you to make your products accessible to customers around the world. Our data requirements differ by country, so you can now view the data feed specifications for all countries in your native language by using the drop-down box on the top of the Data Feed Specification help article.
Editor’s note: Woodcraft Supply is one of the nation’s oldest and largest suppliers of quality woodworking tools and supplies, offering more than 20,000 products through its retail stores, catalog, and website. We’ve invited today’s guest blogger, Nancy Miller, VP of Internet Sales and Development for Woodcraft Supply, to talk about how Google has helped her increase search revenue and transform Woodcraft’s online store. To learn more about her experience, read the Woodcraft.com case study.
At Woodcraft, we strive to provide the best experience for our customers, which means helping them find the right tool for the project. To this end, our retail stores are staffed with knowledgeable woodworkers. Online, we need a powerful search engine.
Prior to our switch to Google Commerce Search, Woodcraft had been using another popular third-party search solution - but we just weren’t seeing the same level of satisfaction on our website as we were in our stores. Visitors to our site often couldn’t find the products they were looking for, and our support team fielded a lot of complaints. Our customers were frustrated and our conversions suffered so we decided to make a change.
After thorough research, we picked Google to host our e-commerce search; their service provided better results, improved rankings, and an intuitive administrator interface. Google Commerce Search is simpler to maintain and much more effective than our old solution - even before customization. In fact, during our testing period we moved half of our traffic to Google Commerce Search and left the remainder on our existing solution – and with Google our conversions from search were 27.7 percent higher and our search revenues were up 34 percent!
Beyond providing a multifaceted search experience with better results, and increasing our online sales, Google Commerce Search has made our customers and employees much happier with our website. The complaints have virtually disappeared, giving us more time to focus on our passion: woodworking.
Above: Nancy Miller, Kyle Crabtree, Chris Brown, Matt Hall, Steve Markle September Fleming, and Daniel Pennock with their latest woodworking project.
As we announced last November, millions of people have downloaded Google Shopper for Android to help them shop on the go. Today, we're excited to let you know that Google Shopper, our popular Android shopping application, is now available for iPhone as a download in the App Store. Google Shopper turns your iPhone into a shopping assistant, so you can:
Learn more about products and read relevant user reviews
Compare prices at online and local stores
Save and share products for later consideration
Let's say you're planning a special meal for Valentine's Day - but you need a cast-iron skillet to get the recipe just right. With Shopper, finding one is easy enough: just type in "cast iron skillet" or say it using Voice Search. Then, from the results, you can choose a specific product that appeals to you. Alternatively, if you were in the store and wanted to see product reviews, you could also scan the barcode of a particular product.
Once you've selected a product result, you can compare prices across web retailers, and even find where you can purchase the item nearby, which is especially useful for those of us who are last-minute shoppers. For some retailers, we also provide inventory information so you can see if a particular store branch has the item in stock, has limited availability, or if the item is out of stock and you should head to a different store.
If you're not sure about making a purchase or are building out a gift list, you can "star" products for future consideration. You can also share items with friends across your social network to let them know about products you love or great deals you've found.
You can download Google Shopper for free in the App Store. Shopper is available for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0+ in English only for the United States and the UK.
We hope you enjoy shopping with Google Shopper!
Posted by Richard Hung, Senior Product Manager, Google Shopper
