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.

Posted by Kirill Kounik, Google Commerce Team

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:

• Content API documentation
• Google Base Data API Deprecation FAQ
• Migrating to the Content API for Shopping
• Migrating to the Search API for Shopping
• Google Content API for Shopping developers forum

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