The established Google service “Google Shopping” was launched in Switzerland on 19 October. What effect will this development have on existing price search engines and how much added value will it bring to online shop operators?

Google Shopping: Pfister is already onboard

Many online shop operators use the services of price search machines to generate traffic. Since users of price searches have already done their research on the products, they have progressed well along the buying process and can be defined as very valuable and hot leads.

Until now, billiger.de, kelkoo.de and guenstiger.de have charged merchants up to 27 cents per lead or forwarded click. Since Google’s introduction of free-of-charge product searches in Germany, the situation is starting to get icy.

According to a study conducted in July 2011, the Google product search is the most popular price comparison website among online shop operators in Germany.

Question: On which price comparison websites is your online presence listed?

Study (July 2011) by http://www.ecommerce-leitfaden.de

Now, the service that is already well established in the USA and Germany has been introduced to Switzerland.

Does that mean the end of toppreise.ch, preissuchmachine.ch and others?

Experience from the USA and Germany speaks for itself. Now it remains to be seen what position Google Shopping will occupy in Switzerland and what this development will mean for existing price comparison services such as http://www.toppreise.ch and http://www.preisvergleich.ch.

It will be difficult to charge money for a service that can be obtained for free. In addition, the price search engines are dependent on Google. It is estimated that at least a third of the traffic using price comparison engines comes via Google.

But what exactly can Google Shopping (product search) do?

Google Shopping is a free-of-charge and independent Google service that enables products to be shown in the Google search. Even at the completion of purchase – i.e. when a customer makes an order following a product search in the referred online shop – no fees are levied by Google. Google Shopping does not offer online shopping functions: customers are simply shown search and comparison functions, as well as deep links to the product detail pages of an external online shop.

Besides Google Shopping’s own search interface, the results of the product search are also embedded in the organic Google search results. These displays are presented in a very eye-catching way and lead to high click rates – and in contrast to SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaigns, no costs per click are incurred.

Displays in the organic Google search results

Google Shopping provides filters on price ranges, brands and merchants, and displays stars (ratings) to evaluate products via external evaluation portals. A range of merchant listings means prices can be compared.

Product information is drawn from automatically searched internet sites. In addition, merchants can manipulate their products manually and enhance them with additional information.

What does this mean for merchants?

In order for merchants to appear in the Google Shopping Service, their product range must display a set minimum of product information. The product information can be processed in the Google Merchant Center, which offers the options of either a manual import as a data feed (XML, CSV) or an automated API interface.

In this respect, Google places great value on up-to-date and high-quality product information.

A study carried out by www.sem-deutschland.de showed that in Germany today 16% of e-commerce traffic is already generated by Google Shopping. In addition, these purchase-related searches display above-average conversion rates. For online shop operators, this service offers an excellent way to be found even with highly contested search words and without the need for huge SEM investment.

The Swiss market has also prepared itself for the introduction of Google Shopping. Various Unic customers, such as microspot.ch, have taken their first steps towards Google Shopping. Jörg Brügger, Head Technology & Services at Microspot, says: “We are highly interested in the development of Google Shopping and would like to be included in its launch in Switzerland. Price search engines form an important source of traffic for us and we will be watching the influence of Google very closely.”

And how about you? Is Google Shopping of interest to your organisation?