From the Editor
By Ina Steiner
EcommerceBytes.com
June 03, 2012
Google made a stunning announcement on Thursday when it said it would move Google Shopping to a pay-to-play model. Once the transition is completed this fall, individual merchants and online marketplaces such as eBay and Bonanza will no longer be able to send product feeds to Google and expect them to show up in search results. Instead, they will have to use Google Product Listing Ads, a paid-advertising program.
Is Google moving toward a marketplace model? Analysts from Wall Street firm Janney Montgomery Scott wrote, "As Google displays products from multiple retailers in a more visual display it begs the question when/if Google would introduce a "shopping cart" to potentially close the transactions which was denied by the head of GPS."
Many merchants, small sellers in particular, count on getting traffic from Google through the Google Shopping widget that appears in Google.com search results. And small online marketplaces count on the exposure their merchants' listings receive in Google to help them compete with giants eBay and Amazon.com. (I can tell you that they were caught off guard like everyone else.)
Google's Sameer Samat told me that moving to a purely commercial model would make Google Shopping results more reliable - it will ensure that when shoppers click on a product listing, the site will have the product in-stock and be available at the same price as advertised on Google Shopping.
eBay's Robert Chatwani said he was still evaluating the impact of Google's announcement and that eBay planned to fully participate in the new Google Shopping offering and would "continue to harness the power of Google's ad offerings on behalf of our sellers and merchants."
We're conducting a SURVEY to see how online sellers believe this change will impact them. It's fascinating to read the comments that have come in so far, such as this one from an online seller: "They may be shooting themselves in the foot. Fewer Google Shopping hits = fewer purchases by shoppers = less revenue fees for Google Checkout. Good bye Google search, hello Bing."