Google Is Expanding Its E-Commerce Partnerships To Better Take On Amazon
Offering a better shopping experience with Shopify, Square, GoDaddy and WooCommerce.
Google is claiming an even larger stake in the digital retail space through enhanced partnerships with Shopify, Square, and other e-commerce ecosystems, helping the platform better take on competitors like Amazon.
The company announced on Thursday that vendors who use Square, GoDaddy and WooCommerce will be able to seamlessly sell products across Google’s various platforms easily and for free.
During its I/O conference last week, Google first discussed its deal with Shopify, which gives the 1.7 million merchants on the e-commerce platform an ability to be more discoverable across Google’s digital lineup. For example, Google Photos will now integrate its Lens feature to allow users to shop for items identified from their albums.
Google expanded its range of e-commerce partnerships on Thursday, explaining the different ways retailers can connect with customers across Search, Shopping, Images, Maps and YouTube. “Soon, you’ll have the ability to curate how your brand appears on Google through videos, rich lifestyle imagery and interactive story formats, for free,” Bill Ready, Google’s President of Commerce, Payments and NBU, said in a blog post.
Ready added that a recent study from 5WPR indicates that 71 percent of consumers want to buy from companies that align with their values. “We’ve listened to this feedback, and following the successful launch of a Black-owned business attribute earlier this year, we’ll launch new identity attributes, including a women-led attribute, soon,” Ready said.
The company has also launched several new AR features that allow customers to see how products will look before they commit to a purchase. In addition, Google will promote flexible checkout options and is building out a new experience that helps customers discover different ways they can buy products from a particular e-store.
“Consumers can now buy direct online, on social media, on a search, on video, on maps — that is the future of retail. Entirely about consumer choice,” Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s president, told Bloomberg on Thursday. “Google owns the majority of those digital town squares, and that’s where consumers are spending time.”
Elsewhere in tech, Twitter accidentally confirmed its new “Twitter Blue” subscription service.
