Google making it easier for retailers to sell on its platform

Google continues to dive deeper into online shopping as it looks to compete more effectively against Amazon. 

The search engine giant on Thursday debuted another initiative to make it easier for retailers to sell on its platform. Google said that it would waive sales commissions on Google Shopping and allow retailers to use third-party payment and order management services. (Currently, commissions on Google Shopping range from a 5% to 15% cut depending on the products.)

“Soon, sellers who participate in our Buy on Google checkout experience will no longer have to pay us a commission fee,” Bill Ready, president, commerce, said in a blog on the company’s website. “And, we’re giving retailers more choice by opening our platform to third-party providers—starting with PayPal and Shopify.

In April, Google started making search results on the Google Shopping tab consist primarily of free product listings. For retailers who participate in the Google Shopping online marketplace, this change has generated free exposure to Google users.

In June, the company announced that, starting this summer, it would begin offering free listings in Google search results. Initially, free listings on Google search will appear in a product knowledge panel that shows buying options for a particular item.

To simplify its tools and make them more compatible with merchants’ existing processes, Google is enabling commonly-used product feed formats, which means retailers can connect their inventory to sell directly on Google without having to reformat their data.

“As we’ve made it easier for a broader set of retailers to sell on Google this year, we’re also seeing a significant increase in demand to buy from and support small businesses,” Ready said in the blog. “To help people discover these smaller merchants, we also plan to add a new small business filter on the Google Shopping tab and will continue adding features to help small businesses participate in online commerce.”