Google recently announced its partnership with Shopify in its effort to expand into online shopping.
The partnership is probably a response to Amazon’s increasingly year-on-year growth in its advertising business, threatening Google’s core advertising business.
Amazon’s advertising is an online advertising solution that helps businesses find, attract and engage customers on and outside of Amazon. The business grew at an astounding rate in the first quarter of 2021, smashing analysts’ expectations.
The ad business generated nearly $7 billion in revenue, about seven times more than Twitter’s revenue which substantially comes from advertising.
Some analysts believe Amazon will lead the share gainers chart among the major digital ad businesses in 2021 and 2022.
Some believe this growing threat is the reason behind Google’s partnership with Shopify, a leading eCommerce platform with nearly 11 percent market share.
What’s this partnership about?
Efforts at Improved Discoverability
Over 1.7 million merchants rely on Shopify to power their eCommerce stores.
The Google-Shopify partnership means the merchants can feature their products across Google’s vast network in just a few clicks, making their products more discoverable to high-intent consumers.
Interested merchants can sign up to have their products appear across
- Google Search
- Shopping
- Youtube
- Google Maps
- Images
And more. These platforms facilitate one billion ‘shopping journeys’ each day.
The collaboration will help ease new shopping processes by connecting shoppers to the most relevant product recommendations and offers.
Google said its ‘Shopping Graph’ would store information across websites, price reviews, videos, and product data pulled from brands and retailers to help online shoppers make informed decisions. Bill Ready, Google’s President of commerce and payments, provided some details about the Google Shopping graph in a corporate blog post. He said:
“With people shopping across Google more than a billion times a day, the Shopping Graph makes those sessions more helpful by connecting people with over 24 billion listings from millions of merchants across the web”
According to Ready, the Shopping Graph works in real-time to enable people to discover and shop for available products.
Consumers can also link their favorite loyalty programs from merchants like Sephora to their Google accounts to enable Google to show them the best product options across the Google network.
This feature makes it straightforward for consumers to see the merchant with the best prices amid millions of merchants.
Google’s partnership with Shopify will revolutionize product discovery, making shopping experiences seamless for consumers and merchants.
The Aftermath
Amazon poses a significant threat to both Google and Shopify.
While Shopify competes with Amazon for eCommerce sales, Amazon’s astonishing expansion into the ad business space threatens Google’s core business, leading the two companies to ramp up their efforts to contain the growing threats.
Shopify stock rose after Google announced the online shopping expansion partnership. The stock popped as much as four percent on the news, closing up more than three percent on the day.
Google announced the partnership during the Google I/O event—a conference for software developers—last Thursday.
Final Thoughts
Google-Shopify shopping expansion partnership will help millions of Shopify merchants benefit from the billions of shopping journeys happening across the Google network each day.
It’ll also help consumers discover products and find merchants with the best prices.
While this is an excellent move to make shopping experiences more seamless, some sources believe this is a ramped-up effort to contain Amazon’s threats.
But with Amazon’s 38 percent year-over-year net sales revenue growth last year, do you honestly think any ambitious effort can push them back, or at least halt the incursion?
Only time will tell.
Also read:
About Shopify
Shopify is a subscription-based eCommerce platform that allows anyone to set up an online store and sell their products quickly.
The platform received over 58 million visits in 2020, with about 44 million customers buying from Shopify merchants.
Over 3,200 Shopify apps help merchants build their dream store.
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