Retailers including Target Corp, Walmart Inc, Home Depot Inc, Costco Wholesale Corp and Ulta Beauty Inc. will soon pay Google for each product purchase made through Google Search, Google Express and Google Assistant on mobile phones and voice devices.
Google's new program moves beyond the concept which retailers make make payments to place ads on Google platforms. It will directly take a cut of the actual purchases, too. In exchange for Google listings and linking to retailer loyalty programs, the retailers pay Google a piece of each purchase.
Google hopes the program helps retailers capture more purchases on desktop, cell phones and smart home devices with voice search.
The initiative sprang from Google's observation that consumers were sending image searches of products, asking "Where can I buy this?" "Where can I find it?" "How can I buy it?" "How do I transact?" said Surojit Chatterjee, Director of Product Management, Google Shopping.
Currently, consumers who make a Google search that ends with an Amazon purchase.
The new Google program, Shopping Actions, will be available in the United States to retailers of all sizes and could help retail chains keep those customers. It gives customers an easy way to shop your products on the Google Assistant and Search with a universal cart, whether they’re on mobile, desktop or even a Google Home device.
The idea is to make online buying easier by giving them a single shopping cart and instant checkout - a core feature of Amazon's retail dominance.
By participating in the Shopping Actions program, retailers will be able to:
- Surface their products on new platforms like the Google Assistant with voice shopping.
- Help their customers shop across Google. A shareable list, universal shopping cart and instant checkout with saved payment credentials work across Google.com and the Google Assistant -- allowing customers to turn browsing into buying. For example, shopper Kai can do a search on Google for moisturizing hand soap, see a listing for up & up brand soap from Target, and add it to a Google Express cart. Later, in the kitchen, Kai can reorder foil through voice, add it to the same cart using Google Home, and purchase all items at once through a Google-hosted checkout flow.
- Increase loyalty and engagement with highest value customers. 1-click re-ordering, personalized recommendations, and basket-building turn one-time shoppers into repeat customers. If Kelly does a search for “peach blush,” for example, and she has opted to link her Google account with her Ultamate Rewards status, Google will recognize this and surface relevant blush results as well as related items -- like makeup brushes -- from Ulta Beauty to help her build a basket with her preferred retailer.
As we previously mentioned, Shopping Actions uses a pay-per-sale model, meaning retailers only pay when a sale actually takes place.
