Google announced that they are offering free product listings in the Shopping tab.

In their blog published April 21st, they talk about how it should help retailers in these challenging times and how this will help sellers connect better consumers regardless if they advertise or not.

What does this mean?

From next week, April 27th to be exact. There will be free shopping listings in the Google Shopping Tab rather than just paid listings. For the time being, this is only available in the US with roll-out globally before the end of the year. We speculate along with the industry that this will be available before Black Friday.

Google are also announcing a new partnership with PayPal to allow sellers to link to their accounts which will allow a better user experience.

What does it look like?

As you can see from the GIF below, the free product listing ads will be on the Google Shopping Tab. Paid advertisers will still be at the top and possibly at the bottom of this page with the bulk of free product listings in the middle.

This will not affect the paid shopping ads that appear on Google Search where most of the opportunity would lie.

Google Shopping Tab Scrolling

Credit: Google

Final Thoughts

This is a great option for retailers who have not utilised Google Shopping before these challenging times. It’s an opportunity to connect with their customers. However, if you’re already using Google Shopping, this will probably mean competition will increase for the paid areas on top and bottom of the Google Shopping Tab as more businesses dip their toes into Google Shopping.