Google partners with Shopify in expansion of online shopping

An expanded partnership with Shopify and linked loyalty accounts are just some of the new e-commerce features Google is rolling out.

Google, which has been steadily growing its capabilities as an e-commerce platform as it attempts to position itself as a viable alternative to Amazon, is introducing several new components of its retail offering. The company is augmenting an existing partnership with Shopify to enable retailers selling on the Shopify platform to feature their products across Google in just a few clicks.

“This new collaboration with Shopify will enable merchants to become discoverable to high-intent consumers across Google Search, Shopping, YouTube, Google Images and more,” said Bill Ready, Google president of commerce and payments, in a corporate blog post.

Google is also introducing a new feature in its Chrome web browser that works locally on a user’s device to let them see their open carts when they open a new tab. This enables users who step away or browse on other sites to pick up their shopping where they left off. 

In addition, when a user views any screenshot of a desired product in Google Photos, there will be a suggestion to search the photo with the Google Lens visual search tool, allowing them to see search results that can help them find the item for purchase.

And coming soon, Google will allow consumers to link their favorite loyalty programs from merchants like Sephora to their Google account to show them the best purchase options across Google. 

In his blog post, Ready also provided some details about Google Shopping Graph, the platform’s artificial intelligence-based, dynamic dataset about products, inventory and retailers.

“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,” said Ready. “It works in real-time so people can discover and shop for products that are available right now.”