eCommerce Solutions: Purchases on Google

Today, you can shop from basically anywhere. At least, Jonathan Alferness does. “We’re squeezing more and more into the very thin slices of time we have in our lives,” the Google Shopping VP said at a retail-focused event at Google’s New York City HQ last week.

Smartphone devices and the Internet has opened up an entire new world for searching and buying products. It’s no longer just about visiting a physical or online storefront -- people are purchasing in all kinds of new ways.

To help facilitate all those purchases, Google announced last week “Purchases on Google,” or another "Buy Button”, for the company to host branded shopping pages for retailers, which will let shoppers purchase using the shopping credentials they’ve already stored on Google.

Reducing Friction

Purchases on Google was created to reduce “friction” of mobile transactions. Alferness explains, “We’re not trying to get in the way of merchants owning their customers”. Tap into it from a Google advertisement and you will be taken to a microsite hosted by the search giant, but completely branded by the selected retailer. Shoppers can search these Google microsites for additional products from a retailer, and there will be links back to the retailer’s site. Currently, Google is testing the buy button with a dozen or so large merchants.

Once Google reaches their projected scale of success, it will ramp up in earnest. The search giant aims for a larger roll out toward the back half of the year. They will of course charge retail partners for its part in the transaction. It did not disclose the exact nature of those fees, but the costs are projected to be on a cost-per-click basis. [1]

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For more on eCommerce solutions, contact us or see: Global Opportunities for Online Retailers