Personalized Google Shopping Actions Launched in France
Earlier last week Google began rolling out new personalized shopping features to the Google Shopping portal in France.
The highlight is the addition of Google Shopping Actions. Built on Google Express, Actions are aimed at providing customers a single aggregated source for shopping – similar to Amazon, but according to Google will be much more retailer and customer friendly. They will also include benefits found on Google express such as loyalty credits, shipping discounts, and universal checkout.
Shopping Actions are Google’s move into an integrated platform across all potential shopping portals: Google’s product search, in-home actions from Google Home devices, mobile shopping, and Google Assistant.
For fans of Google this is a welcome move since Amazon has been taking over online (and offline) retail for a while. Big brands such as Costco, Nike, and Target, in addition to hundreds of other retailers that are also participants so customers looking for an Amazon alternative are in luck.
The rollout will occur over the next few weeks in France, and it isn’t clear when these updates will arrive in other markets. But it is clear that Google is trying to become a bigger player in payment facilitation, much like Amazon, and now Instagram. Integration with Google home and Google assistant is an advantage for Google, especially as more users continue to buy into their Home and mobile products. Personalized recommendations are also an interesting tactic: since Google has so much search history for all of its users, it is likely it will be able to make relevant recommendations, but it is yet to be seen if this will be an advantage over Amazon who has your entire shopping history.
-Stephen
