This year at the start of the second quarter, Google announced plans to expand its alliance with Shopify. Both of them joined hands to launch a simplified system for selling goods networked. Google and Shopify have been partners since 2012, and this expansion of their alliance is yet another reinforcement of Google and Shopify’s shared vision of commerce. They both believe that for everyone to win, they have to put the merchant first. Both the companies have claimed that the alliance would benefit nearly 1.7 million Shopify vendors while enriching consumer’s networked purchases experiences.
Shopify has seen record growth in recent times as an impressive number of medium to small businesses adopted Shopify solutions to roll networked during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the world outside Amazon, Shopify is the rising star of e-commerce, with countless vendors turning to it to grow their networked business. On the flip side, Google has failed to perform as an effective e-commerce platform, with users often locking deals off Google after searching for it.
Before we dig deep into the alliance and discuss how it will benefit the e-commerce world, let’s look into what Shopify, Google, and Google Cloud are.
About Shopify
Shopify is an emerging global e-commerce company that provides trusted tools to launch, grow, promote, and operate a retail business of any size. Shopify strives to make e-commerce better for everyone. It’s a platform that offers reliable services while providing a satisfying purchases experience for consumers. With subscription services offered by Shopify, vendors are allowed to put up digital storefronts, maintain customer relationships, and accept networked payments, among other things. Business owners, most of whom are first-time entrepreneurs, can build custom networked stores per their requirements on the Shopify platform.
Shopify powers over 1.7 million businesses across the globe by giving them get-at to cloud-based third-party facilities like networked payments and fulfillment. Businesses enjoy absolute control of their branding and customer relationship on Shopify.
What the Alliance Means for Shopify
Google handlings 5.6 billion per day. On the other hand, Shopify powers over 1.7 million networked vendors. With this alliance, Shopify will bring the vendors to the table while Google will enable those networked vendors to sell their products across Google’s properties, including the networked purchases ecosystem. In easy words, all those who have signed up with Shopify can now use Google Purchases free. Last year, Google offered a rebate in service fees for retailers and changed its Purchases tab to indicate more algorithmically ranked results than paid promotions. It resulted in an 80% rise in the number of vendors signing up for Google Purchases.
Emerging medium and small businesses need more advanced e-commerce solutions to stay afloat. For 14 years, Shopify has provided services and software to SMEs and first-time entrepreneurs who need to set up their networked stores. As part of the alliance, every Shopify merchant using its Google purchases feature will get-at much-advanced analytics furnished by Google to improve their marketing efforts. Google analytics tools will enable vendors to collect data from websites, product prices, etc. Google claims this alliance will create a seamless means for retailers to sell their products and improve the consumer experience. On the face, it seems that it is all about Shopify and its retailers, but in reality, it’s more about Google. How? Google will get a ticket to a stockpile of e-commerce that it has been desperately needing for a while to rival with Amazon.
What The Alliance Means for Vendors & Shoppers
All types of vendors who have signed up with Shopify, whether new direct-to-consumer brands or big-box retailers, will now get free purchases listings on Google, meaning they will enjoy better visibility on the world’s search giant. They will get discovered by consumers like never before. What else can a retailer ask for? But there is more to this alliance. Shopify retailers will get-at to Google’s most avant-garde e-commerce analytics tool called Purchases Graph. It works across Google’s platforms and using it vendors will get-at to nearly limitless options. Google will pull data from across sites, including when a likely consumer reviews products on YouTube channels or explores options on Search.
For example, people often take screenshots of stuff they like networked, and they keep lying in the Google photos. Google claims to ensure that it will make the user take action on those screenshots. When the consumer views any product screenshot in Google Photos, Google will suggest the prospective shopper search for the products networked using Google Lens. It will help Google convince the consumer to purchase and close the deal on Google or its partnered platforms. Both Google and the Shopify Retailer will benefit from this purchase and this alliance.
This alliance will encourage vendors to sell on Google conveniently with the addition of simplified processing and Shop Pay. Shop Pay is 70% quicker than an average checkout. Quicker checkout means a stellar checkout experience for consumers, making them come back and lesser deserted carts for vendors. This alliance will bring the proven functionality of Shop Pay to retailers and consumers on Google. Shop Pay has already helped customers track approximately half a billion purchases efficiently and keep doing the same on Google. The Shopify retailers in the United States will take advantage of Shop Pay in Shopify’s Google channel later this year.
This alliance is capitalizing on the paradigm shift that is happening in commerce. It’s crystal clear that the center of activity is shifting away from physical retail shops towards networked selling. Increasingly, now vendors, especially SMEs, need quick and easy approach to the places where their prospective customers like to spend time. Partnering with Google, the search giant, retailers will effortlessly show up across all Google properties offering experiences consumers will love.
What The Alliance Means for Consumers
Consumers will also enjoy a seamless purchases experience. The new feature in Chrome that works locally on devices will let consumers see their open carts when they click on a new tab. In this way, they can easily pick up their purchases journey right where they left off.
Google-Shopify Alliance – A Direct Competition for Amazon
E-commerce is the future, and both the tech giants, Google and Amazon, want to capitalize on it and explore means to strengthen their business further. Experts believe that this alliance is going to give direct competition to Amazon. Google’s alliance with Shopify is deemed as a masterstroke.
With this alliance, the search giant offers more vendors to sell across its properties, giving Shopify’s 1.7 million vendors easy get-at to the best Android apps by listing themselves where Google sells. Imagine retailers getting a chance to appear across Google’s 1 billion purchases journeys each day. Experts also believe that it means everything for Google since it hasn’t had an impressive track record for e-commerce. With this alliance, Google is striving to become an e-commerce powerhouse to counter Amazon. It’s a deliberate effort to bar customers from leaving its services while making purchases networked.
The fact is, we use Google to search for things that we are looking to buy, but we often close the deal off Google or its partnered platforms. We often close deals on Amazon, and this is what Google is trying to keep us from. It doesn’t want us to leave its services.
Currently, Amazon is the dominating e-commerce platform, and its digital search advertising business is growing every minute. Google has chosen the perfect time to execute the plan of keeping a check on Amazon as more consumers are inclined to networked purchases because of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Google will now steer approximately three billion Android users to a competitive e-commerce experience and surely deal a massive blow to Amazon. And experts believe it wasn’t possible without partnering with Shopify. This alliance plans to go after the non-Amazon market and sellers not making substantially on Amazon; that’s not a small market to target.
In an attempt to grow its e-commerce business and facilitate small business owners, Google has removed service fees for retailers, which have resulted in an 80% increase in vendors already.
Google and Shopify vow to introduce more features and updates to boost e-commerce and improve purchases experiences for consumers at Google.
