In
an effort to compete with other online shopping destinations, namely Amazon,
Google announced it was adding customer reviews to searches on Thursday.
Searches
for terms that could be construed as products, like "blender" or
"lawnmower," will now include reviews on a five-star scale that are
aggregated from merchants, third-party sites and editorial sites.
The
company believes these ratings will help differentiate products across
Google.com and Google.com/shopping and "help merchants drive more
qualified traffic through Product Listing Ads," Mike Capsambelis, product
manager for Google Shopping, wrote in a blog post this week. "In initial
tests, product ratings also helped increase click-through rates of Product Listing
Ads."
Google
is offering merchants a "grace period" through October to allow
product ratings to appear across all Product Listing Ads in which Google has
reviews. After October, Google will only show ratings from merchants who opt to
share them with Google. Translation: If a merchant doesn't provide ratings,
they may be trying to hide some bad news. If a merchant doesn't provide
ratings, they may be trying to hide some bad news.
The
search giant's embrace of customer reviews is late in coming. It has long been
established that reviews are a prime impetus for sales. A survey last year from
Dimensional Research, for instance, found 90% of respondents who remember
reading reviews said positive online reviews influenced their purchase
decisions. Some 86% said their buying decisions were influenced by negative
reviews.
As
Google's ad business faces continuing challenges from the transition to mobile,
though, the company is eager to find new sources of revenues. A report in
Re/code earlier this month claims Google has earmarked as much as $500 million
to expand its Shopping Express program.
Launched
in 2013, Shopping Express lets consumers buy products through Google, which
delivers the items from local stores owned by participating retailers.
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