Google Shopping result for Armani Jeans Brown Purse

We don’t need to be mind-readers to know that whenever you are looking for a particular product, one of the first things you will do is search for it on Google; when you do, you are more than likely to see shopping listings on the SERP relating to your keyword phrase.

At the moment, Google doesn’t charge a fee for online merchants in the UK to appear in this space; instead, they must submit products (via an XML feed) to Google Merchant Center, which automatically appear within Google Shopping and Search results.

Using this model, Google Shopping helped to create a level playing field for small independent retailers and big brands alike. However, in what could be a significant change to search marketing, Google will only include paying merchants in their search results (Paid Listing Ads)

What Are The Google Shopping Listings Changes?

As of February 2013, merchants will have to link their Merchant Center account with an active Google AdWords account, and submit their product feeds via this route in order to gain visibility on Google Shopping. Merchants will also need to create a specific product advertisement for each product that they wish to sell on Google Shopping.

Why Are The Google Shopping Listings Changing?

Google believes that the change to a paid model ‘will lead to better, more up to date product data — which will mean better shopping results for users and in turn, higher quality traffic for merchants.’

Google hopes that moving to a paid model will result in better quality and more trustworthy data, which will improve the shopping search experience for its users. This is akin to the way that the Google Panda algorithm monitored on-page content for ‘relevancy’, and subsequently lowered the rank of ‘low quality’ sites.

The Google Shopping listing changes have already been launched in the US, which is reported to have been “a great success”.

When Will The Google Shopping Listing Changes Happen?

As previously stated, from February 2013, bid price will be one factor that will affect how products will be ranked on Google Shopping, with a mixture of paid and organic listings appearing on Google Shopping over the coming months.

However, organic results will gradually be phased out by the end of June 2013, which means that your site could see a drop in the levels of organic traffic driven via Google Shopping.

Who Will The Google Shopping Changes Affect?

All merchants will be affected by the changes; the key concern however, is for any businesses that fail to prepare; in this instance, the old adage of ‘fail to prepare; prepare to fail’ reins true.

Firms that fail to prepare for this change could potentially lose significant amounts of traffic and revenue overnight. Comparisons can also be drawn between these changes and the number of high street retailers that have gone in to administration in recent months; anyone that fails to adapt to a dynamic business environment is bound to be at a distinct disadvantage to firms that are adequately prepared to adapt to change.

Moreover, any retailers that haven’t used Google AdWords before may also be at a distinct disadvantage. Thankfully, there is still time to sign up and familiarise yourself with the system.

How Can Merchants Prepare For The Google Shopping Changes?

In order to prevent your business from losing sales as a result of the Google Shopping Changes, the key is to be proactive as opposed to reactive. Make sure you act now in order to gain a competitive advantage, which will ensure that this revenue stream remains profitable for your business in the future.

• Make sure you fully understand the current traffic and revenue generated via the existing Google Shopping channel.
• Utilise effective market segmentation in order to identify the products/areas that will be most profitable or will drive the biggest margin.
• Establish the tangible and intangible costs associated with utilising the new paid model for the previously determined key areas, including Cost per Click, Potential Return etc.
• Aim to trial your new system in order to ensure that it is generating the desired revenue and traffic; subsequent feedback and reports will allow you to make any incremental changes.
• Make use of Google’s free promotional credit incentives, which range from 10% of your ad spend back, to £75 credit, and are available at:https://services.google.com/fb/forms/shoppingcouponuk/

The Pay Gap chasm

The average salary for men in senior positions in the tech industry is £50,487, whereas women in senior tech positions (if they ever make it that far, but we’ll get to that later) only earn an average of £32,751.
What’s even more astonishing is what women could buy with this whopping £17,736 that they are unfortunately being overlooked for. In 12 months, this representative gender pay gap could pay for healthcare, utility bills, work lunches, mortgage payments, car maintenance, and pension contributions. As an added luxury, you could also afford to pay someone else to take your canine companion for a walk every day!

The same study also revealed that despite the fact women have received an average pay rise of 1% compared to men; most working females will never receive the same pay as men in their lifetime. This is because it is estimated that it will take another 60 years for men and women to be on an even salary playing field in the tech industry.
This works out at a difference in pay of £709,440 over 40 years of work, which equates to either buying 3 houses or feeding your neighbours for 20 years (if you are feeling particularly generous). Alternatively, you could make a massive contribution into your pension fund; guaranteeing you the luxury of shopping in Marks and Spencer for the rest of your days.
Or you could treat yourself to a new car every single year and treat your pet to the life of an a-list celebrity by employing the services of a live in pet nanny.
There is no solid explanation for this slightly alarming revelation, but it one possible explanation could be that is is due to workplace culture.
For example, the I.T. industry is currently perceived as a predominantly male industry. This can then be culturally transmitted into universities, meaning the I.T. industry may not be geared towards young female graduates, and also that women may not be taken seriously in technical roles.
Similarly, some reports into organisational behaviour have suggested that sexism is still pervasive in certain sectors of the I.T. industry; the same reports also suggest that any woman that has wished to climb the corporate I.T. ladder has had to sacrifice her ‘femininity’ in order to do so. Paradoxically, this has lead to certain females being alienated for not fulfilling the cultural stereotype of a ‘normal woman’.
Conversely, due to the fact that the I.T. industry is primarily geared towards males, females can sometimes be overlooked for senior I.T. roles, because past experience has led people to believe that males are more suited to these particular types of job roles.
Distressingly, culture in the workplace is an intangible element, meaning it can take up to 10 years to change. Moreover, culture change needs to be transmitted from the top-down; whilst men are occupying 64 of the 79 board positions available in the top 8 tech companies, there may be some resistance to change for the near future at least.

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This was the result of a massive 17.8% jump in online non-food sales, without which total sales would have fallen.

This surge in online shopping is thought to be due to a combination of the increased effort of many retailers to make their websites easier to find through competitive search engine optimisation, easier to use across all platforms through conversion rate optimisation and UX optimisation as well as the massive increase in popularity of tablets and smartphones.

It is thought that department stores, such as John Lewis and House of Fraser, have benefited most from the boost in online shopping due to their wide range of products ‘under one roof’, and the advent of click and collect services having further increased the convenience of online shopping for the consumer.

Earlier Christmas Sales

Most online retailers attempted to differentiate themselves from their competitors by bringing the start of their Christmas sales forward, with some starting as early as December 23^rd.  Amazingly, it is estimated that there were around 82 million visits to web stores on Christmas Day this year and around 126 million visits on Boxing Day.

Internet retail behemoth Amazon scheduled their Christmas sale to start on Christmas morning, in the hope that they could capitalise on the fact that millions of tablets and smartphones will have been opened on Christmas Day.

Surprisingly, Amazon now sees Christmas Day as the biggest day of the year for MP3 and Kindle downloads, as millions of people begin buying content for their new devices.  However, it isn’t just the digital devices that benefited on Christmas Day; everything from jewellery to outdoor goods also saw a rapid increase in online sales.

According to a recent study by telecoms and broadband regulator Ofcom, Britain leads the field in online shopping.  Britons are now classed as the most avid internet shoppers in the world, and an average UK resident will spend over £1,000 shopping online every year, which is more than in any other country.

For this reason alone, it is imperative that businesses achieve maximum exposure online as the death of high street businesses such as HMV continue to draw ever closer.