Google Merchant Centre

On September 28th 2009, Google introduced a new service called Google Merchant Centre.  This is an enhancement of an existing Google product called Google Base which is a database for consumers.  The new service, which remains free, takes retail products out of this database and makes them available separately throughout the range of Google search services.

The Merchant Centre covers the full sales process with your product feeds and offers a secure checkout.  You can then monitor the status of your items, and the performance of your listings.

While Google Base is still available, Google recommends the Merchant Centre for uploading product feeds as it is better optimised for product listings. The Merchant Centre is the chosen way forward for products, whereas Google Base will feature the rest - Estate Agents being a good example.  However, all future innovative features will be in the Merchant Centre meaning that you can ensure that product listings are receiving the maximum exposure and latest input.

The Google-preferred way of uploading products to the service is by way of a database.  This will involve the creation of a database.  The structure of it would have to comply with Google’s guidelines and there will be a lot of time-consuming work in populating it, although they are simple to operate.

We are currently working with a retail brand that wants to use Google Merchant Centre.  We are creating a brand new website for them.  This means that the new site can be programmed so that the product pages could also accept input from the Merchant Centre database and not have to be populated themselves.

Another big benefit is that suppliers can supply us with a database of their ranges.  This is an obvious advantage for the site.

We are currently working on the logistics and will report back to let you know our results, but I want to know how you have got on with the service?