How Google Plans To Power Up Mobile Shopping For The Holidays

Just in time for the holiday season, Google is expanding its mobile shopping experience, including showing buying guides for broad categories and adding more information for specific product searches.

“When you search for a specific product, Google.com now shows you other helpful information, like related items, and allows you to compare reviews, prices and other specs, side by side,” wrote Google product management director for Google Shopping, Jennifer Liu, on Google’s The Keyword blog.

Searchers can simply click the “Quick View” button in the Google Shopping ad to preview details like a bigger image, product description, reviews and seller rating — and to see if they can score a good deal by checking if it’s on sale. For those searching for tech gadgets, Google will make sure they’re looking at the latest models.

“You’ll now see a label alerting you there’s a ‘newer model available’ if you’re browsing last year’s product,” writes Liu.

Google also noted its recent knowledge panel updates, a feature that quickly surfaces product photos, videos, reviews and descriptions for product-related searches.

According to company data, some of the more popular product searches leading into the biggest shopping weekend of the year include apparel brands like Vans, Canada Goose and Nike Air Jordan Retro 11; celebrity-endorsed products like Kevin Durant’s Nike KD 10, Pharrell x Adidas and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty makeup line; and gamer gifts like Razer phones, Nintendo Switch and Call of Duty WW2.

As for Google Home, voice searches are trending toward everyday essentials such as paper towels or pet food.

“We’re also seeing people using voice to find other types of products to prep for the holidays — including kitchen tools like basting brushes to perfectly glaze those Thanksgiving dishes, toys to slip under the tree or fuzzy blankets to keep warm by the fireplace,” writes Liu.

Google’s data showed online conversions remain steady throughout November, with spikes on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday — and mobile transaction rates increase 40 percent during the Thanksgiving weekend compared to the rest of the year.

“It’s a sign that mobile researchers [people researching product purchases on their phones] are likely to become mobile buyers over the four-day holiday break,” wrote Google’s head of shopping ads, Emily Eberhard.