Google rolls out new features to help small merchants

SAN FRANCISCO: Google has announced new Shopping features that will allow small merchants to update product imagery using generative AI, making it easier to attract new customers.

Merchants can identify themselves with a new small business attribute on Search and Google Maps.

Products in Search sold by businesses with that attribute will have a “small business” label on them, as will businesses on Maps, said the company.

“These new labels will make it easier for shoppers to narrow down their searches and be intentional about shopping with their favourite,” Google said late on Wednesday.

The company is rolling out Product Studio -- a set of AI tools to help merchants create and manage product imagery -- to all Merchant Center Next users in the U.S.

“That includes our experimental AI-powered scene generation feature, which uses a text-to-image generative AI model to help you place products into any creative scene you dream up,” Google noted.

Product Studio will share a few prompt ideas, including holiday-themed scenes, to spark inspiration.

It’s easy to tweak or reuse prompts that worked well for you in the past. You can also remove distracting backgrounds or improve resolution on your product images in one click.

Starting this month in select countries, the knowledge panel that appears on certain retailer searches -- which previously showed details like the location of a business’ headquarters or the number of employees -- will start showing other helpful shopping information, like current deals, shipping and return policies, customer service information and ratings and reviews.

“The knowledge panel will also show for more merchants, offering a helpful snapshot of their business. We’ll showcase information you’re already sharing on Merchant Center, as well as other authoritative information from across the web,” Google informed.