Google Wants to Become the Ultimate Selling Tool for Fashion Retailers
October 16, 2016
Google’s on a mission to become the ultimate selling tool for fashion retailers with a new experience it’s calling Shop the Look. The search engine is already a trusted tool for people on the lookout for fresh attire, but the new setup is designed to make items more tempting and increase sales.
As always, there’s a nice integration with Google’s paid ads, offering a new kind of way to engage with consumers ready to hit the buy button.
Shop the Look
The idea behind Shop the Look is to allow users to browse items from Google Search – except there’s a lot more going on here.
Product images are called in from online stores, fashion blogs and other third party sources; each item is worn by models or shot professionally to make them more appealing. Once Shop the Look gets consumers excited about a product, Google then shows them where they can buy it, or something similar, by linking to relevant shopping campaigns.
For example, when someone searches for ‘cocktail attire’, they’ll get an image carousel of items worn by models:
It’s no secret models have a major impact on consumer decisions. Without even realising it, many consumers buy into the picture rather than the item of clothing itself. We naturally imagine ourselves as the person we see in the image, believing we’ll look every bit as good as they do.
So there’s some genuine psychology at work behind Shop the Look – more than we’re used to seeing from Google ads.
Where things get really interesting, though, is how Google integrates this with paid ads.
Sell products via Shop the Look
The images Google uses for Shop the Look are sourced from brands, bloggers and retailers the search engine partners with. That in itself isn’t much help to you, but when users click to see where they can buy a certain product, you get the chance to show them your ad.
Essentially, Google is getting people excited about your products and then pointing them in your direction.
Google hasn’t released all the details about Shop the Look yet (in fact, it’s still testing the feature) so we haven’t got precise instructions on how to get your ads included. All we know at this stage is they’ll be pulled in from Shopping Campaigns and you’ll need to optimise your bids to show on mobile.
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of conversion rates ads generate via Shop the Look – especially when searches like ‘cocktail attire’ aren’t necessarily high-intent. That said, we fancy this could be where Shop the Look could work some real magic, by tempting lower intent users into buying there and then.
Google is certainly reducing the steps users need to take to buy these products. But the real emphasis seems to be on presenting them in the most tempting way possible and creating a stronger desire to buy. You have to wonder how many impulse buys Shop the Look will lead to when it goes live, which is precisely the kind of shopping habit Google needs to be engaging to create a more sophisticated advertising platform.
Even though we’re still waiting to get the full scoop from Google on what Shop the Look will bring to its paid ads, it’s already got us excited.
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