The integration of BigCommerce, Magento, and PrestaShop with Google Merchant Center is going to be terminated on March 20, 2018. The news was reported via an email sent to BigCommerce retailers, reports Sales & Orders.
Google is Dropping Merchant Center Feed
According to the email, retailers on BigCommerce, PrestaShop, and Magento are going to have their apps and feeds decoupled and retired on March 20, 2018. The integration of these platforms was first announced in October 2016, which made it much easier for businesses to promote their products through the Google Shopping service.
The three companies are responsible for providing tens of thousands of small businesses with ecommerce solutions. Data from Datanyze has Magento with 156,046 websites, followed by PrestaShop with 100,399, and BigCommerce with 44,155.
As for why Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) decided to end this collaboration only a little more than a year after it was announced, the company said in the email it was in order to, “…better focus on solutions that will make the Shopping ads onboarding a more seamless experience. We’re continuing to work with e-commerce platforms to explore more frictionless integration opportunities.”
If you use one of the above-mentioned platforms with Google Shopping, the feeds will continue to work until the cutoff date, March 20. So this means you will have almost two months to find other applications which will support your specific platform.
Alternatives to Google Merchant Center
There are several alternatives to Google’s Merchant Center, but you have to keep in mind Google’s dominance in the search segment. Depending on the vertical in which you are selling your products as well as different factors, you can try Amazon Marketplace, Facebook Ads, Bing Shopping and others.
What is Google Merchant Center?
Google Merchant Center is designed to simplify the process of uploading and maintaining product information, such as pictures and pricing, so they can be displayed for relevant Google Shopping queries.
The service lets you manage the appearance of your online business across all Google e-commerce products in a single dashboard and make changes to your listing as needed for new products. It integrates and supports Google AdWords and Google Analytics, along with Google Local Search, online product reviews, direct website funnels, and accurate Google Shopping listings.
As of this posting, Google hasn’t made an official announcement regarding the discontinuation of the service beyond its emails to merchants.
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This article, “Small Retailers, Google Drops Integration with BigCommerce, Others” was first published on Small Business Trends