Google Shopping launches in Australia

Google has launched Google Shopping in Australia, a product search engine that helps people discover products online.

Google Shopping (Credit: Google)

When looking for a product, users search for the product as they normally would, and then click a Shopping tab on the left-hand side, like they would the News tab, for example.

This will bring up a page of results with product information, prices and retailers that sell the product. Results can also be filtered by criteria, such as price, brand and store.

Retailers can sign up to have their products showcased on Google Shopping at no cost by submitting a catalogue of their products to the Google Merchant Center, which is also going live today.

The products submitted have to be available, or indicate that there are no products in stock, according to a help sheet for business. There's also a strict "one item, one owner" policy, and no products can be submitted with variable prices — for instance, plane tickets. Prices have to be displayed in Australian dollars and businesses can't put promotional text into feeds or images.

Event tickets, cars, services and products bundled with plans such as mobile phones are not to be submitted.

Retailers advertising products can also now use "Product Extensions", which makes use of the product information submitted, and displays it within ads where relevant.