Google Merchant Centre - Does anyone use it? - UK Business Labs

South East Snooker Academy · #1 (**permalink**) 23-12-2011, 08:42 PM

Does anyone on here use Google Merchant Centre, as I've got installed on our website and never actually used it.

I the New Year I want to start using it, but only if it's likely to increase business, so is it worth using?

**Paul Norman** · #2 (**permalink**) 28-12-2011, 10:39 AM

Uploading your products to the google merchant centre is just one of a number of things that you should do. Its impact will be modest, but so is the effort required - and it does gain a little bit of traffic for us.

South East Snooker Academy · #3 (**permalink**) 28-12-2011, 03:09 PM

What do you mean by the impact and effort will be modest?

diggersjohn33 · #4 (**permalink**) 17-01-2012, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Cue Store

What do you mean by the impact and effort will be modest?

Not much work required, not much benefit.

Go for it!

South East Snooker Academy · #5 (**permalink**) 17-01-2012, 11:38 AM

So is it really worth it?

Ventutec · #6 (**permalink**) 17-01-2012, 02:15 PM

I think the GMC is perhaps still focused for the US e-commerce market, its slowly getting an uptick in the UK market, but I think it will be a while before it really drives any real value or revenue to a UK based e-commerce store.

Additionally, Google keep changing the required attributes for products in order for them to be listed in the GMC, therefore, you will need granular control over your product feeds, unless your looking to do it by hand, and depending on how many product you have this could be a 5 sec job, to a week long slog, each and every time google updates its product listing requirements

Geoff.

BUZZB · #7 (**permalink**) 11-02-2012, 11:45 AM

It takes about 10 mins to add your feed and a day or two to get approved, if you get just one sale out of it then yes it is worth it.

Iresources · #8 (**permalink**) 12-02-2012, 02:28 PM

It is definately worth doing simply because it is free and has the potential to bring additional traffic to your website, something that other shopping engines; kelkoo, shopzilla etc charge for.
Try and include as much detail in your feed as possible including maximising the 70 character limit in the product description to ensure better search results

Alan2011 · #9 (**permalink**) 13-02-2012, 01:33 AM

Does Google Merchant Center have the market , i think many people buy items from ebay .

Iresources · #10 (**permalink**) 13-02-2012, 08:05 AM

eBay uses Google shopping, if you search for a product you will see eBay (and Amazon) listing across the first page.

paulfeakins · #11 (**permalink**) 28-05-2012, 04:28 PM

You should almost certainly be selling on eBay as well as your own shop, they will work together to drive more sales to both.

Is Google Merchant Center different from Google Base? Does it take the same product feed XML?

South East Snooker Academy · #12 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 11:24 AM

I've tried the eBay route and got nothing from it.

I did a post about using eBay for business - Anyone Using eBay For Business

TandemSolutions · #13 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 12:45 PM

its rather hand, we use it with zen cart but the feed does need some modification to work better with google merchant

paulfeakins · #14 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Cue Store

I've tried the eBay route and got nothing from it.

How long did you try for? What did you do? Have you read any books about selling on ebay? There are plenty out there!

TandemSolutions · #15 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Cue Store

I've tried the eBay route and got nothing from it.

I did a post about using eBay for business - Anyone Using eBay For Business

like i just said in another post: see article on our ebay project E-commerce, Content Management Solutions and Web design by TSG Creative

300% traffic increase in 1 day, its all about the keywords and title.

South East Snooker Academy · #16 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 02:02 PM

I tried it for about 6 months and nothing came from it.

I've read the Dummies Guide to running an eBay business.

paulfeakins · #17 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Cue Store

I tried it for about 6 months and nothing came from it.

I've read the Dummies Guide to running an eBay business.

Those Dummies Guides can be good sometimes, 6 months sounds long enough too. Perhaps the price was too high or there just wasn't enough demand? I don't know?

South East Snooker Academy · #18 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 03:30 PM

TandemSolutions, I've just read the link.

What do you mean by - small changes to the website but significant work behind the scenes on an Ebay store which resulted in traffic increases.

Is that on an eBay Store by itself or a website as well?

Paul, I had the items on eBay for the same prices that they were on the The Cue Store Website. I now know that I would have been losing about 15% due to eBay Listing Fees, eBay Final Fees and PayPal Fees.

TandemSolutions · #19 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Cue Store

TandemSolutions, I've just read the link.

What do you mean by - small changes to the website but significant work behind the scenes on an Ebay store which resulted in traffic increases.

Is that on an eBay Store by itself or a website as well?

it was both, they had a website and an eBay store that sold their products. The eBay store was working better so we redirected products from the website to eBay.

Gave their eBay store a little makeover and changed descriptions, title and keywords.

South East Snooker Academy · #20 (**permalink**) 30-05-2012, 03:51 PM

How did you redirect the products for the website to their eBay store?

Didn't know you could change titles and keywords on eBay.