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Amazon suffered glitches at the start of Prime Day on Monday, slowing sales on the e-retailer's biggest shopping day of the year. 

Yoav Maor / July 11, 2016 / E-COMMERCE

This article is part of a 2 post series about Google’s Product Listing Ads (PLAs). We will walk you through recent changes in PLAs, and how to create an effective PLA that will drive additional customers to your site.

Product Listing Ads (PLA) are cost-per-click ads that online merchants can purchase through Ad-Words. These ads appear in Google search page results on the top section of the page. Product Listing ads differ from “regular” Ad-Words ads in two very significant ways:

They feature a product image

They are not keyword based – they are focused on products and product categories

As an example, in the search results below, the top two listings are Ad-Words ads, while the images to the right are Product Listing Ads.

Product information that is displayed in Product Listing Ads is drawn from the product data feed. Google maintains a list of required attributes (which varies slightly by country) and failure to provide the correct information for any specific required attribute can results in that product being suspended. Google has recently made a seemingly small change to the required attributes, and now requires that the attributes in the data feed be an exact match to the information on the product landing page. The most likely occurrence of such a violation would be when describing colors.

Previously, merchants were required to use standard colors in the product feed, but were able to use more specific colors on the product landing page. A teal sweater (on the product page) might have been described as “green” in the data feed. With the recent change, merchants are no longer required to just use a “standard” color in the product data feed, they can use any specific color, but whatever color is listed in the feed is expected to to be the same exact color listing on the product page. If the data does not match, the listing can be suspended.

This requirements is not limited to “only” colors, it applies to all required attributes – if any required attribute is listed differently on the feed compared to the product page, the listing can be suspended. There is another category of attributes which are recommended – if data from the product page is not an exact match to data in the product feed for a recommended attribute (of there is no information provided), Google will not penalize the listing.

In addition to the change with required attributes, Google has quietly introduced another change to Product Listing Ads. Anytime the word “best” or “top” will be used in search queries related to products, the PLAs’ will display a numeric ranking – allowing potential shoppers to “see” numeric rankings for sellers.

On mobile devices, top ranked sellers feature a blue flag. The rankings are based on a combination of user reviews and several other factors used to rank PLAs (more information about rankings and how to improve yours will be coming in our next article). Google has been experimenting with this since as far back as 2014, but only recently has this become the new standard. This is an example of what the numeric rankings look like on a desktop:

Exactly how effective or worthwhile are Product Listing Ads? A recent study has found that the first quarter of 2016 saw an increase in revenue from PLAs of over 50% year over year. ChannelAdvisor reported that over the the 2015 Holiday shopping season, PLAs’ produced over 30% more sales than they did in 2014. Google is certainly pushing PLAs in a very meaningful way as well.

Back in January 2016, Google was testing a new search page results format which heavily favored PLAs, showing 16 product listing ads in a “standard” search result. While this model does not appear to have become the official standard, a typical search result will return PLAs in very highly visible locations – top of the page, middle of the page and there have also been reports of PLA results showing on the bottom of the page as well.

Yoav Maor / November 30, 2016 / E-COMMERCE

This guest post was contributed by the Nextopia team. Nextopia provides Internet Retailers with site search, navigation, and merchandising solutions. Using Nextopia’s solutions, retailers are significantly improving shopper experience, helping them sell more.

‘Tis the season to shop until you drop.

Consumers are making their lists (and checking them twice), but surprisingly, they aren’t heading to the mall or shopping from the comfort of their homes on their desktops and laptops anymore.

Today’s tech-savvy consumers will be shopping from virtually anywhere with the swipe of their finger on their mobile devices. According to PWC, mobile shopping is up almost 25% from last year, as shoppers are now using their smartphones to scout out products and monitor deals to pay for products and track packages.

As a retailer, this presents a huge window of opportunity and another chance to drive sales and conversions and close Q4 on a successful note. To boost your mobile shopping experience this holiday season, make sure to try out the following mobile commerce tips.

Autocomplete Sentences Anyone that’s ever shopped online before knows how much easier it is to find your desired item if the retailer offers autocompleted search results. The same applies to mobile shopping. Enabling autocomplete means that your customers only have to type in a few letters to find the search terms they want, which is extremely handy for busy shoppers. Nextopia’s autocomplete helps retailers increase sales and reduce bounce rates by helping customers find exactly what they are looking for.

Pro Tip: Include small thumbnail graphics along with suggested terms to further turn browsers into buyers.

Have an Easy to Locate Search Bar The search bar typically tends to be an overlooked feature of an eCommerce store, especially on mobile when the screen is already that much smaller. It might seem hard to believe, but many retailers still forget to fully optimize their websites for mobile, meaning their search bars can end up in hard to locate spots or they blend into background clutter. Ensure your customers can always find your search bar by putting it front and center and on every mobile page.

Pro Tip: Really make your search bar stand out by ensuring that all search fields (input field and ‘submit’ button) are clearly differentiated and easy to locate. Retailers should also include a recognizable search icon (a magnifying glass tends to work best) to help entice visitors to search.

Always Show Results If you happen to be out of an item or you just don’t carry what someone is searching for, rather than sending them to a ‘no results found’ page, use this as your opportunity to promote similar products or brands to try and save the sale.

Pro Tip: Make sure to add your contact information so if your shoppers have any questions about an item that’s not in stock they can get in touch with you right away.

Increase Button Sizes Anyone that’s ever visited a website or browsed on an app has accidently clicked on things they didn’t mean to because of awkwardly small buttons. You can ensure this doesn’t happen to your shoppers by making all buttons big enough so they can be clicked on properly.

Pro Tip: The most important buttons to make bigger are the search icon and the ‘add to bag’.

By incorporating these tips and techniques into your mobile commerce site, you’ll not only improve the mobile shopping experience for your customers but you’ll also be able to increase sales and conversions and turn more browsers into buyers.

Wal-Mart Buys Out China E-Retailer Yihaodian as Founders Leave

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. bought the remaining 49 percent stake it doesn’t already own in Yihaodian, a Chinese e- commerce company, a week after its founders left to start a new venture.

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