With more businesses looking to ramp up their online presence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Google has this week launched a new program aimed at helping European retailers make the most of their digital opportunities.
As explained by Google:
“Earlier this summer we pledged to help 10 million people and businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa find jobs, digitize and grow over the next 18 months. Retail, which accounts for more than 9 percent of jobs in the EU alone, will play a pivotal role in the recovery.”
That pledge has lead to the launch of Google’s new “Accelerating Retail” program, with a range of product announcements, updates and education sessions that will run throughout the month of September.
“We’re helping retailers of all sizes across the region be ready for the peak shopping season, and working in close partnership with local commerce and trade associations in many countries.”
As part of the announcement, Google has launched a new version of its “Grow My Store“ tool, which provides actionable advice on how SMBs can boost their digital presence.
“Any business can enter their website URL into the tool to receive a customized report, industry benchmarks, digital traffic trends and actionable tips to improve.”
The tool is similar to the Digital Toolkit that Google launched back in June, which similarly provides a custom report full of recommendations for your business based on your URL.
Google’s also upgrading its Smart Shopping campaigns to improve customer acquisition and simplify advertiser onboarding, while it’s also expanding its ‘Rising Retail Categories‘ data insights tool to cover real-time trends in more regions.
Rising Retail Trends uses Google search data to highlight fast-growing, product-related categories in Google Search, along with the locations where they’re seeing more interest, and the extended search queries associated with each. Initially, the data was only available for the US, UK and Australia, but now it will cover most European regions as well.
These are some helpful additions and tools, and it’ll be interesting to see what else Google launches throughout the month to assist eCommerce businesses.
And while the focus is on European businesses, there are various ways that brands in other regions could use the same insights for their own research purposes, identifying key trends in different markets to predict future demand.
Google says that it will be making more announcements associated with the “Accelerating Retail” program throughout the month.
