• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 8, 2015

UGG, which makes popular cold weather footwear and outerwear, might sell online blue suede shoes, but not red ones. Or a lambskin coat in neutral, but not dark almond. Google now shows marketers the most popular products that are not in a retailer's feed through the Shopping Assortment report in Google Merchant Center.

Americans are expected to spend at a slower pace in 2015 compared with last year. The National Retail Federation estimates online holiday sales to rise between 6% and 8% to as much as $105 billion this season, with overall holiday spending to rise 3.7% to $630.5 billion, short of the 4.1% increase seen in November and December 2014. It excludes sales from autos, gas and restaurants, but includes online spending. It marks the first slowdown since 2011, when holiday sales rose 4.6%, down from 5.2% in 2010.

This is all the more reason retailers and brands need to stay in tune with the types of products consumers want. Google says the Shopping Assortment report can help retailers discover the top 100 products missing from their Merchant Center product feed for each Google product category. It's important to identify popular products the retailer sells, but that they may forget to include. The feature also lets the retailers expand product offerings by identifying popular products they do not currently sell, but may wish to procure from suppliers and add to their product feed. It also identifies any incorrect global trade item numbers (GTINs) associated with the product.

Rank, image, brand, title, description, category, and benchmark prices are in the report. The ranking is based on user clicks and other signals in the specific country, per Google.

Daniel Dutton, strategy leader at Target, says the report has already helped to identify "white space opportunities, from newly emerging products we didn't already carry, to out-of-stock products to prioritize for restocking."