• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 23, 2020

Brands and retailers using the Buy on Google checkout experience for product listing will no longer pay a commission fee, the company announced Thursday. It’s the second major change the company made this year to help merchants.

The first occurred when the company opened the Google Shopping tab in its search results to free product listings.

“By removing our commission fees, we’re lowering the cost of doing business and making it even easier for retailers of all sizes to sell directly on Google, starting with a pilot that we’ll expand to all eligible sellers in the U.S. over the coming months,” Google Commerce president Bill Ready wrote in a post.

Buy on Google also will integrate with third-party providers, making it easier for merchants to streamline order management and payments. Launch partners include Shopify and PayPal. When users opt-in to buy from participating merchants via Buy on Google, they can choose Shopify or PayPal payment options when available.

Google previously enabled brands to integrate with Google Merchant Center and PayPal in May.

Items available to Buy on Google are tagged with a shopping cart icon in Google Shopping.

Brands new to selling on Google through Shopping Actions automatically will be invited to onboard directly to this new zero-percent commission version of the program.

For stores already live on the platform will migrate their account to the new version within the next few weeks. A Terms of Service overview page in Merchant Center will become available at that time, which is where the brand can accept the new Terms.

Commissions will be capped at 5% or less beginning July 30.

Merchants will also have an option to upload product feeds in the format used for Amazon accounts. These feeds automatically will map to work in Merchant Center. Amazon feeds can be used for full product data to create products or to update existing products, among other ways.