On March 31, Google announced the launch of Retail Search, a new discovery solution that could revolutionize eCommerce shopping as we know it. The tool is built to optimize product discovery for shoppers and empower merchants to reach their sales targets.

According to a company survey, 94 percent of shoppers abandoned their sessions due to irrelevant results for their searches. Search abandonment has left U.S. retailers missing out on $300 billion of yearly revenue, emphasizing the need to provide high-quality experiences for shoppers in the discovery phase.

Enter Retail Search. 

This new tool is a solution for eCommerce retailers to provide their audience with Google-quality search and recommendations on their websites. Retail Search is built with Google’s technologies, which are capable of understanding user intent and context, enabling eCommerce businesses to enhance on-site search and create the ultimate shopping experience.

It is no secret that Google is continuously improving search results and maximizing relevance for all queries. No longer does search purely rely on keywords and Boolean logic, but a contextual understanding that offers a real-world view of what users are looking for.

To this end, the company has built cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that help it understand user intent better and serve relevant search results faster. These exact same technologies are integrated into Retail Search and reinforce it with advanced query understanding that returns higher-quality product search results and recommendations for all queries. 

Google stated in the announcement,

Now, through the power of Retail Search, when a shopper searches for a “long black dress with short sleeves and comfortable fit” on an ecommerce site, they should immediately get results for precisely that—rather than refining their search multiple times, or worse, giving up their shopping journey.

Retail Search can be fully managed and customized by retailers on their own domains, enabling them to tailor shopping experiences to specific target audiences. Site owners can refine what shoppers see, apply custom tags and expand product displays, as they deem fit to boost engagement and conversions.

The tool’s capabilities are:

• Advanced Query Understanding: To better understand what searchers want
• Semantic Search: To match product properties and attributes with site content quickly for faster product discovery
• Optimized Results: To leverage ranking models and user interaction to optimize results
• Advanced Security and Privacy: To protect merchant data and ensure it’s only used for search purposes on their own sites

Retail Search is not the first of Google Cloud’s product discovery solutions. It’s an addition to current offerings such as Vision Product Search and Recommendations AI. All three together make up the entire product discovery solutions suite that allows retailers to increase efficiency, fulfill customer expectations and streamline shopping experiences – marking another win-win for both providers and consumers.

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