Google is transitioning its popular e-commerce service Merchant Center to a new, easier-to-use tool called Merchant Center Next.
As announced during the recent Google Marketing Live 2023 event, Merchant Center Next is not only getting a fresh coat of paint, it is being upgraded to automate tedious processes like updating product data and delivering better insights.
What’s Changing
While the original Merchant Center made retailers manually set up a product feed and add details like pricing, imagery, and descriptions, Merchant Center Next will do all this automatically.
Once the tool pulls product data, retailers can edit or update information as they need.
If they desire, brands can also opt out of using the automated features.
Along with this, Merchant Center Next will contain a streamlined version of the current Performance tab, which will include a range of new details like:
- Overview
- Competitive visibility
- Pricing
- Demand
- Non-product website results
Merchant Center Next will also allow retailers with multiple physical locations to manage their products at all locations in one view.
Coming in 2024, or Earlier
Some businesses have already been given access to Merchant Center Next, but it may be some time before everyone can use it. Currently, the service is expected to be completely rolled out in 2024.
Once Merchant Center Next is available, retailers already using Merchant Center will be notified.