Google is notifying Google Merchant Center merchants of a new program called the Shopping experience scorecard. In short, Google is telling these merchants that if they provide an “excellent customer experience” Google will in turn reward those merchants with “a boost in rankings,” “a badge” and “other benefits that will help consumers find your business,” within the Google Shopping tab in Google Search.
The email. Menachem Ani received the email from Google today and posted a screenshot of it on Twitter:
More details. If you click on the link in his Tweet, while logged into your Merchant Center account, you will see the new scorecard section:
There is a help document that explains that “the program will monitor the experience you provide to customers in several areas, including shipping speed, shipping cost, return cost, and return window. You’ll be given a rating of “Excellent”, “Comparable”, or “Opportunity” on each metric. “
To see your performance for each metric and your overall score:
- Sign in to your Merchant Center account.
- From the navigation menu, click Growth.
- Click Shopping experience scorecard.
Why we care. If you are a merchant and part of Google Merchant Center and you know you can provide that level of “excellent” customer service, then it might make sense for you to share these metrics with Google so you can gain better visibility in Google Shopping.
Google did add that if you do not provide the data, you will “not be penalized” – so there is not reason to feel pressured to provide the data to Google, outside of knowing that other merchants might and they might benefit, while you may not.
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Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry’s personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.