Exciting news for retailers in Southeast Asia: Google Shopping has been finally rolled out in Singapore in February 2017.
Singapore, the first country in Southeast Asia where Google Shopping has been launched represents good news for both retailers and shoppers.
Current eRetail landscape in Singapore
Singaporean e-Commerce market is one of the most promising in the region.
Related: Run Google Shopping Campaigns Worldwide
With 60% of the population making at least one online purchase in the last year is one of the countries with the highest online shopping penetration rate. It sits in Top 10 countries with high penetration rate right between Canada and Australia.
Nonetheless is a small e-Commerce market where revenue from online shopping amounts to 3 billion dollars in 2017 and is expected to reach $5 billion by 2021.
Fashion, and Toys, Hobby &DIY are the verticals performing best and the largest segment is "Electronics & Media" with a market volume of US$918m in 2017.
The Singaporean market size might seem small, especially compared to the e-Commerce market of the top countries, but the high online shopping penetration and the large share of the population that buy goods online make it a very promising one.
How to get started with Google Shopping in Singapore?
1. Start with requesting your Google Merchant Account.
2. Create your feed according to Google's Shopping Feed Specifications. Don't spend much time on optimization at this point. Just aim to get it good enough for approval.
3. Upload it to Google Merchant Center. Most likely you'll see a long list of errors and disapprovals. Focus on getting the Google Merchant Center disapprovals fixed so that your feed is in compliance with Google's requirements.
4. Once your feed is approved start working on optimizing it. When it comes to optimizing your feed sky is the limit, but we recommend you start with this resource here if you are a beginner to this: Beginner feed optimizations for Google Shopping.
If you want to spend more time on optimizing the feed these are the elements of the feed that we advise you to focus on:
- Product Title for Google Shopping. Your product title is where you should spend initially more time on getting it right.
- Google Product Category is essential for success. There are various ways of getting it correct and in the post linked we highlight them.
- The Image of a product listing ad is what shopper sees for the first time. Selecting the one that will sell your product best is something worth spending time on.
- Product Type is not a requirement of Google feed, but it is advisable to have it in your product data. It can turn out valuable in your bidding strategies.
- Adding promotions to your Shopping feed is a great way to stand out and grab the attention of the shoppers.
- GTINs is a required field to your Google Shopping feed, and is used by Google to identify the products and match them to the shopper's query.
Custom labels allow you to organize your product based on criteria such as profitability, seasonality, bestsellers and they are of help when creating the bidding strategies.
5. Now that you have your feed optimized work on getting your bidding strategies for your Google Shopping campaigns in order.
6. It is time for the last piece of the puzzle: Analytics & Reporting. Being able to get information on the performance of every single product is essential. How to review the performance of every single product in Google Shopping and learn how to create filters and customize your view.
There you have it. A long list of steps and actions required for success on Google Shopping.
We can help you get your feed ready and optimized in no time for Google Shopping in Singapore. Get in touch with us for a consultation or a feed review. We will review your feed and let you know what action points you need to take in order to have a feed as optimized as it can be.
Also see: New countries eligible for Google Shopping Ads
