Online merchants know what they want to sell to their target markets and plan their inventories accordingly. But as visitors stop by websites to do their shopping, what they want could be something the store doesn’t normally stock. Gaining this kind of insight offers the possibility of earning more sales by adjusting one’s inventory to match those desires.
The latest news from Google’s Inside AdWords tells more about making these determinations. Through the use of the Shopping Assortment Report, online sellers can gain valuable marketing intelligence on finding the brands and products they should consider having available.
Customers of AdWords can access the Shopping Assortment Report in the Google Merchant Center. Google said this will show one the top 100 products not currently being offered, based on one’s “Merchant Center product feed for each Google Product Category.”
Data comes from Google Shopping, where Google assesses the popularity of products. The company claims this provides “a near real-time view into online consumer demand.” With access to such information, a seller can move to fill gaps with either new inventory or coveted yet out of stock regular items that the retailer should work to replenish quickly.
The Shopping Assessment Report provides a 14-day snapshot of products that a merchant’s site did not receive impressions for during that time period, based on the seller’s target country.
Merchants can filter the information by product category and narrow it down to one’s sales niche. The report also gives up to five benchmark prices as seen in Google Shopping so merchants can position their products competitively.
The importance of access to, and acting upon, fresh consumer information should matter to any online seller. Recently, performance marketing firm HookLogic provided a number of insights into shopper behavior in their whitepaper, “Browsing and Buying Behavior By Category: 2015.”
Among the important insights derived from their research includes how direct consumers browse their way to shopping sites and the opportunity to capture additional sales beyond the initial purchasing motivation.
HookLogic’s findings note shoppers go to an average of 2.7 websites to find what they want. Such consumers already know where they want to go to find what they want. But more importantly, HookLogic found more than 40 percent of shoppers will impulse buy something beyond their original shopping intent.
These behaviors emphasize good reasons for the AdWords customer base to look into the Shopping Assortment Report. A currently unavailable product with demonstrated demand may represent sales to be gained with an expansion or replenishment of inventory.
