Dive Brief:

• Google on Thursday announced it will allow merchants to sell via its Buy on Google checkout platform without paying a commission. The company will also let third-party providers, beginning with PayPal and Shopify, facilitate payments.

• Google is testing its Buy on Google commission-free offering with a pilot that will expand to eligible U.S. sellers in the coming months. With the platform, retailers can import their inventory without having to reformat it and can add product information by pulling from an existing database, the company noted in a blog post.

• The company will add a small business filter on the Google Shopping tab along with additional features to assist small businesses. Though the offering will begin in the U.S., it will be available to merchants in other countries later this year and 2021, per the company blog post.

Dive Insight:

Add Google to the other growing list of companies, including Builder.ai, Venmo and eBay, that have devoted digital resources for merchants looking to transition online. The pandemic shifted a lot of nonessential commerce online, so retailers have sought to solicit consumers remotely.

Google's introduction of Buy on Google is a continuation of the tech giant's efforts to connect customers with merchants. Before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company rolled out various tools aimed at boosting small businesses. 

In April, Google allowed sellers to list their products on Google Shopping for free. Last fall, the company updated its Google Lens and Google Shopping features and earlier this year the company launched a tool for smartphone users to see apparel and accessories from various online stores together in one section on mobile search.

"While we still have much work ahead of us, our goal is to make digital commerce more accessible for retailers of all sizes all around the world, giving consumers more choice and more ways to find the best products, stores, and prices," Bill Ready, Google's president of commerce, said in a blog post. 

Google is also among multiple companies, including NBCUniversal and Poshmark, creating shoppable content tools for sellers. Over the summer, the company introduced shoppable video ads on YouTube and a new video shopping platform called Shoploop.