As an eCommerce store owner, you’re keenly aware that pricing, customer loyalty, and visibility are key to success. But what if a tool designed to help shoppers could unintentionally lead them away from your store? The tool? Google Chrome’s Shopping Insights and price tracking feature—a double-edged sword that allows consumers to compare product prices across the web, including your competitors’.
While this feature can build trust with shoppers by highlighting better pricing, it also poses a risk: alerting customers to lower prices elsewhere (aka your competitors), potentially costing you sales. Today, I’ll break down how this feature works, how it can impact or benefit your business, and how you can opt out if you’re concerned about losing customers.
What Is Google Chrome’s Price Tracking Feature?
Google Chrome’s price tracking is tied to Shopping Insights and allows shoppers to monitor the cost of products they’re interested in—whether they’re browsing your store or a competitor’s. Available through Chrome’s browser tools and integrated with Google Merchant Center data, this feature alerts users when a product’s price matches or drops below the typical market rate. It’s part of Google’s broader effort to enhance the shopping experience by offering transparency and convenience.
Here’s how it works for shoppers:
- Price Monitoring: When a shopper views a product page (say, a pair of sneakers on your site), Chrome can display a notification or badge indicating whether your price is competitive compared to other online retailers.
- Alerts for Better Deals: If a lower price is found elsewhere—whether through real-time web crawling or data from Google Merchant Center feeds—shoppers can receive an alert via Chrome. This could be a pop-up notification or an update in their browser’s shopping tab.
Historical Tracking: Shoppers can also opt to track price changes over time, receiving updates if your product’s price drops or if a competitor offers a better deal.
For example, imagine a customer browsing your store for a $50 kitchen gadget. Chrome might notify them that the same item is available for $45 at a competitor’s site. Suddenly, your carefully crafted product page and checkout process are bypassed as the shopper clicks away to save a few bucks.
The Risk to Your eCommerce Store
While this feature is a win for bargain-hunters, it’s a potential huge headache for store owners. Here’s why:
- Lost Sales: If Chrome consistently alerts shoppers to lower prices elsewhere, you could see a drop in conversions as customers abandon their carts to chase deals.
- Price War Pressure: To stay competitive, you might feel forced to lower your prices, cutting into your profit margins—especially tough if you’re a small business competing with giants like Amazon or Walmart.
- Undermined Loyalty: Even loyal customers might be tempted away by these alerts, weakening the relationships you’ve worked hard to build through branding, customer service, and unique value propositions.
The reality is that price isn’t always your only selling point—maybe you offer top-notch customer service, faster shipping, or exclusive bundles. But Chrome’s focus on cost alone could overshadow those advantages, luring shoppers toward competitors.
Could This Actually Benefit Your Store?
Here’s the flip side: if your store consistently offers lower prices than your competitors, Google Chrome’s price tracking could become your friend. Rather than losing customers, you might gain them as Chrome highlights your deals. Here’s how:
- Attracting Deal-Seekers: Shoppers who rely on Chrome’s alerts are often price-sensitive. If your prices are the lowest, those notifications could drive traffic to your store instead of away from it.
- Boosting Visibility: When Chrome flags your products as the best deal, it’s free advertising. Customers browsing competitors’ sites might be redirected to you, increasing your reach without extra marketing spend.
- Building Trust: Consistently competitive pricing showcased through Chrome can position your store as a go-to destination for value, buiilding long-term loyalty among those budget-conscious shoppers.
For instance, if you sell that $50 kitchen gadget for $40 while competitors hover at $45 or higher, Chrome’s alerts could funnel bargain hunters straight to your checkout. If you’ve got a pricing strategy that undercuts the market—whether through bulk buying, streamlined operations, or aggressive promotions—this feature could turn a potential threat into a growth opportunity. Just make sure your margins can handle the volume, and pair low prices with a seamless shopping experience to seal the deal.
How Shoppers Get These Alerts
Google leverages a combination of technologies to power this feature:
- Google Merchant Center Data: If you’re using Google Merchant Center to list your products (e.g., for Google Shopping), Chrome pulls pricing info from your product feed and compares it to feeds from other merchants.
- Web Crawling: Chrome also scans product pages across the web in real time, identifying prices for identical items based on product identifiers like UPCs or titles
- User Interaction: Shoppers can manually enable price tracking for specific items via Chrome’s shopping tools, or they might see automatic notifications if Google deems a price comparison noteworthy.
Alerts might appear as a subtle badge next to a product listing in the browser, a pop-up when the price changes, or a detailed comparison in Chrome’s shopping sidebar. It’s seamless for the user—and potentially disruptive (or beneficial) for your bottom line.
Can You Stop This From Happening?
If you’re worried about Chrome steering customers away—and you don’t have the lowest prices to leverage—there’s good news: you can opt out of having your store’s pricing data included in these comparisons. Google offers merchants control over how their information is used in Shopping Insights, though it requires a little work on your part. You will need to go to Google’s support article here and fill out the form requesting to be opted-out.
Keep in mind that opting out only applies to data sourced from your Merchant Center feed. If Chrome picks up your prices through web crawling (e.g., from your public product pages), those could still appear in comparisons. To fully minimize visibility, you’d need to explore additional tactics like blocking Google’s crawlers via your site’s robots.txt file—though this could impact your SEO strategy, so proceed with caution.
Should You Opt Out?
Before you decide, weigh the pros and cons:
- Pros of Opting Out: You reduce the risk of losing customers to competitors’ lower prices and maintain more control over your pricing.
- Cons of Opting Out: If you do have the lowest prices, opting out could hide that advantage, missing a chance to attract deal-driven shoppers. Plus, some customers might trust your store less without price transparency.
If you’re a low-price leader, embrace the feature and let Chrome bring customers your way. If not, opting out or doubling down on non-price differentiators—like stellar support or exclusive products—might be your best move.
Google Chrome’s price tracking feature is a game-changer for shoppers, but its impact on your eCommerce store depends on your strategy. It could lead customers to competitors with lower prices—or, if you’re the price leader, turn Chrome into a salesperson driving traffic your way.
Scott Sanfilippo began his eCommerce journey in 1994 by co-founding one of the Internet’s first online retailers, TheFerretStore.com, which was acquired by PetCo in 2006. In 2001, he co-founded the eCommerce design and marketing firm Solid Cactus, which was acquired by web.com in 2009. Today, Scott is the General Manager of Your Store Wizards and lives in Delray Beach, FL. Scott can be contacted at scott@yourstorewizards.com.