Update 25th October 2023, Hiroki Tanaka discovered that Buy on Google for Youtube will also be removed. As per the official documenation.
In a recent development that comes as no surprise, Google announced that it would discontinue its ‘Buy on Google’ feature in September 2023. Initially launched in the United States and subsequently in France, the feature had already been withdrawn from the French market as of November 2021. At that time, when queries were raised regarding the possible discontinuation in the US, Google declined any such plan. However, the current scenario reveals a different story.
The ‘Buy on Google’ trajectory suggested a possible discontinuation in the US market as Google generally doesn’t remove countries from the feature unless there are plans to phase it out completely.
‘Buy on Google’ functioned on a commission-based model, with Google overseeing the checkout process. The primary intent behind this feature was to expedite the purchasing process for consumers by eliminating the need to visit the merchant’s website for checkout.
In May 2023, Google introduced another feature known as ‘Quick Checkout‘, enabling users to directly access the merchant checkout for Shopify users directly, thus bypassing the product landing page. Nonetheless, merchants have not taken kindly with this feature as it circumvents upselling, cross-selling, and optimization capabilities. Upsetting many merchants.
In response to this feedback, Google is rolling out a new attribute that allows merchants to opt out of the ‘Quick Checkout’ feature. At the time of writing, this attribute has not yet been launched.
Despite these changes, Google continues to face significant challenges in creating a practical quick checkout feature, indicating a necessity for substantial work and innovation in this area.