Google Adding Features to Help Find Holiday Shopping Deals

Close up of a young couple doing online Christmas shopping

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Google is flexing its holiday shopping muscle in 2022 by adding new features for deal-hungry shoppers.

The new features, rolling out in the coming weeks, include the ability for users to compare deals from multiple retailers side-by-side, get price insights, coupon clipping – use it to copy discount codes – and promotional badges that highlight deals.

“For the past year, more than half of U.S. shoppers have visited multiple websites before settling on what and where to buy,” Google said in a statement. “We’re bringing you a new, easy way to cut down on all that research time and compare shopping deals across retailers.”

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When using Google’s search engine, the company says, a new, larger promotion badge will pop up on the searched-for item, such as “15% off with coupon code HOLIDAYS.”

For side-by-side comparisons of specific products searched, shoppers will get a new view of product costs from various retailers.

A new price insights feature is designed to help shoppers decide whether a specific product is a good value. A retailer’s price on an item will be noted as to whether it’s low, typical or high.

More than just saving shoppers time and money, the new features have a financial upside for Google as well. It could mean more money in the bank if retailers become more aggressive with pricing and in their advertising spending as they seek top placement in Google searches.

And across the web, similar shopping tools are available – just not in one place.

Coupon-clipping and offers sites, such as Offers.com and LivingRichWithCoupons, are out there, as we’ve noted in previous stories. Various browser extensions are available as well. One is Amazon Assistant, which lets shoppers see how Amazon’s prices stack up as you shop products on competing sites. See how it works here.

Google’s tools arrive during a holiday shopping season that is ramping up early as inflation-rocked shoppers search for bargains. Consumers are also indicating they’re shopping early, fearing price increases and out-of-stock items as retailers unload overstocks.

Major retailers including Best Buy, Home Depot and Walmart, are already selling Black Friday-priced specials, weeks ahead of the day-after-Thanksgiving shopping event.

And Google's not the only one beefing up its online shopping tools. As we told you, Walmart is fortifying its digital presence, adding virtual and augmented reality features. Using the Walmart or Walmart+ app, shoppers can see what clothes look like on models that are shaped like them, “see” what a television looks like in their living room, and stand in line virtually for a chance to buy a hot new product during Black Friday and other holiday-oriented sales events.

Bob was Senior Editor at Kiplinger.com for seven years and is now a contributor to the website. He has more than 40 years of experience in online, print and visual journalism. Bob has worked as an award-winning writer and editor in the Washington, D.C., market as well as at news organizations in New York, Michigan and California. Bob joined Kiplinger in 2016, bringing a wealth of expertise covering retail, entertainment, and money-saving trends and topics. He was one of the first journalists at a daily news organization to aggressively cover retail as a specialty and has been lauded in the retail industry for his expertise. Bob has also been an adjunct and associate professor of print, online and visual journalism at Syracuse University and Ithaca College. He has a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and a bachelor’s degree in communications and theater from Hope College.