Google ramps up its e-commerce focus with new partnership

Google is increasingly focused on e-commerce, and today it signed a multiyear partnership so it can access ratings and reviews of online retailers.

Google will pay to license ratings from independent provider StellaService, so shoppers will know which merchants are more reliable than others.

The New York-based StellaService has an analytics tool to measure breadth of selection, total time to reach a live representative on the phone, packaging quality, and the speed of customer returns.

With its shopping service, Google is going head-to-head with online retailing giants Amazon and eBay. More shoppers are searching for apparel and other items on Amazon — and bypassing Google — which is putting pressure on the search giant to enhance its shopping product.

“Google is dedicated to building a better shopping experience.  We’re focused on making it easy for people to find exactly what they want at the best online stores” said Brian Marquardt, a product manager from Google Shopping in a statement.