Bing’s Here Now to Allow Free Product Listing

What’s the next alternative that comes to your mind when people say ‘Google’ - It’s Bing! Yes, that’s what pops in my head too.

Microsoft and Google have always remained the closest competitor and I don’t reckon that any other name is coming to replace either of them in the near future.

If you are an online business owner who keeps up with the trend, then you must’ve come across the news about how Google recently made product listing free on Google Shopping.

This step has transformed the lives of a lot of online sellers and served as a boon. Not even a year has passed and Microsoft is here with another great news. Free product listing on Bing!

Isn’t it great? Now, if you compare the two, Google has dedicated half of the page to the users who wish to list their products for free, where Bing has allotted only the footer that comprises of the free listings. We are not sure about what happens in the future, who knows if a whole new page is dedicated to free product listing?

But for now, does it really matter if it’s the page or a row? I mean - Free MEANS Free, and it is definitely a golden opportunity for eCommerce stores to take complete advantage of.

To sell products online, you need to stay ahead of your competitors. Listing your product on Google Shopping and Bing Shopping can highly increase your chances to rank at a better place.

And now, as these two giant platforms enable you to list your products for free, what more good could you ask from this year?

This feature is currently available to US users and is aiming to be available in Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, and France soon in the upcoming months.

I believe you must be excited to get started with Bing Shopping and make the most out of this feature as fast as possible. So, for such extreme enthusiasm, let me explain to you a few details that you need to know before hitting it off.

Are you eligible for Bing’s free product listing?

Guys, Microsoft has clearly announced that only those users who already have an account of Microsoft Merchant Center Store with approved product offers are eligible to enjoy this perk.

So, if you already are a customer of Microsoft Shopping Campaign, a thumb’s up! But, if you are not, then you are required to create the account in order to become eligible and enjoy a free product listing.

How do you enable free product listing in Bing?

Let me first talk about the users who have a Microsoft Merchant Center Store account. Such users are already in Noah’s arch here. If you already have an account, then there’s nothing more for you to do or worry about. Your verified products will automatically have opted for Bing’s free product listing.

Now, for the users who do not have any Microsoft Merchant Center Store account, then I advise you all to create a Microsoft Merchant Store account and submit a detailed product data feed to enable free product listing on Bing.

A few interesting things to learn about free product listing

Here are a few important and interesting things you should know about free product listing on Bing in accordance with Microsoft:

• The reporting for free Product Listings will be available in Microsoft Merchant Center this year's fall.

• In order to take full advantage of Product Listings, be sure that you send a complete and rich product feed including all of your inventory and stocks to provide a rich data source to feed this fresh experience.

• There will be no payment required as the clicks from the Product Listings section within the Shopping Tab are free.

• All your products need to follow Microsoft Advertising policies and Product Ads policies. Also, all products must meet the product specification requirements just like the paid ads.

• In case, if you wish not to receive this free traffic, you can easily opt-out through the Settings page of your Merchant Center Store by clicking on the Show Free Product Listing in the shopping tab toggle.

Also Read: How to Start with free product listing on Google Shopping - A Step by Step Guide

Why free product listing in Bing is creating so much buzz?

It becomes necessary to cover all the areas where your brand and products can rank better on a search engine. As most of the companies sell products online, it becomes a task for most eCommerce stores to beat the heat.

The first priority of every seller is to appear at the top of the results whenever a keyword is searched. The Shopping tab in Bing Shopping and Google Shopping are targeted the most for easy engagement by the customers.

As per the sources, Bing accounts for 36% of the US desktop search market and 126 million US users did 6 billion searches through Bing the previous year.

There could be nothing more exciting this year when both of our favorite search engines offer free product listing to their users.

The sellers who’ve been holding back from putting their money into Bing Shopping and Google Shopping are free to list their products too and win the chance of catching the eyes of more new customers than before.

Another exciting and buzz-creating fact is that if you already got a Google Shopping data feed, Microsoft makes it easier to import that feed in their Merchant Center. Many of the attributes are shared, and this import option liberates you from a majority of the work you’ve already done before.

The details of supported attributes are outlined in the Microsoft Ads support section, and the instructions will help you in getting your feed set up correctly.

Final Takeaway

Free product listing on Bing Shopping is going to open another door of opportunity after the launch of the same feature by Google Shopping.

The online sellers are more capable enough to get a fair share in the shopping listing which wasn’t the case before.

With Microsoft providing the ease of listing the products for free on Bing, the users are not required to put any extra effort into following any distinguished steps unlike Google if they have a Microsoft Merchant Center account already set up.

Chetan Menaria is Partnership & Collaboration Manager at PixelPhant, an eCommerce & fashion photo editing service provider. PixelPhant edit product images to make them look professional & eCommerce ready.