Almost one in twelve product slots still belongs to Google Shopping

The key results

• 8.4% of the product slots on smartphone went to Google Shopping.
• 7.4% of the product slots on desktop were assigned to Google's own comparison service.
• This made Google Shopping the largest single group, just ahead of the next-largest providers in each case.
• In total, we found 34 comparison shopping services on smartphone and 27 on desktop.
• Product blocks appeared in 42 of 50 mobile searches, and in 25 on desktop.

Why the Google Shopping share is surprising

In Shopping campaigns, people fight for small improvements. Merchants optimise product titles, adjust bids and rework their landing pages to use their budget more profitably.

The choice of CSS deserves at least the same attention.

Google Shopping is itself a Comparison Shopping Service, in other words a price comparison service. Google confirms in the Google Merchant Center Help that its own CSS deducts a fixed percentage margin from the merchant's bid before the bid enters the ad auction. This margin is included in the paid cost per click.

The industry usually describes the difference as around 20%. With an independent CSS Partner that doesn't deduct a corresponding margin, the bid can enter the auction in full. We explain how this works in the auction in the post The 20% CSS advantage.

Against this background, it's remarkable that Google Shopping is still the largest single group in our study. The alternative has long been available. Even so, Google's own comparison service remains visibly present.

One caveat: our study covers organic product slots. It doesn't show which CSS runs the paid ads of the merchants concerned. So 8% of the product slots doesn't automatically mean 8% of online shops paying Google's margin.

How we measured

On 31 October 2026, we analysed 50 typical shopping searches for Germany with the language set to German, each on smartphone and on desktop.

The search terms come from ten categories with five terms each: sport, electronics, household, furniture, garden, fashion, beauty, baby & toys, pets and tools. Examples include “kopfhörer bluetooth” (Bluetooth headphones), “heißluftfritteuse” (air fryer), “katzenbaum” (cat tree) and “akkuschrauber” (cordless drill).

We counted every product tile within the organic product blocks examined, along with the comparison shopping service it was assigned to. The Google Shopping group covers links to google.com/shopping.

On smartphone we recorded 1,826 product slots in 42 product blocks, on desktop 1,045 slots in 25 blocks.

The distribution at a glance

The providers in places 2 to 5 differ between smartphone and desktop.

Google Shopping came first on both devices. The gap to the second-largest provider was 1.9 percentage points on smartphone and just 0.5 percentage points on desktop.

Per search, an average of around six to seven comparison shopping services shared a product block. In roughly every second search with a product block, Google Shopping wasn't represented at all.

For merchants, one simple question remains: why still Google Shopping?

Our results are a reason to review your own setup. If you keep running your paid Shopping ads through Google Shopping, that should be a deliberate economic decision.

What matters is the comparison: which services do you get? What fees does an independent CSS Partner charge? And what advantage do you gain when the Google Shopping margin no longer applies?

Leaving a possible margin advantage unchecked doesn't sit well with campaigns where every euro otherwise counts.

Frequently asked questions about Google's product blocks