Social Shopping May be Uncertain, but Online & In-Store Have Never Been More Connected

What Happened: Holiday eCommerce sales in the US increased 8.7% YoY to a record $241.1B, even with consumer pessimism about the economy in 2024. This increase was driven by holiday promotions starting as early as October as well as an increase in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payment values in 2024. Additionally, many consumers were looking to avoid tariff-related price hikes in 2025. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans saw December as a “good time for major purchases”, such as electronics, appliances, furniture, and cars, a 10% increase from November. Though sales increased, retailers are bracing for a surge in post-holiday returns with “over $122 billion in merchandise” already returned worldwide and expected to climb to $133B. This 28% YoY increase in returns has prompted retailers to consider adopting more nuanced return policies to discourage return abuse and fraud.?

Looking ahead into 2025, consumers aren’t the only ones worried about upcoming tariffs and uncertainty. Retailers, such as Costco, are rushing to import goods, while merchants like Steve Madden and Academy Sports and Outdoors, are shifting sourcing away from China. In an effort to protect its business from the proposed tariffs, Temu is entering the paid search business. Through ad revenue, Temu may be able to offset costs associated with tariffs and compete with Amazon by offering a complete seller ecosystem with ads and tools to manage inventory and logistics. In fact, eMarketer predicts Temu’s US marketplace sales will grow 59% this year to $30.8B – 3x bigger than Walmart’s third-party marketplace.?

Despite growing competition, Amazon still accounted for 41% of eComm sales in 2024, a 9.9% increase YoY. The retail juggernaut’s multiple sales, fast shipping, and partnerships with Grubhub+ and gas stations offering discounts, has continued to build loyalty among its Prime members. But not all is smooth sailing for Amazon, who faces obstacles, such as an FTC antitrust suit and fierce competition from cheaper ecommerce marketplaces. Even then, Amazon can stand to benefit from looming tariffs challenging their non-US based competitors.?

On top of that, the less than 24-hour TikTok ban almost brought TikTok Shop’s demise, after its rapid rise in popularity—a could-have-been win for Amazon but also for Etsy’s DePop, Rue 21, and Shein, who were poised to absorb the Shop’s customers. Less than a day before the inauguration, the incoming administration promised an executive order to delay enforcement of the ban, to buy more time for an American company to become 50% owner of the platform. If the ban does still come to fruition down the line, TikTok’s US tech partners (such as Oracle who hosts the app) could face penalties of up to $5,000 per person who has access to TikTok.??

The future of eCommerce marketplace dominance aside, it begs the question, how will Google SERPs evolve in reaction to the potential change in landscape???

Impact on Search: The future of TikTok marketplace will be on the SEO community’s radar but right now, the industry is more focused on the latest SERP features; especially considering how holiday shopping soared YoY.??

Google has been testing new SERP features this past holiday; and Q3 retail SERP data (may have) foreshadowed what we see as the 2025 SERP evolvement. In Q3’24, Dentsu Search Intelligence reported a YTD YoY decline in short video within mobile SERPs by -60%, ahead of TikTok’s “looming fate” by Congress in Q4. Q1-Q3 2024 also reported TikTok’s mobile retail SERP SOV clocking in at second overall (9% SOV) behind YouTube (81%), followed by Instagram (3.35% SOV), then Facebook (3.24%). Whereas additional and/or emerging mobile retail SERP features such as standard video (+105% YoY) and AIO (+100% YoY) steadily grew alongside merchant listings (+21% YoY). What’s notable about these shifts is merchant listings (organic PLAs) didn’t see the growth we are used to seeing over this past year.??

It looks like the Googs might be trying to diversify how products and their availability show up in SERPs. Towards the end of Q4 2024, we reported in our November newsletter how Google Maps launched a feature where users could search for products in addition to storefronts nearest them. Following this, SEOs within the community have noticed ripple effects of additional local features unfolding- specifically impacting organic product grids, GBP, and map pack. Starting first with organic product grids, they now elicit titles such as “In Stores Nearby” and before that, “Fast Pickup or Delivery”. These local inventory organic product assortments within the merchant listing grid are triggered by local inventory feeds submitted within Google Merchant Center. Local inventory feeds are a list of products that are sold on a store-by-store basis, carrying unique product IDs, store codes, availability statuses, price tiers, and stock quantities. As of late last year, local inventory feeds submitted in GMC are starting to expand their tentacles in retail SERPs. Now, inventory status is showing in map packs via ‘in stock’ blue checkmarks as well as inventory search capabilities within Google Business Profiles. SEOs can now edit and add products to GBP which will display as inventory availability on storefront locations in Google. Still, in stock statuses across products uploaded in GBP will be best supported by local inventory feeds via GMC.??

This SEM focused process now has even bigger implications for local SEOs. For most of 2024 we talked about the impact and weight organic product grids have continued to hold and carry in retail SERPs, we are now seeing a new type of organic product result, with heavy dependency on availability. Knowing the return rates and customer frustration on return policies post-holiday, perhaps this is the Googs way of facilitating more in-store foot traffic for consumers who are fed up with 100% reliance on eCommerce.??

It’s worth dedicating further SEO research on what on-page and off-page strategies trigger these experimental local inventory SERP results. For instance, ‘in stock’ could be an experience reflected at the PDP And PLP level, with prompts for users to input zip code or even auto-default. Say the pricing team has different promotions by region or zip code, are those pricing strategies dynamically updating on-page for the customer as well as Google. If Google is aware, it is imperative that organic products in SERPs display the most accurate pricing for consumers, no matter where they live.??

Google has even more tricks up their sleeve with the latest beta SERP feature “What People Are Saying”, which consolidates conversations being had on social platforms. SEOs are also starting to notice the rise of product variants embedded within organic web listings of product pages. We recommended in newsletters previous on testing PDP variant schema to show for this beta result, which, is now starting to pick-up speed. This just goes to show that tried and true schema execution is expanding significantly, further validating and warranting test-and-learn strategies. As SEOs it is imperative that we remain curious. We often joke that retail SERPs are “continuously changing” but it is abundantly clear, now more than ever, how that “continuous evolvement” mantra is now our constant.??