Google uses structured data to understand the content on a web page. This information can then be used to display the page (for free) in richer features in search results, such as product snippets and merchant listings.

• Product snippets (example below) provide users with more information about a product when it appears in search results, such as the rating, price and availability.
  
  
• Merchant listings are a type of rich result that displays a list of products from a merchant’s website, along with links to the product pages. The merchant listing experiences are: popular products, shopping knowledge panel and annotated images of products available for sale in Google images (example below).
  
  

Note: Product results upcoming deprecation. This filter still appears in Search Appearances but will be deprecated in 2024. Use the Merchant listings and Product snippets filters instead, as they provide better data granularity.

Product rich results using structured data or Google Merchant Center data feed

In the past, product snippets were primarily powered by schema.org. Product structured data, and merchant listing experiences were powered by product details supplied via a Google Merchant Center feed. However, Google has recently made it possible for merchants to be eligible for merchant listing experiences without a Google Merchant Center account, by providing product data on their web pages. This is possible thanks to recent extensions to product-related properties and types in schema.org for areas such as apparel sizing and energy efficiency ratings.

Benefits of using structured data for eCommerce:

• Improved visibility in search results: Structured data can help your products appear higher in search results, which can lead to more traffic and sales.
• Richer search results: Structured data can enable your products to appear in richer search results, such as product snippets and merchant listings. This can make your products more attractive to potential customers and increase the likelihood of them clicking through to your website.
• Increased customer trust: Providing accurate and relevant information about your products in search results can help to increase customer trust in your brand.