Google LLC aims to challenge Amazon.com Inc.’s dominance of the e-commerce market by making it easier for traditional retailers to put their products in front of users.

The means with which the search giant is looking to achieve this is a new set of features called Shopping Actions that it unveiled this morning. Merchants can use the service to let consumers make purchases directly in Google’s search engine and the Google Assistant virtual assistant, using a new universal shopping cart.

Shopping Actions expands upon the company’s existing Google Express e-commerce portal for buying products from leading retailers. When a consumer looks up a phase such as “where to buy moisturizing soap,” the search results will display a carousel of the available products from partner merchants. Each entry includes an image of the offering along with key details, including the price, its average customer rating and the expected delivery time.

Complementing the feature set is a capability that will enable retailers to integrate Shopping Actions with their rewards programs. Moreover, merchants can give Google access to their product catalogs and display shopping recommendations directly within the search bar. Google said Shopping Actions not only can bring up relevant goods, but also can do so at the times when a given consumer is most likely to buy them.

On top of its search engine, the company is also bringing native shopping features to Google Assistant. The two services, along with Google Express, are linked by a new universal shopping cart. The feature lets users buy products they’ve selected across the three services in one place with the help of an option to save their credit card details for easy reuse.

Shopping Actions addresses a potentially massive revenue opportunity. According to Google, the number of searches containing the phase “how to buy” grew by a staggering 85 percent in the past two years. This large and rapidly growing market reach could put the company in a strong position to take some share away from Amazon, which itself has challenged Google’s search dominance because so many people go directly to Amazon.com to search for products.

Google will generate revenue from Shopping Actions by charging a fee for every transaction. The benefit for retailers, of course, is more sales. Early adopters of Shopping Actions have seen about a 30 percent rise in the size of shopping baskets along with higher conversion rates, according to Google. Early users include Target Corp., Walmart Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp.

Image: Google