Grinch Who Stole Chinese Christmas: Google Closes Shopping Search

Just in time to halt Christmas consumer joy in China, Google has ended its shopping search service in the country.

Prior to this, Google closed its music search service in China in September 2012, and the new move marks the company’s further diminishment of product lines in the country.

Google launched the shopping search service in China in May 2009 and the search range mainly covered B2C e-commerce websites; however, the service did not gain much recognition among Chinese consumers. Before that, Chinese Internet portal NetEase.com already launched a similar service.

While Google stopped providing the shopping search service to ordinary Chinese consumers, its business service tool Google Merchant Center will still be available to Chinese merchants. Meanwhile, Chinese traders still can promote their products to consumers around the world via Google Shopping.

In addition, other services targeting Chinese trading partners, advertisers and consumers will not be affected. However, Google Merchant Center’s help center will no longer provide Chinese-language email support.