Google Updates Product Markup To Support Member Pricing & Sales

Google has released updated guidelines to help merchants add different types of prices to their structured data.

This update improves support for active, sale, strikethrough, and member prices in merchant listings.

What’s New?

Merchants can now communicate more nuanced pricing information to Google Search, making it easier to highlight special offers and or promotions.

The revised guidance includes instructions for using two properties in JSON-LD structured data:

• priceType: Allows merchants to label a price as “strikethrough,” helping them show discounted or original prices for sale items.
• validForMemberTier (beta): Enables merchants to specify a reduced price available only to a particular tier within a loyalty program.

Google says the addition of these properties brings structured data closer to the capabilities available within Merchant Center.

With the introduction of the priceType and validForMemberTier properties, merchants can:

• Showcase “list price” and “sale price” side by side.
• Display tiered pricing for loyalty program members.
• Highlight the number of bonus points or other benefits customers receive when they purchase certain products.

Why This Change Matters

Until now, structured data for product listings allowed for relatively straightforward pricing details, but there was no clear way to show multiple types of prices for the same item.

According to Google, the purpose of these changes is twofold:

1. Easier Specification Of Complex Pricing
   Merchants can more accurately reflect their real-world pricing strategies, including loyalty discounts and temporary promotions
2. Parity With Merchant Center
   This ensures that the information customers see in search results matches Google Shopping and the merchant’s website.

See also: JavaScript-generated markup can lead to less frequent and reliable crawls

Next Steps For Merchants

Merchants interested in using these new properties should review Google’s latest structured data guidelines.

In particular, pay attention to:

• JSON-LD Implementation: How to nest different price properties within the Offer object.
• Beta Features: The validForMemberTier Although the property may not immediately produce visible changes in search results, early adopters can begin preparing their sites for future enhancements.
• Strikethrough Pricing: Properly label the item if you want Google to display the original price alongside a sale price.

Merchants who already use Merchant Center for complex pricing may find that much of the new guidance overlaps with what they’ve been doing.

Visit Google’s Merchant listing structured data documentation for more information.

Watch: Unlocking Google: Maximizing Organic Traffic For Enterprise Ecommerce Sites

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