Google Merchant Center turns on native checkout by default for Shopify stores
Google has begun emailing Merchant Center users whose e-commerce platforms support the Universal Commerce Protocol to tell them their products are now eligible for native checkout. For Shopify stores, eligibility is automatic: the storefront is matched to Merchant Center and products are included without any setup.
The change means shoppers can complete a purchase inside AI Mode on Google Search and inside Gemini, paying with Google Pay through the UCP integration. UCP-powered checkout first appeared in February and was pushed to a wider group of retailers last Friday.
Retailers who would rather keep transactions on their own site have to opt out. The switch sits in the Shopify admin under Sales channels, then Agentic, and Google says merchants keep ownership of their customer relationships, data and sales either way.
For brands tracking how they show up in AI answers, the shift moves the point of conversion into the assistant itself. A product that is cited in an AI Mode response can now be bought in the same surface, which puts more weight on Merchant Center feeds and product data than on the landing page.
Reported by Search Engine Roundtable ↗
Topics: AI Mode, Gemini, Google Search