AI Shopping for India’s Festive Season 2026: Merchant Center Checklist
Abhishek Dwivedi
Team Lead, SEO
AI-assisted shopping is moving from product discovery toward comparison, recommendations and checkout. Google’s September 2026 retail updates make product data, conversational attributes and AI-surface measurement especially relevant before India’s festive buying period. This guide explains what an Indian retailer can prepare now without treating every new feature as universally available.
What changed for AI-assisted shopping in 2026?
Google has announced AI Performance Insights in Merchant Center, richer conversational product attributes, Business Agent experiences and updates connected to the Universal Commerce Protocol. Availability can vary by market and account, so retailers should separate announced capabilities from features already enabled for them. The strategic direction is clear: accurate product data is becoming the foundation for discovery across Search, AI Mode, Gemini and YouTube.
Merchant Center readiness checklist
Audit product titles, descriptions, GTINs, brand names, categories, price, availability, shipping and return information. Keep landing-page data consistent with the feed and add high-quality images that show the product clearly. Review variant handling, sale dates, promotion eligibility and mobile page speed. Add useful attributes that answer comparison questions, such as material, fit, compatibility, use case, dimensions and care instructions. Validate Product structured data and resolve Merchant Center diagnostics before campaign budgets increase.
Measure visibility and profitable demand
Track more than last-click sales. Create a festive baseline for product impressions, clicks, conversion rate, new-customer rate, branded search interest, assisted conversions and margin after discounts. AI Performance Insights is now available to businesses in India, alongside Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. In eligible Merchant Center accounts, compare which products appear across AI surfaces and which attributes are associated with stronger discovery. Use controlled campaign tests instead of changing feeds, bids, offers and landing pages at the same time.
A 30-day festive preparation plan
Week one: clean feed errors and confirm inventory, shipping and return promises. Week two: enrich priority products with comparison-friendly attributes, images and FAQs. Week three: test campaign expansion on a limited product group and verify conversion tracking. Week four: monitor search terms, stock, margin and customer-service questions daily. Build a post-festive retention journey rather than ending the plan at the transaction. Garage Collective brings paid media, e-commerce optimization, creative and measurement into one planning workflow. Explore our Performance Marketing capability or get your free marketing plan.
Sources
Primary references: Google Rethink 2026, Official source 1 and Google’s agentic-commerce retail update, Official source 2. Feature availability and eligibility should be checked inside each advertiser’s Google accounts.
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