Google AI Mode is recommending pricier products (good news for brands?)

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Happy Monday, 10,000+ Shopify rockstars!

Ada here, with your weekly dose of ecommerce insights designed to boost your store's sales by at least 1% this week.

Here is what is inside today's edition:

• Google AI Mode is recommending pricier products

• Growth Hack: Turn Your Product Page Into a Customer Research Tool

• Challenge: Add customer research to your page in 5 mins

• Ghost Lashes.

Let's get into it.

Google AI Mode is recommending pricier products (good news for brands?)

A Productrise study of 2M+ product listings found something surprising: when the exact same product appeared in both Google AI Mode and traditional search, the AI result was 21.6% more expensive on average. Even more interesting, only 1.28% of products overlapped between the two experiences.

For Shopify merchants, that suggests AI Mode is using a very different playbook from traditional Google Shopping. Lowest price may matter less, while richer product data, reviews, availability, brand authority and relevance to the shopper’s question may carry more weight. That could be good news if you’re a smaller brand that can’t win a race to the bottom.

The other big finding: for the same product, Google chose a different seller almost 50% of the time. So ranking well in normal Shopping doesn’t mean you’ll be the merchant AI chooses.

1% takeaway: Don’t just compete on price. Improve the information feeding Google… richer product titles and descriptions, Product Highlights, accurate availability, strong reviews and consistent pricing across your feeds. AI shopping may give well-optimized brands a new way to beat cheaper competitors.

Growth Hack: Turn Your Product Page Into a Customer Research Tool

Most brands treat customer research like homework: one post-purchase survey, then “Hey Claude, what do our customers want?” 😅

Loop takes a smarter approach. After a customer interacts with the product page, it asks a simple question: “What made you feel this way?” …a tiny feedback prompt that can uncover the why behind a customer’s reaction (while they’re already engaged with the product).

The clever part is that you don’t need to sacrifice conversion to get the insight. If your product page is already converting, use it to quietly collect extra customer intelligence.

Challenge: Try it on your store in minutes

• Add a one-question feedback prompt to your product page. Your task this week: Use Outgrow templates (no code required)

• Ask about the customer’s reaction, hesitation or motivation.

• Keep it optional and ridiculously easy to answer.

• Review responses weekly and use the language customers actually use in your ads, PDPs and offers.

Your customers already know you what to improve. You just need to ask.

The New Rules of Online Visibility

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Trend: Ghost Lashes

Ghost lashes are the barely-there alternative to heavy mascara and dramatic falsies. Some people leave their lashes completely bare, while others use products like clear mascara for subtle definition. The trend sits inside the wider Statement Lashes wave. Shoppers are increasingly treating their lashes as a beauty category of their own, experimenting with everything from minimalist ghost looks to cluster, angel and fairy lash styles, each one expressing something specific about how they want to show up.

3 ways to cash in on this trend

Build the natural-lash routine. Lash serums, curlers, clear mascara and gentle eye products can be merchandised around the barely-there aesthetic rather than selling a single trending product.

Sell clear mascara as the finishing step. It fits naturally into the ghost lash look and makes an easy add-on or bundle partner for other lash products.

Create the tutorial content. Show customers how to create ghost lashes and other trending lash styles, then connect each look to the products needed to recreate it.

Till next Monday,

Ada