Searching for almost any product on Google today reveals a dramatically transformed results page. Product packs and scrollable carousels of individual listings now appear multiple times on a single search results page, fundamentally altering how consumers discover and purchase goods. This shift, while gradual, has profound implications for ecommerce strategy. Brands that continue to treat traditional organic listings as their primary search visibility channel risk being outmaneuvered in what is rapidly becoming the central battleground for online retail.
Data from a comprehensive analysis of more than 63,000 merchants across a broad set of ecommerce keywords from January 2025 through January 2026, conducted with the help of Nozzle, reveals a clear picture: product packs have evolved from a supplementary search feature into a primary purchase touchpoint for commercial queries. The analysis tracked searches that returned as many as 60 individual organic product listings on a single page. These premium placements are now where the purchase journey begins for a growing share of consumers, and the competitive landscape is already intense.
The Illusion of Visibility: Appearances Do Not Equal Traffic
A critical distinction emerging from the data is the gap between simply appearing in a product pack and actually winning traffic from it. This gap can be surprisingly large and is often misunderstood. For example, eBay appears in product results for 874,621 keywords within the dataset, while Home Depot appears for a comparable 831,699 keywords. However, the estimated traffic from those appearances is wildly different. eBay drives approximately 3.2 million visits from product pack results, while Home Depot drives nearly 28.8 million from a slightly smaller keyword footprint.
The difference is not about the breadth of keyword coverage but about position quality within the pack. Home Depot’s products consistently appear in visible, above-the-fold positions where shoppers actually see and click them. eBay, on the other hand, tends to win visibility across a vast number of long-tail marketplace terms that drive a smaller overall impact. Google uses product packs strategically to drive awareness for common, everyday products tied to high-volume head terms. For marketers, this means that simply reporting total appearances is a vanity metric. The real opportunity lies in segmenting data by category, prioritizing those with higher search volume and demand to understand where product pack performance can truly move the needle.
The Horizontal Scroll Problem: Visible Versus Non-Visible Placements
Product carousels scroll horizontally, meaning the first few slots receive dramatically more exposure than listings hidden further back. This makes the distinction between visible and non-visible appearances a critical metric for understanding true reach. Analysis of major retailers highlights this disparity starkly. REI, with 3.8 million products, has 1.52 million of its appearances requiring scrolling to be seen. Walmart, with 3.5 million unique products, holds 1.29 million non-visible placements.
Even for industry leaders, aggregate numbers can mask how much of their presence is effectively out of reach for shoppers. Analyzing the split between visible and non-visible appearances is the clearest way to identify where improvements in product data and feed optimization will drive the greatest returns. For CMOs, the key question is not how many product pack appearances a brand has, but what percentage of those appearances are actually visible to users. That ratio is a far more accurate reflection of the channel’s contribution to the business.
Does Discounting Drive Visibility? The Data Says No
A common hypothesis is that discounted products send stronger pricing signals to Google, earning better placement in product packs. However, the data across the top 10 merchants does not show a clear relationship between discounting and visibility. Amazon.com leads all merchants with 49% of its catalog discounted and a visibility rate of 72%, which is strong but ranks in the middle of the pack. eBay takes the opposite approach, discounting just 8% of its products, yet it ties for the highest visibility rate in the dataset at 81%. Walmart Seller discounts only 24% of its catalog and also reaches 81% visibility, while Walmart itself, discounting 27% of products, ranks near the bottom at 62%.
The pattern simply does not hold consistently. Merchants with high discount rates are not uniformly more visible, and merchants with low discount rates are not penalized. This indicates that discounting is likely one signal among many, and not the primary mechanism determining visible placement. Feed quality, category relevance, review signals, and image standards appear to carry significantly more weight. For retail teams, this suggests that resources heavily allocated to promotional pricing to win visibility may be better spent elsewhere. Success in the current landscape depends on building presence where users make purchasing decisions and prioritizing strategic coverage over price reductions.
Specialist Brands Outmaneuvering Retail Giants
One of the most encouraging findings from the analysis is that product pack success is not limited to the largest retailers. Specialist brands with focused category expertise are competing extremely well against much larger players. Camp Chef, for example, appears in product results for only 155,299 keywords—a fraction of the footprint of Walmart or eBay. Yet Camp Chef generates an estimated 2.6 million visits from those appearances, with above-the-fold positioning that rivals Home Depot. Vertical ecommerce brands like Fellow are generating meaningful exposure as they expand into categories like high-end coffee makers. Fire Maple generates more than 1 million estimated visits from 185,184 keyword appearances.
These brands are winning meaningful traffic against retailers many times their size because product packs reward category relevance and feed quality, not just brand scale. For brands that have historically felt outmatched by larger competitors in traditional SEO, product packs represent a real opportunity to compete on a more level playing field. Strong product data, competitive pricing, quality imagery, and robust reviews can outperform a much larger retailer for the keywords that matter most within a specific category. For agencies, this channel rewards focus and quality over scale. A brand with genuine depth in a category can translate that expertise directly into product pack performance in ways that broader competitors struggle to match.
Visibility Is Not Static: The Need for Continuous Monitoring
Looking at the full dataset, one pattern is consistent across nearly every merchant: product pack visibility shifts throughout the year. Brands that held strong positions during parts of the year saw meaningful fluctuations as Google changed how product results surfaced. Some merchants grew steadily through midyear before pulling back in Q4. Others spiked during promotional periods before returning to baseline. This is simply how the channel operates. Feed quality, product availability, review volume, pricing, and image standards all influence placement, and Google regularly updates how these results are surfaced.
The brands that respond most effectively are those with consistent visibility into their performance, enabling them to spot changes early and act before those shifts impact revenue. Looking ahead, future Google I/O announcements and the deeper integration of AI through models like Gemini 3 will fundamentally reshape product packs through the rise of agentic commerce and the Universal Commerce Protocol. In this environment, Google’s central challenge will be balancing paid and organic visibility. A two-tiered search economy is already emerging, where citation in AI Overviews is becoming critical for brand recognition, influencing both organic and paid product pack performance.
The Fundamentals of Winning in the Product Pack Era
Google’s product packs have evolved from a supplementary feature into a primary purchase touchpoint for commercial searches. The competition for this space is already intense, and the leaders are pulling ahead. The gap between brands paying close attention and those that are not is already measurable in traffic and revenue. The good news is that the fundamentals of winning in this channel are within reach for most brands: strong product data, smart pricing strategy, quality creative, and consistent monitoring. None of that requires a massive budget. It requires focus, the right tools, and the right questions being asked at the right level of the organization. The brands that treat product packs as a strategic priority rather than a secondary channel will be the ones that capture the next wave of ecommerce growth.
