Pillow Talk, one of Australia’s leading homewares retailers, uses Athos Commerce to optimize product feeds across Google Merchant Centre, Google Shopping, eBay, and Bing. By improving feed structure, product data quality, and ongoing optimization, Pillow Talk achieved a 104% year-on-year increase in organic clicks and a 62% increase in organic impressions from Google Shopping Free Listings, while more than 90% of its product catalogue received at least one Google Shopping impression every day over a 90-day period. 

The Brand

For almost 50 years, Pillow Talk has helped Australians create homes that feel comfortable, stylish, and personal. Founded in Brisbane in 1977, the Australian-owned retailer has grown from a single store into one of the country’s leading destinations for bedding, bath, homewares, and lifestyle products.

From premium quilt covers and pillows to furniture and decorative pieces, Pillow Talk offers a carefully curated range designed to balance comfort, quality, and accessible style. Today, the brand operates more than 70 stores nationally alongside a growing ecommerce presence, serving everyone from first-home renters to established families refreshing their spaces.

A big part of the brand’s success comes from its omnichannel approach. Customers can browse inspiration and products online, then visit stores to experience fabrics, textures, and styling displays in person before making a purchase.

Business Problem

As Pillow Talk expanded across digital channels, managing and optimizing product data became increasingly complex.

The business already had an established eBay presence, but growth into channels like Google Merchant Centre required far more flexibility and control over product feeds. Existing processes made it difficult to efficiently manage and optimize product data across multiple channels. 

Some of the key challenges included:

• Limited flexibility in feed structure and data transformation
• Time-consuming manual updates to titles, categories, and descriptions
• Difficulty managing channel-specific feed requirements across platforms
• Inconsistent product attributes and data quality across listings
• Heavy reliance on manual processes to maintain feeds

Without a scalable feed management solution, expanding into new channels and maintaining high-quality product data became increasingly difficult for the ecommerce team.

Athos Commerce Solution

To support its growing ecommerce strategy, Pillow Talk partnered with Athos Commerce to implement a more flexible and scalable feed management solution.

One of the deciding factors was Athos Commerce’s local support team. Having direct access to experts in the same timezone gave Pillow Talk confidence they could quickly troubleshoot issues, optimize feeds, and adapt to changing channel requirements as the business evolved.

The integration was delivered by Matter Design, Pillow Talk’s development partner, ensuring a smooth connection with the brand’s existing ecommerce infrastructure.

With Athos Commerce in place, Pillow Talk was able to centralize and transform product data across multiple platforms, including Google Merchant Centre, eBay, Bing, and internal systems.

Google Merchant Centre quickly became the primary focus, as it represented the business’s most important revenue-driving channel. Using Athos Commerce, the team could refine product attributes, apply feed rules, and optimize listings to better meet Google Shopping requirements.

With more than 70 stores nationwide, Google Local Inventory Ads (LIA) play an important role in Pillow Talk’s omnichannel strategy. Athos Commerce helps manage and optimize local inventory feeds, ensuring customers can discover products online and see availability in nearby stores, ultimately driving both digital engagement and in-store traffic. 

The platform also gave the team far greater speed and autonomy in managing feeds day to day. Instead of relying on manual work or developer support, they could quickly build feeds, apply rules, and adjust product data in real time.

Business Outcomes

• 104% YoY increase in organic clicks from Google Shopping Free Listings
• 62% YoY increase in organic impressions from Google Shopping Free Listings
• 90%+ of SKUs received at least one Google Shopping impression every day over a 90-day period
• 158% increase in revenue from product title optimization testing

Since implementing Athos Commerce, Pillow Talk has seen significant improvements in both product visibility and organic shopping performance.

By improving feed rules, product data quality, and feed structure, Pillow Talk achieved a 104% year-on-year increase in organic clicks and a 62% increase in organic impressions from Google Shopping Free Listings.

The improvements extended beyond traffic growth. On any given day during the last 90 days, more than 90% of Pillow Talk’s product catalogue received at least one Google Shopping impression, ensuring broad visibility across almost the entire product range and helping customers discover products beyond core best sellers.

Athos Commerce has also made it easier for the team to extend product data beyond core sales channels. Product feeds can now be quickly generated for blog content, partner integrations, and other marketing initiatives, helping the business scale content and merchandising efforts more efficiently.

Beyond day-to-day feed management, the platform has enabled the team to continuously test and optimize product data at scale. In one A/B test, adding the word “Winter” to flannelette sheet product titles increased impressions by 109%, clicks by 113%, and revenue by 158%, demonstrating the significant commercial impact that targeted feed optimization can deliver. 

Operationally, the platform has streamlined feed management for a lean ecommerce team of nine, supported by a marketing team of around 15 and an in-house studio. The ability to rapidly create feeds, apply rules, and manipulate data has reduced manual workload and improved speed to market.

In addition, Athos Commerce’s responsive local support team helped Pillow Talk quickly resolve feed and pricing issues as they arose, minimizing disruption and helping maintain performance across key revenue-driving channels. 

Next Steps

Looking ahead, Pillow Talk is using A/B testing insights to keep optimizing its product data and uncover new performance opportunities across channels like Google Shopping.

With a scalable feed management strategy in place, the team can now respond faster to seasonal peaks, range changes and new channel requirements, turning feed management from a maintenance task into a growth lever.

Partner with Athos Commerce to transform your ecommerce store. With proven tools and expertise in search and merchandising, we empower businesses to achieve measurable growth. Contact us today to start optimizing your store for success.