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Google Merchant Center

1. Connect your store to Google Merchant Center

Connecting your store to Google Shopping is executed through a respective account on Google Merchant Center.

Register an account

Ensure you have a Google account; otherwise, create it on accounts.google.com. Next, navigate to Google Merchant Center to connect your Google account to the marketplace.

Steps
  • Enter information on your store. Provide the business information regarding your company. List the following data:

    • Actual address. Pinpoint the country of registration for your business. This data is used for time zone selection.
    • Company name
    • Website address
    • Phone number. This number has to be verified.
  • Set places for shopping. Provide the information on where customers can buy your products. This can be:

    • online store
    • in Google (users can make a purchase directly from the Google page)
    • local store
  • Specify third-party services used to manage orders. Provide the information on the third-party services your company uses for advertising, selling, and managing orders. Merchant Center accounts can be connected to these services to simplify routine.

  • Configure notification emails. Specify what information you would like to receive via email. This can be news, helpful tips, or offers to participate.

  • Accept the Terms of Use. Agree with the Terms of Use to finish the configuration of the Google Merchant Account.

Verify and claim your website

You can connect your store to Google only if you can prove its website belongs to you. Follow the algorithm to verify:

Steps

1. Add website address

  • Sign in to Merchant Center
  • Open navigation menu
  • Click Merchant Center Settings
    • Select Business information
    • Enter your Store URL. Start with https://
    • Click Continue

2. Verify your website

Use one of four options to verify the ownership of the site:

  • Choose HTML tag options. Some HTML code was added to the index page. Google recommended this method for a Shopify store

3. Claim your website

After successful site verification, navigate to the Merchant Center account and click on the Claim website button.

2. Create the product feed

Before connecting your store to Google Merchant, you need to create and configure the feed.

Steps
  • Navigate to Feeds > Add > Google Shopping to generate the feed for Google Merchant Center. Choose the feed type: TXT/CSV or XML
  • Fill required fields in General tab section
    • Set Product Category/Collection. Use Static Value if your products have one category. Or set own taxonomy via Dynamic Mapping. This field allow set Google Product Category. Start type category name and can see available variants in the dropdown.
    • Set Stock Location
    • Set Translation language and Applied Filters if needed.
    • Configure Google Analytics tab if required
    • Put Feed status to active
    • Press Save to finish and generate feed.
    • Locate the link to the feed file in the Feed block. You will be pasting this link on Google Merchant Center

If you need customize feed refer to page How to create a product feed for details.

NOTE

In order to correctly place your products you may need to use Category Mapping. Refer to Google Merchant category mapping reference.

3. Upload the feed

Google Merchant Center supports several ways of uploading the feed.

Submit a feed by URL
  • In your Google Merchant Account navigate to Products > Feeds and click plus button
  • Pick the feed language and country where you sale
  • Make a name for your feed
  • Select Scheduled fetch option and click continue
  • Provide the feed file URL. You received this link when creating a feed
  • Set Fetch frequency, Fetch time and Time zone
Upload over SFTP

SFTP is recommended due to encryption. To upload follow the procedure:

  • Create an SFTP account in Google Merchant:

    • Log in to your Merchant Center account
    • Select SFTP
    • Create an account username and generate a password to this account
  • In the Mulwi Shopping Feeds:

    • Navigate to the feed you want to upload
    • Click Edit
    • Click Upload Settings
    • Provide the SFTP credentials:
      • Auto Upload. Set the time interval of the automatic feed uploading
      • Protocol set SFTP
      • Host: partnerupload.google.com
      • Port: 19321
      • Set the Username and Password you created earlier for Google Merchant.
      • Upload Directory left empty
    • Click Save and Upload now buttons to finish upload.
Direct file upload

Upload the feed file using the feed URL you have obtained in Mulwi Shopping Feeds app. The maximum supported file size for upload is 4 GB:

  • Log in to your Merchant Center account.
  • In the navigation menu, click Products, and then select Feeds.
  • Locate your feed in the list of registered files. Click in the column Feed name on the feed with the same name as the file you are uploading.
  • Under the Processing tab, click the 3-dot icon to call the menu.
  • In this drop-down menu, select the Upload input file.
  • Test the uploaded feed by clicking Upload as a test.

FAQ

How often will Google Shopping collect the feed information?

The feed is updated automatically each time when it is downloaded or fetched by the marketplace.

Missing 'shipping weight' attribute error

Check if each product in the feed has shipping weight attribute set. Update the feed template with the code to use existing Weight attribute or set a default weight:

{% if variant.weight_grams != 0 %}
<g:shipping_weight>{{ variant.weight_grams }} g</g:shipping_weight>
{% endif %}
Missing shipping information error

You can set shipping rates in two ways:

  • In the Google Merchant Center:
    • Click the tools icon and setting menu icon [Gear]
    • Select Shipping and returns under the Tools tab
  • Directly in the product feed by adding [shipping], [shipping_label], [shipping_weight] attributes