How do I submit my Google XML feed to the Google Merchant Center?

1. Copy the feed path or feed URL from the back office.
2. Go to Google Merchant Center and sign in with your Google account.
3. Click on Products > Feeds and click the big blue circle with the + icon.
4. Select your target country and language for your feed.
5. Click Continue
6. Enter the primary feed name, (Can be anything to identify the feed.)
7. Select Scheduled fetch as the input method and Continue.
8. Enter a filename (This can be anything), then select a Fetch frequency and Time zone.
9. The feed will be public, so it's not necessary to enter a username or password.
10. In the File URL field, paste the feed path or feed URL that you copied from the back office in step 1. NOTE: Make sure there are no spaces in the URL.
11. Select Save.
12. Click on the title of the feed.
13. Select the button on the middle right with 3 dots, and select Fetch now.
14. The feed will now be loaded. After a few minutes, you can refresh the page to view your products.

Brand, MPN and GTIN - What's required?

• Brand: In most cases the brand is mandatory. The only exception is for custom items. If you offer custom-made items in your shop, it is still advisable to associate them with your own brand in eCom

• MPN: Also known as the article code. This is a unique identifier provided by the product manufacturer. If a GTIN is supplied for the product instead, then the MPN is not required. 
• GTIN: Also known as a barcode, an EAN (in Europe) or a UPC (in North America). It is a unique ID according to international standards

  Google has a database which includes most of the GTINs in the world. If you add a GTIN for each of your products, Google can identify each product exactly and immediately know all of its specifications. Important note: If you supply the wrong GTIN, Google will immediately reject the product.

  A GTIN is required for each product in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, United States & Switzerland.

  Examples of products which do not have a GTIN:

  • Replacement parts.
  • Household products.
  • Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) parts or replacement OEM parts.
  • Made-to-order products. Examples include custom T-shirts, art, and handmade goods.
  • Books published before the ISBN was made an ISO standard in 1970
  • Vintage or antique products

For more information about unique product IDs, click here.

Shipping costs are not appearing in my Google Shopping feed, how can I fix this?

If the shipping cost for your feed products is 0.00 but you charge for shipping, this can be caused by having multiple 'Standard Shipping' methods available. In this case, eCom cannot determine which rate should be used for each product. Additionally, shipping integrations and shipping apps such as PostNL, BPOST, Easypost, or OrderCup will not submit rates to the Google feed.

To include shipping costs for your products, you will need to remove shipping costs from your feed and enter them directly into Google Merchant instead. Here's how to remove shipping costs from your feed::

1. In the Back Office, go to Settings > Feeds > Custom Feeds
2. If you already have a custom Google feed, proceed to step 5. If you do not yet have a custom Google feed, create one now using the New Feed button
3. Enter a name for the feed (this can be anything).
4. Choose COPY EXISTING > Copy from > Google Shopping
5. Open the feed by clicking on the feed title.
6. Copy this new code:
   

   <g:shipping_weight>{{(product.weight / 1000)}} kg</g:shipping_weight>

7. Highlight code shown below and paste the new code.

   

8. Select Save. 
9. If you have already added this feed to Google Merchant, sign in to your Google Merchant Center and fetch the feed again.

How do I configure the Google Category of my products?

It's important to let Google know what category each of your products belongs to. To add a Google category to a product, open the product in your back office and scroll down to the SEARCH ENGINES section. From here, you can add a Google Category. You can use either the category path or numeric ID (not both).

Changing Google Categories in bulk

To add or change the Google Category for multiple products at once, the Bulk Edit feature can be used. Just go to your Products list in the back office, selet which products you want to change, and click Bulk Actions > Customize Google Category.

A window will appear where you can enter the Google Category. Enter the category or numeric ID (not both) here and click Save.

Google Categories are not appearing in my Custom Google Feed, how do I fix this?

If Google Categories aren't loaded in your custom feed, just add ?google=true to the feed path or feed URL. For example: https://www.example.com/feed/876?google=true.

How do I control which products are included in my custom feed?

To exclude or include certain products from the custom feed, a small change must be made to your custom feed code. The easiest way to achieve this is by configuring your code to only include products with a Google Category. That way, you can leave the Google Category blank for any products which you do not want to include in the feed. Follow the steps below:

1. Go to Settings > Feeds > Custom feeds and click on the title of your custom feed.
2. Insert the following code directly before <item> {% if product.google_category %}
3. Insert the following code directly after <item> {% endif %}

   

4. Select Save.
5. Go to Google Merchant Center and sign in with your Google account.
6. Click on Products > Feeds
7. Click on your feed name.
8. Click Settings.
9. Click Feed Schedule.
10. Add ?google=true to the end of your file URL.
11. Click Save.
12. If necessary, remove the Google Category from any products that you do not want loaded in the Google Feed. Then log in to your Google Merchant Center and fetch the feed again.

I'm getting a description warning on products in my feed. How do I fix this?

The description tag in your feed is loaded from the Description section of each of your products, between Title, Full Title, and Content. If Google Shopping returns a missing description warning for any of your products, verify that you have added a description to those products in the language you selected for your feed.

I'm getting a missing product_type warning on products in my feed. How do I fix this?

The product_type attribute comes from your Product Categories. This warning can occur when a product is not assigned to a complete category tree. For example, if you have a category tree that includes: Womens > Shirts > T-Shirts, then any product in that T-Shirts category must also be assigned to Womens > Shirts, and Womens too.

The maximum product_type supports is 3 category levels. One main category and two sub-categories.

My Google Shopping campaign is blocked due to mismatched prices between the product page and the prices in my Google Shopping campaign, how do I fix this?

If your feed is in a region with VAT, then the product prices in your feed will be VAT inclusive. If you only show prices on your store excluding VAT, Google may block your Google Shopping campaign. Make sure that you disable 'All prices exclude VAT' in your Advanced Settings in eCom so that your product pages also display VAT inclusive pricing.

If your theme does not include the option to display both VAT inclusive and VAT exclusive pricing, it may be necessary to customize your theme. Follow these steps to add the VAT inclusive price to your product pages:

1. Copy the following code:
   

   {{ product.price.price_incl | money }}  {{ 'Incl. VAT' | t }}

2. In your back office, go to Design > Theme Editor(pay attention to the disclaimer if enabling it for the first time)
3. Click on the Product.rain file under PAGES and locate the section of the code that displays the price
4. Paste the code from step 1 above or below the VAT excluded price

Customizing your theme requires knowledge of HTML and CSS. Lightspeed does not provide support for customized code.

Attachments

• Feeds2.gif2 MB