Tag: google merchant center

New Google Merchant Center Launched

Google introduced a new version of its Google Merchant Center today that offer more efficient navigation and makes additional shopping programs easier to find. The Google Merchant Center enables online retailers to connect their products to Google so that their products are included in search results, YouTube and partner websites.

Responsive New Interface

“With updates to Merchant Center, you’ll see a fast, responsive new interface, aligned with the modern look and feel of the rest of Google’s products,” says Sven Herschel, Product Manager for Google Shopping at Google. “We’ve changed Merchant Center navigation by bundling common tasks and actions. For example, you can use the new Home page to view recent announcements and dashboard data for your account, and you can find consolidated product feed and product data quality information under the Products page.”

The Merchant Center is the place for ecommerce sites to upload their product data to Google, literally letting millions of shoppers see their online and in-store inventory.

Explore Google Programs for Your Products

“Merchant Center now lets you discover new ways to apply your data to promote and sell your products,” said Herschel. “Use Merchant Center to explore additional Google programs for your products, including Local Inventory Ads, Merchant Promotions, Product Ratings and more, while continuing to manage and configure your product data for Shopping ads.”

Additional Updates to Merchant Center Features

Google has also made updates and improvements to improve speed and functionality so that retailers can get their products online more quickly including Feed Rules, their Diagnostics Page and Currency Conversions. Find more info on those here.

August 30, 2016
Google Adds Feed Rules Tool To Merchant Center

Google announced the launch of a new tool for Merchant Center called Feed Rules, which lets you convert your existing data from inventory management systems to the format Google Shopping uses.

The tool enables merchants to to export and submit product data in their own format, and use different rules to turn the data into product attributes and values that meet Google’s feed specification. Google says:

Map your column headers to the attribute names supported by Google Shopping. For example, if you have an existing feed with the unsupported column header “main title”, you can set up a rule in Merchant Center to have it recognized as the supported attribute name, “title”.

Transform the values in your feed to values supported by Google Shopping. For example, to submit gender specifications for your products, you can transform the unsupported value “for women” in your existing feed to the supported value “female”.

Populate missing attribute values with a fixed value, or with different values based on conditional criteria. For example, if the “condition” attribute is missing and you’re only selling new products, you can set up a rule to have this attribute automatically set to “new”.

After you specify rules, all uploads in the future will be processed accordingly. Feed Rules can also be used to organize data by implementing rules for custom labels or tagging products with shipping labels.

Google makes it clear that this is just an early version of Feed Rules, and that it will make improvements based on user feedback.

Image via Google

April 27, 2016
Google Merchant Center Adds Shopping Assortment Report

Google announced the addition of a new Shopping Assortment Report in Google Merchant Center aimed at helping merchants plan their product assortments so they can reach more shoppers online.

The report shows you the top 100 products that you don’t already offer in your product feed for each Google Product Category. It also displays benchmark selling prices for said products.

“This information can be helpful in identifying new brands and products to add to your assortment, and reach even more customers with in-demand products,” said Matt Henderson, Product Manager for Google Shopping. “The data is based on the popularity of these products on Google Shopping, offering a near real-time view into online consumer demand for shoppable products.”

“Google’s new Assortment Report has already become a useful tool for us to identify white space opportunities, from newly emerging products we didn’t already carry, to out-of-stock products to prioritize for restocking,” said Daniel Dutton, Strategy leader at Target.

According to Google, the new report helps you identify key products missing from your feed and expand your offerings accordingly so you can reach more shoppers for the holidays.

Image via Google

October 5, 2015
Google Merchant Center Gets New Feed Enhancements

Google announced a pair of data feed enhancements for Google Merchant Center in an effort to help merchants better update their ads. One of them is geared toward large retailers while the other is for small ones.

For large retailers, Google has added a new feed type called Online product inventory feeds, which let you quickly update price, availability, and sale price on key products. The reason why it’s geared toward big retailers is that they’re more likely to have to change such attributes more frequently.

The feed allows you to submit new info throughout the day to update the attributes and/or submit updates for just a small subset of products. Google notes that if there’s an error in processing your feed, it won’t affect the full product feed. It allows allows fresher info to appear to consumers on Google Shopping.

The other thing is a Google Sheets add-on, which lets you connect spreadsheets to Merchant Center for quicker uploads. This is geared toward small retailers because it makes it easier to get up and running with shopping ads.

“Whether you use Google Sheets or text file formats to upload your products, these new data feed enhancements make it faster and easier to upload your most up-to-date product information to Google Shopping and find more customers online,” says Sven Herschel, Product Manager for Google Merchant Center.

You can validate and/or upload products directly from Sheets. There sidebar in the add-on lets you validate individual rows ore the entire sheet so you can see potential errors and warnings before you upload the data feed. Also from the side-bar, you can upload your whole sheet into Merchant Center without leaving Sheets.

If you have any trouble, you can take a look at this help article.

Image via Google

July 29, 2015
Google Merchant Center Gets Shipping Configuration Tool

Google announced this week that it has launched a new shipping configuration tool in Merchant Center aimed at making it easier to configure shipping rates. The idea is that this will help merchants’ prices remain consistent with what Google shows users.

“Imagine a shopper has searched for a product on Google Shopping and found the perfect offer at the perfect total price inclusive of shipping,” explain Angelika Rohrer and Sven Herschel of the Google Shopping Team. “They reach checkout on the merchant’s site only to realize that the final price differs from what they’ve seen on Google due to inaccurate shipping costs. Our users consistently tell us this is a primary source of frustration.”

The tool lets you select from more shipping methods, including customizable methods based on a hierarchical set of rules. You can differentiate between various shipping methods (like ground versus express) for the same country. This lets Google display the lowest possible price to the user.

It also lets you configure rates based on shipping destination using countries, states, or cities. You can indicate when products don’t shop to certain regions, and create a repository of shipping methods to reuse across configurations.

The company also added a new shipping attribute to assign a shipping label to specific products.

“You can configure shipping rates based on this label,” the team says. “For example, you could apply a label like ‘perishable’ or ‘bulky’ to a group of products requiring special shipping rates or a label specific for promotional items. After adding this attribute to a group of items, you may manage or configure the custom rate in shipping settings in Merchant Center.”

Google says it has already migrated current shipping settings to the new tool, and it doesn’t require any updates.

Image via Google

August 8, 2014
Google Merchant Center Opens In Italy, The Netherlands, Spain

It should soon become much easier for people in Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain to find the best deals online. Google indicated today that it’s moving towards launching Google Product Search/Google Shopping in those countries, opening the Google Merchant Center as a preliminary step.

The Google Merchant Center is in large part what makes Google Product Search work; it’s a site that allows businesses to submit data product feeds, ensuring that users see up to date information.

This led Kirill Kounik, a product manager responsible for the Google Merchant Center, to recommend in a blog post, "If you’re a new merchant and would like to start submitting your products to Google for Spain, Italy, or the Netherlands, we recommend checking out the ‘Getting Started’ articles in our Help Center, and then reviewing the data feed instructions and requirements for your target country. Existing Merchant Center users now have the option to select Spain, Italy and the Netherlands from the target country drop-down menu when registering their feeds in the Merchant Center."

Kounik also noted, "As we launch in new locations, we want it to be easy for you to make your products accessible to customers around the world. Our data requirements differ by country, so you can now view the data feed specifications for all countries in your native language by using the drop-down box on the top of the Data Feed Specification help article."

These may be significant steps for Google. Google Product Search isn’t something the average person uses every day, but together with offerings related to maps, news, and financial info, the tool helps make the company’s brand more appealing.

Don’t be surprised if Google’s global market share increases as a result.

February 7, 2011
Google Announces New Agreement with Bizrate Insights

Google has announced an agreement with Bizrate Insights in the US, UK, and Germany that will affect its merchants. The program will get reviews from shoppers that have completed transactions on a site. Google says this means it will provide content businesses know they can trust to help improve and promote their customer experience.

"When I was preparing to move to London a few months ago, I ended up doing a lot of shopping online for the items I knew I’d need – from a camera for capturing memories and an umbrella for the infamous drizzle to music that would go well with the cloudy skies!" says Kinnari Jhaveri of Google’s Strategic Partnerships team. "One of the tools I used to help me pick the online retailers I bought from were Google seller ratings and reviews."

"Of course, for both shoppers and merchants, it’s important that merchant reviews are coming from real users who’ve completed transactions at the online stores they’re reviewing," adds Jhaveri.

Google has been using Bizrate ratings, but now they’ll be able to include the full text of the review. Google says this means customers will be able to get the "full picture" before they buy.

September 29, 2010
Google Calls Upon Retailers to List Inventory

Google announced today that it is making public its help documentation for Local Shopping inventory for Google Merchant Center. This is a feature that allows retailers to let consumers know about what they have in stock right from the web.

"One weekday evening a few weeks before our son was born, my wife commissioned me to find a box of raspberry red leaf tea for the delivery," says Google Product Search business product manager Paul Lee, explaining the usefulness of such a feature. "I promptly drove to the nearest grocery store, which has an awe-inspiring wall of tea. After diligently scanning the wall and not finding the tea, I began to wonder if it even existed. Was the similarly-labeled raspberry tea the same thing? What about red leaf tea?"

"Stumped, I pulled out my phone and looked up ‘raspberry red leaf tea’ on Google," he continues. "Beneath the ‘Shopping results,’ I saw a red map marker for a nearby Vitamin Shoppe and a link, ‘In stock nearby,’ next to a picture of Alvita Raspberry Red Leaf Tea. I hopped back in the car, and 15 minutes later had accomplished my mission. Two weeks later, my wife accomplished her much more important mission and we welcomed Benjamin, a healthy and happy baby boy, to our family."

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t accept all retailers who apply for listing this information, but there is a form you can fill out to do so. If you aren’t accepted, Google will keep you on file for potential future inclusion.

You’ll be asked to submit a complete and accurate data feed, including unique product identifiers. You’ll also need to be listed and verified in Google Places.

September 2, 2010
Google Launches New Product Search Ad Format with Product Extensions

Google has announced a new advertising format for Google Merchant Center users. The format is based on the product extensions AdWords format that lets advertisers add specific product listings.

There is a difference with this new format, however. The format, which runs on Google Product Search, will show users products and prices without them having to click on a "plusbox" to expand the ad.

"These ads are a great opportunity to market the breadth of your product catalog and highlight any promotional messages directly to conversion-ready shoppers on Google Product Search," says Google Product Search Product Manager Andrew Poon.

Poon also notes that to take advantage of the new format, you should make sure your product extensions ad campaigns are being served on "search partner" sites.

This isn’t the only new ad format from Google. The company also announced a new location extensions format with map features today. More on that here.

July 29, 2010