5 types of attributes to create a great product feed for Google Express

Google, through its e-commerce platform, is empowering retailers to sell on google express and is leveraging its massively used search engine and fastly adopted Google Home devices to compete in the e-commerce and retail segment. Therefore, retailers are lining up to list their products on Google Express. However, equally important is to create a great product feed for Google Express.

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With Google Express, customers can add items to the same cart from mobile, desktop and voice assistant through the Universal Cart functionality.

Additionally, it empowers them to appear for leading Google queries such as “Where can I buy this?” “Where can I find it?” “How can I buy it?” “How do I transact?”

As a result, retailers have reported a 30-35% increase in the Average Basket Value from the platform.

However, merely registering your products won’t get you far in the Google Express, rather you need to align your Feed in accordance with Google Shopping Action Plan Guidelines.

There are 5 types of attributes (including optional) required to create a great product feed for Google Express:

• Required Identification Attributes
• Matching Attributes
• Products Feed Attributes
• Optional Pricing Attributes
• Optional Store Pick Up Attributes

Therefore let’s take a look at all of the attributes individually:

1. Required Identification Attributes

There are two fields – item information – which are mandatory to be provided and it applies to all the products of the store. The attributes are item id & title.

The do’s and don’ts are:

For itemid

• The Item ID is unique and once it is submitted can’t be changed or be used for different products at a later time.
• The itemid should be the same both in local products and local products inventory feeds.
• Only valid Unicode characters are permitted. Characters such as Control Characters, Function Characters, Private Area Characters, Surrogate Pairs, and Non-assigned code points must be avoided at all costs

For title

• The Title should not exceed 70 character limit.
• Avoid using promotional text such as free shipping and use of BLOCK LETTERS.
• Use Common Title for the variant products./li>

2. Matching Attributes:

Another way to match your products with local products is using Matching Attributes. This is even more significant to retailers that are planning to run Shopping Ads campaign. The matching attributes comprise of webitemid, gtin, brand, mpn, and condition.

The do’s and don’ts are:

For Webitem ID:

• The webitemid is unique and once it is submitted can’t be changed or be used for different products at a later time.
• Only valid unicode characters are permitted. Characters such as Control Characters, Function Characters, Private Area Characters, Surrogate Pairs, and Non-assigned code points must be avoided at all costs.

GTIN/MPN/Brand: This used once item is not available and the merchants sell both in-store and online, the merchants may either use webitemid or one of the unique product identifiers.

Condition: There are 3 types of conditions which are permissible – new, used, refurbished.  This among the most important attribute to create a great product feed for Google Express.

3. Product Attributes:

This set of attributes is essential for all the products. However, there is one caveat to it. You need to provide the information on all the attributes if haven’t created a product feed. In the condition you’ve created the feed, then it is required only for those products that are in the store and aren’t the part of the feed. The set of introduction includes description, image link, condition, GTIN, brand and Google Product category which makes is a part of a great product feed for Google Express.

The do’s and don’ts are:

For Description:

• The maximum permissible content is 5000 characters.
• The information shouldn’t contain links to your store, billing, payment, or sales information and don’t refer to the internal categorization system.
• Comparison with other items, therefore, avoid terms such as faster/even better/ larger than

For Images:

• The image should be of the highest resolution and full-size with storage size up to 16 MB
• The minimum recommended size is 800*800. For apparel, the minimum is 250*250 and shouldn’t exceed 64 MB and for other products, the minimum is 100*100 and the maximum shouldn’t exceed 64 MB.

4. Apparel Product Category:

The items belonging to apparel additionally require some more details to offer a piece of holistic information. The fields required are: item_group_id, color, size, gender, age group

5. Google Express Attributes

This set of data is required for items that need additional care. The attribute includes special handling, delivery condition, consumer_notice.

6. Tax Requirements

Google wants you to enter the tax and fee-related information. Although Google can make some assumptions as per the location, however, it is recommended to provide the details to save the feed from getting rejected.

7. Optional pricing attributes

There are also some optional attributes related to pricing which you can use if you’re offering a product under the sale. The attributes are price, sale price, sale price effective date

8. Optional store pickup attributes

Also, sellers can enable customers to pick a particular item in-store. To do so, they need to add 2 attributes to their feed namely → pickup method and pickup SLA.

Common Seller Queries:

Q. Can I use the same feed from my Magento store on Goole Shopping?

Ans. Yes, you can use the same Magento store feed on Google shopping by using the Magento Google Shopping Integration. This efficient tool serves as an efficient bridge between the two platforms hence allowing easy feed transfer and management.

Q. Is there any centralised solution that allows you to sell on Google Shopping and Magento simultaneously?

Ans. Yes. With the help of Magento Google Shopping Integration, you can easily sell on Google Shopping and Magento simultaneously. This Integration provides you with a complete solution through which you can easily list your Magento store products on the Google Shopping site and thus increase the product sale.

Conclusion:

Once you create a feed that contains all of the aforementioned information, it is likely to be processed faster by Google and the listings are life on the Google Express platform within minimum possible time.

Google Shopping Actions US is open for Merchants in India and Canada: Start selling cross-border to customers in the US, from either India or Canada without any fuss, right away.

More CedCommerce:

1. How to join Shopping Actions Plan to sell on Google Express?
2. CedCommerce Shopping Feed is now live on Shopify App Store!