Data Feed Enhancements for Google Merchant Center

Accurately showcasing current availability, price and promotions of products is a crucial part of successfully selling online, but small and large retailers alike struggle with the time it takes to update this information across the Web.

To improve efficiencies for large retailers and help small retailers get better visibility of their products quicker, Google has announced two data feed enhancements to Google Merchant Center.

+For large retailers, Google introduced a new feed type (online product inventory feeds) that lets them quickly update price, availability and sale price (and start/end dates) of their key products - for example, products whose attributes need to be updated frequently, like most-popular products.

This new feed type makes quick work of making updates to product attributes without having to re-submit the full product feed.

+For smaller retailers, a Google Sheets add-on is available that connects the retailer's spreadsheet directly to Merchant Center for a faster and easier upload (to get shopping ads up and running quicker).

The add-on helps smaller retailers validate their products directly from sheets, showing any errors or warnings before they update to their data feed. The add-on also enables retailers to upload their entire spreadsheet into Merchant Center without leaving sheets. The results of the upload are displayed directly in the sidebar, giving retailers immediate feedback on feed processing (see image).