Help Centre

To upload your products to Google Shopping on the Google Merchant Center, you will need to ensure your products and website comply with their specifications. In this guide we will be covering all of the information that you need to include on your products, and any changes you need to make to your Create account in order to list your products on Google Shopping.

If you are just getting started with Google Merchant Center, please first read our introduction guide here.

You will need to ensure all of the following headings have been completed before uploading your product feed. If all of these are not completed, your product feed may not upload correctly.

Allow Google to index your images

Firstly, you will need to ensure that Google can access your website's images. You can do this by following the instructions to allow Google to index your images on this guide here.

Product Specifications

You will need to fill in some details about your products in your Create account for each product. You can find the page to add these, by following my steps below:

1. Log in to your Create account.
2. Click "Shop" from the Top Menu.
3. Find the product that you need to update and click the "Edit Product" icon next to it.
4. Click "Product Identifiers" from the top tabs.

Here you will see the following fields that you need to fill in for Google Merchant Center:

GTIN

Unique product identifiers are product codes or other values associated with an individual product.

The primary set of unique product identifiers are Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs). Hereyou will need to specify either a UPC, EAN, JAN or ISBN number (detailed below).  In addition, a Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) can be used to identify a specific product in the 'mpn' attribute if it is accompanied by the manufacturer's brand name in the 'brand' attribute.

These values are very important for matching users' queries to your products. You are required to provide identifiers for all products except for those under the clothing category and custom-made goods.

Below is a brief overview of each of these unique identifiers and where they will apply. All GTIN numbers (UPC, EAN, JAN and ISBN) can usually be found printed on the barcode of your product.

UPC (Universal Product Code) - This unique code is primarily used for products inside North America and consists of 12 numerical digits.

EAN (European Article Number) - This unique code is primarily used for products outside of North America and is typically 13 numerical digits, it can also be found in 8 and 14 digit formats as well.

JAN (Japanese Article Number) - This unique code is only used for products in Japan and is typically between 8 and 13 digits.

ISBN (International Standard Book Number) - This unique code is used for commercial books published since 1970 and is a global standard. The code comes in two different formats ISBN-10 (which is 10 numerical digits and may also include an X as the last digit) and ISBN-13 (which is 13 numerical digits and typically starts with either 978 or 979).

MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) - The number which uniquely identifies the product to the manufacturer is used globally and can be various lengths of alphanumerical digits.

Brand - This the global name of the brand, that has produced the product.

You can set a default brand category for your products in the Shop Settings > General Configuration > Products tab. For any products, you don't specify a brand value, the brand you enter here will be used.

Google Category

This is the category under which your item would be searched for, you will be able to choose your category from the list on this screen. 

You can set a default Google category for your products in the Shop Settings > General Configuration > Products tab. For any products, you don't specify a Google Category value, the category selected here will be used.

What to do if you do not have any unique product identifiers

If you do not have unique product identifiers for some of your products (for example, you sell handmade products), you will need to edit your spreadsheet manually before uploading, to add a column for "identifier_exists" with a value of "FALSE" for each product this does not have an identifier. For more information about editing your spreadsheet, please see our guide on uploading for Accessories and Apparel here, which will also require a spreadsheet adjustment.

Once you have both allowed Google to access your images and filled in your product identifiers or acquired product identifier exemption, you will be ready to upload your Create products to Google Merchant Center.

You can next read how to upload your products to Google Merchant Center here.