Storefront > Tools > Apps & Addons > Google Shopping Feed
Overview
A Google Shopping Feed lists information about your products in a specific format. It contains a product image, product id number, title, and attributes. This information is given to ecommerce websites, search engines, price comparison sites, affiliate networks, and more. Manufacturers and retailers generate this information to help get their products into search engines.
Google Product Feeds require a Google Merchant Account and you can also see their Product data specification guide for best practices!
How it works
Create an SFTP account
To create an SFTP account:
- Sign in to your Merchant Center account
- From your Merchant Center account, go to the 3-dot icon dropdown, then click SFTP/GCS.
- Select the SFTP tab.
- An SFTP account username will be automatically generated. To generate a password and enable your account, click Generate password.
- A popup box will appear that contains your automatically generated password.
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Note: You will use this password with the username on the page to link to Cart.com. Your password will not be shown again for security reasons. Make sure you securely store your password before dismissing the popup box.
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- To return to the SFTP Settings page, click Dismiss.
- Note: First password generation may not take effect for several hours. If you can't log in to our SFTP server right away, try again later.
Change your SFTP password
If you need to change your SFTP password, you can do so by generating a secure password within Merchant Center. To change your SFTP password:
- Sign in to your Merchant Center account.
- Click on the tools icon
, then select “Settings” under the SFTP/GCS tab.
- In the SFTP section, click Generate new password.
- A popup box will appear asking you to confirm that you want to change your password. If you want to continue, click Confirm.
- Another popup box will appear that contains your newly generated password.
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Note: Your password will not be shown again for security reasons. Make sure you securely store your password before dismissing the popup box.
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- Click Dismiss to return to the SFTP Settings page.
Note: You may only generate a new Google Merchant Center SFTP password; you won't be able to retrieve any lost or forgotten passwords.
Connect to Cart.com Storefront
- On Cart.com, navigate to Storefront > Tools > Apps & Addons > Google Shopping Feed and click New.
- Enter the username and password you received from Google.
- Set the SFTP Server to “partnerupload.google.com”.
- Select the store where products will be pulled from.
- Set the filename for the product list. It needs to be a .txt extension. (Ex. ProductList.txt).
- Mark the feed as “Active”.
- Click Save.
There are several options available when setting up a Google Shopping feed:
|
Field |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Include Product Sale Price |
Sends products with the sale price. |
|
Send All Product Photos |
Send all product photos. Primary image and variant images will be sent regardless of this setting. |
|
Send Unavailable Products |
Sends products with an unavailable product status. |
|
Leave Manual Export on Server |
When enabled this makes the feed build in the background rather than realtime. The feed is available in the temp directory of your website when it finishes. |
|
Update Frequency |
Choice between Hourly, Daily, or Weekly update frequencies. This is how often the feed file is generated and placed in your website’s root folder. |
|
Customize Description |
Customizes the description field of the feed. By default the description field is populated by the Short Description field of the product. Leave blank for default. |
|
Customize Mpn |
The Manufacturer Product Number field can be customized by this option. Leave blank for default. |
|
Customize Brand |
The product Brand field can be customized by this option. Leave blank for default. |
|
URL Parameters |
This field allows you to add URL parameters to item links. |
|
Currency Code |
The 3 character currency code used for your store feed. This is set to USD by default and does not need to be used unless you’re not using dollars. |
Connecting your feed to Google Merchant
Once your feed is created on Cart.com, you can return to your Google Merchant page to connect it.
- Create a new Data Feed by navigating to Products and clicking the “Create a feed” link on the page.
- Enter the Country and Language for this Feed.
- Enter the name for your Feed, and select “Scheduled fetch” as the connection option.
- Enter the File Name for the product feed: ex. ProductList.txt
- This must match the file name entered in the Cart.com Settings.
- Enter the File URL
- Tip: This can be found in your Storefront Admin page via Storefront > Content > Files and under the Shared Directory in the File Manager. Click the Settings icon and choose the “Copy URL” option.
- Click Create Feed
When you have a feed successfully created your Google Merchant Center will show it under Products > Feeds.
Fields sent to Google
The following fields are sent to Google through the Google Shopping Feed integration:
| Cart.com | Required | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Link | Product URL | R | URL directly linking to your item's page on your website |
| title | product name | R | |
| description | product long description | R | |
| image_link | product primary image | R | |
| product_type | product category | + | |
| price | product base price | R | |
| id | product id | R | |
| expiration_date | (30 days) | + | |
| GoogleExclude | custom field | Used to exclude an item from the google feed by entering TRUE in the field | |
| shipping_weight | product weight | R* | *It is required to provide this attribute if you have specified a global shipping rule in Settings that is dependent on shipping weight. |
| brand | product manufacturer name | * | |
| mpn | product manufacturer part number or custom field | * (2 of 3 required) | |
| gtin | product gtin | * | |
| availability | product stock status - can be overridden by a custom field named "Availability" | R | |
| condition | (new) or custom field | *Defaults to new unless a matching custom field is supplied. | |
| google_product_category | custom field | R* | *Required only for products listed as apparel |
| gender | custom field | R* | *Required only for products listed as apparel |
| age_group | custom field | R* | *Required only for products listed as apparel. |
| color | product variant or custom field | R* | *Required only for products listed as apparel, and when applicable |
| size | product variant or custom field | R* | *Required only for products listed as apparel, and when applicable |
| material | product variant or custom field | R* | *Required if applicable |
| pattern | product variant or custom field | R* | *Required if applicable |
| adwords_grouping | custom field | + | Used for new Product Ads |
| adwords_labels | custom field | ||
| excluded_destination | custom field | ||
| promotion_id | custom field | ||
| GoogleProductImageURL | custom field | No | used for overwriting product main image |
Note: There are certain product fields that Google utilizes yet do not correspond to any specific field in Cart.com. These are indicated in the grid above. To enable the use of all available fields, Cart.com fields are mapped to specific custom fields for these missing attributes. To simplify this process these are created automatically for you. After setting up and saving the feed visit any products currently set up. You will see the corresponding section under the "General" tab, at the bottom.
Note: Codes and characters will not be accepted into a feed.
Note: Make sure that all URL's are the full URL.
Product Variants also map the Public Description field as set in the Variant Group settings.