Ins & Outs of Shipping Settings in the Google Merchant Center

Recently, you may have noticed account issues for inaccurate shipping costs in the Google Merchant Center. While your account suspension nears, never fear; Metric Theory is here. Read on for more information about how to address inaccurate shipping prices.

Designate Different Shipping Price Tiers

Shown: 3 separate shipping prices active, 2 previous shipping rules paused for potential future use.

The Google Merchant Center has a variety of ways for you to designate various shipping price tiers, helping to accommodate sellers that have shipping prices ranging from free to freight.

In this example, there are two separate shipping services. FedEx is providing carrier rates as well as free shipping for products over $100. The second shipping service is UPS which provides flat rate freight shipping for products over 150 lbs.

So, how can you include both services? The first step is to create a shipping_label field in the product feed being sent to the Google Merchant Center. For this example, we label all products in the field “true” if they are 150 lbs or heavier, and “false” if they are under 150 lbs. Now, we can use these labels to filter out freight products from shipping on FedEx. From there, follow this process:

1. Add a new shipping service named “Flat Rate and Free Shipping Rule” by clicking the blue plus button.

2. Set basic rules around delivery time (make sure to include holiday cutoffs, if it’s that time of year).

3. Create a shipping rate for this service by clicking the blue plus symbol again and filtering to only products with a shipping label equal to “false”.

Use Shipping Rules

Now it’s time to set up the rules that you want for shipping. In this example, we use a flat rate of $0.00 (free shipping) for anything with an order price above $100.00. We also use a variable rate set by the carrier (carrier rate) if an order is less than $100.

Rinse and Repeat

One we have all of that, we can repeat the process for products with freight shipping. Except this time we can use the “true” shipping label and only need to set up a flat rate rule.

Ensure Full Product Coverage

Before calling it quits, make sure the numbers of the pies across the shipping service add up to 100%! This will ensure you’ve covered all of your products.

If you have more questions on setting up shipping prices or anything else in the Google Merchant Center, our product feed experts are here to help.