Online Store Integration with Google Merchant
Hello,
I want to share experiences and talk about some of the nuances.
First, some information about Google Merchant itself (hereinafter GM). This is a service from Google, in some way - a catalog of products of all different categories, which allows buyers to search for products, and sellers, respectively, to put them on display.
Products (information about them) uploaded to the service can be used in product search ( Google Product Search ) advertising ( Google Product Ads , i.e., you can link advertising messages to the product immediately) and when laying infrastructure ( Google Commerce Search ).
My goal was to upload product data to GM so that people can find it in Google Product Search. For other purposes, the process and the final results may differ.
As is usually the case, the service is available only for a few countries. Downloading data can be from any place, and selling from any, but it means that the buyers should be geographically in the following countries: USA, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, China, Italy, Netherlands, Spain.
This restriction is imposed by Google Checkout, through which the sale / purchase takes place.
')
In any case, the system can be useful for those planning or already selling in the above-mentioned countries.
So, the whole integration consists in regular downloads of a structured file with the extension xml or txt.
In txt files, the data should be separated through a tab, I did not like it, so I used XML.
Consider the process of creating a feed (data source) and the xml-file itself.
When you first enter GM, the system will offer to create your first feed and set up the “store” itself. You can set it up right away, you can leave it for later - this data does not affect anything, but all potential buyers see it.
In one “store” of feeds there can be several, each is focused on a specific country. For example, you can create a feed for the United States with a specific set of products, and for Australia with another. Accordingly, some products will be shown for buyers from the USA, and others for others.
For each country, the feed is created separately for one more reason - each feed has its own delivery price and tax settings.
The system has the ability to create a feed labeled test, i.e. just for validation and performance. All data uploaded to it will not be shown in the directory, but you can view and check for correctness.
After creating the feed, we can load data into it using the xml file either manually (normal file upload), or by specifying the URL from where to load it. In the second option, it is possible to set up regular downloads, for example, once a week, and specify the authorization data (if necessary).
The XML file itself must have the following structure:
(All tags without underlining. The parser does not allow to insert normally, or I do not know how ...)
All information on products is located in tags <_item> ....
As you can see, some parameters start with <g: ...> - these parameters are mandatory or highly recommended. For example, the products without <g: id> (product identification number in your store) or <g: price> (value) will not even be accepted by the system.
A complete list of attributes can be found on this and this pages.
After downloading and processing the file, the system will issue warnings or recommendations for each item, for each product. For example, that the product has invalid characters in the description, or the image is not specified, or there is no mandatory parameter.
And here is a rather interesting nuance - each product can be assigned a category in accordance with the catalog. And depending on the category, GM, after processing the feed, may issue completely different recommendations for products from different categories.
For example, for products with the category “clothes” you will be asked to add an xml file with the fields “size”, “color”, etc.
Some fields (brand, category, ...) are recommended for all products.
In the GM system itself, there are also opportunities for analyzing the quality of the information provided, viewing aggregated reports on products, and some settings.
There is an interesting opportunity to set up a file upload for the feed via FTP using the uploads.google.com server, or by connecting an account with Google Cloud Storage.
Accordingly, you can link an account with AdWords / Checkout
And the last interesting detail - like in many other services from Google, access to the “store” can be provided to other users with a Google account, sharing the rights to view and administer.
Summing up, briefly the process is as follows:
If everything is in order, then soon the goods will be available for search and bundles with advertising.
Thanks for attention.
PS Many thanks to the UFO for the invite.
I want to share experiences and talk about some of the nuances.
First, some information about Google Merchant itself (hereinafter GM). This is a service from Google, in some way - a catalog of products of all different categories, which allows buyers to search for products, and sellers, respectively, to put them on display.
Products (information about them) uploaded to the service can be used in product search ( Google Product Search ) advertising ( Google Product Ads , i.e., you can link advertising messages to the product immediately) and when laying infrastructure ( Google Commerce Search ).
Process
My goal was to upload product data to GM so that people can find it in Google Product Search. For other purposes, the process and the final results may differ.
As is usually the case, the service is available only for a few countries. Downloading data can be from any place, and selling from any, but it means that the buyers should be geographically in the following countries: USA, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, China, Italy, Netherlands, Spain.
This restriction is imposed by Google Checkout, through which the sale / purchase takes place.
')
In any case, the system can be useful for those planning or already selling in the above-mentioned countries.
So, the whole integration consists in regular downloads of a structured file with the extension xml or txt.
In txt files, the data should be separated through a tab, I did not like it, so I used XML.
Consider the process of creating a feed (data source) and the xml-file itself.
When you first enter GM, the system will offer to create your first feed and set up the “store” itself. You can set it up right away, you can leave it for later - this data does not affect anything, but all potential buyers see it.
Small retreat
In one “store” of feeds there can be several, each is focused on a specific country. For example, you can create a feed for the United States with a specific set of products, and for Australia with another. Accordingly, some products will be shown for buyers from the USA, and others for others.
For each country, the feed is created separately for one more reason - each feed has its own delivery price and tax settings.
The system has the ability to create a feed labeled test, i.e. just for validation and performance. All data uploaded to it will not be shown in the directory, but you can view and check for correctness.
We continue
After creating the feed, we can load data into it using the xml file either manually (normal file upload), or by specifying the URL from where to load it. In the second option, it is possible to set up regular downloads, for example, once a week, and specify the authorization data (if necessary).
The XML file itself must have the following structure:
<_?xml version="1.0"?>
<_rss version="2.0" xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0">
<_channel>
<_title>The name of your data feed<_/title>
<_link>http://www.example.com<_/link>
<_description>A description of your content<_/description>
<_item>
<_g:id>1a<_/g:id>
<_title>Some title<_/title>
<_link> example.com/item1-info-page.html<_/link>
<_description>Some text about this product<_/description>
<_g:image_link>http://www.example.com/image1.jpg<_/g:image_link>
<_g:price>25<_/g:price>
<_g:condition>new<_/g:condition>
<_/item>
<_item>
...
<_/item>
<_item>
...
<_/item>
<_/channel>
<_/rss>
(All tags without underlining. The parser does not allow to insert normally, or I do not know how ...)
All information on products is located in tags <_item> ....
As you can see, some parameters start with <g: ...> - these parameters are mandatory or highly recommended. For example, the products without <g: id> (product identification number in your store) or <g: price> (value) will not even be accepted by the system.
A complete list of attributes can be found on this and this pages.
After downloading and processing the file, the system will issue warnings or recommendations for each item, for each product. For example, that the product has invalid characters in the description, or the image is not specified, or there is no mandatory parameter.
And here is a rather interesting nuance - each product can be assigned a category in accordance with the catalog. And depending on the category, GM, after processing the feed, may issue completely different recommendations for products from different categories.
For example, for products with the category “clothes” you will be asked to add an xml file with the fields “size”, “color”, etc.
Some fields (brand, category, ...) are recommended for all products.
In the GM system itself, there are also opportunities for analyzing the quality of the information provided, viewing aggregated reports on products, and some settings.
There is an interesting opportunity to set up a file upload for the feed via FTP using the uploads.google.com server, or by connecting an account with Google Cloud Storage.
Accordingly, you can link an account with AdWords / Checkout
And the last interesting detail - like in many other services from Google, access to the “store” can be provided to other users with a Google account, sharing the rights to view and administer.
Summing up, briefly the process is as follows:
- Customize the store itself.
- Create a feed for a specific country.
- We generate the xml-file with data from the goods.
- Download it manually, or specify where to download it.
- We fix the errors, download again.
If everything is in order, then soon the goods will be available for search and bundles with advertising.
Thanks for attention.
PS Many thanks to the UFO for the invite.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/140358/
All Articles