Gtin/Barcode not being sent to Google Merchant Centre

[JBrown2]

Has anyone else recently started getting a message saying that the Gtin is missing, when it isn't? I spotted this yesterday.

All of my products have valid barcodes in Shopify Admin, however they are not being sent across to GMC, except a few. I have logged this with Shopify Support, but curious if this is impacting anyone else?

[RDHAdmin]

Yes I am having a similar issue.

For me it appears that any time a product sells, Shopify is sending incomplete data to Google Merchant Centre which is stripping out the GTIN, SKU and brand.

To fix it, I am having to manually edit each product when they sell. Editing the product in the Shopify admin appears to trigger a correct update to be send to GMC. Then a few hours later Google picks up the update and it's removed the item from the warnings.

[RDHAdmin]

By "fix" I mean "get around the error until the product sells again". Have emailed Shopify support as well to see if they can investigate and confirm that is what is happening.

All the values (GTIN, SKU, brand) are entered for all of our products, and were all valid in GMC.

This started yesterday so I presume Shopify have introduced a bug or GMC have edited the fields they need when an update is sent through the feed.

[JBrown2]

I have just spoken with Shopify Support again and apparently..

"Products are being flagged because Google is finding that they have a recognised GTIN available for those brands so that will have to be added for each product. This can show as a few different errors in the Google Channel which is why there is a "Limited Performance" warning in the Merchant Center account to alert merchants to the fact that a product has a recognised GTIN. "

The way to fix it according to them is to go into your Admin, go to Google sales channel and make sure that all of the products have the 'Custom' field set to 'False'

I have had my store since January and this has never been a requirement previously. I happened to install Ablestar yesterday and these problems have started, it makes me a bit suspicious.

[RDHAdmin]

Pretty sure Shopify Support is wrong on this one.

[RDHAdmin]

This is the order of events I am seeing:

1. Product is correct in Google Merchant Centre - all fields visible including barcode, MPN and brand.

2. Product sells on Shopify website.

3. Product now shows without barcode, MPN and brand in GMC.

4. A warning appears in GMC about the missing values. The values ARE missing in GMC as they appear to have been stripped out after the product sold on the website. The values ARE present in Shopify admin,

5. Edit product in Shopify to change any value.

6. New update triggered and sent to GMC.

7. Barcode, MPN and brand appear again in GMC. Warning is removed.

This started yesterday, 30th Nov 2021.

[JBrown2]

It is quite possible we're having different issues, however for me, changing the Custom field to False has pulled all of my Gtins back into GMC.

[HiteshPPC]

Hi @JBrown2 

I'm facing the same issue here.

Could you please help me to understand how did you set the 'Custom' field to 'False'?

If possible kindly share the steps with the help of screenshots.

Thanks

[rmf]

Thank you! This solved the problem for me!  Somehow, five of my products all of a sudden were missing the GTIN in google merchant and when I checked the Custom field for those products, it was set to TRUE whereas all my other products were properly set to FALSE.

I updated them to FALSE and within 5 minutes, the products synced to Google Merchant and the GTIN issues were corrected.

Now to figure out how these five products got changed in the first place.  😕

[musicfan88]

I'm having all of these same issues! All my products have valid GTIN's and UPC's. 
I have 23,000 products and now they are all saying I do not have a valid GTIN. Google isn't showing it coming through anymore so all my shopping ads and listings are losing me all my sales now. 

[RDHAdmin]

Hello,

This is still happening to me as well. The work around I was using:

1. View the product in Shopify admin

2. More actions -> Google fields

3. Enter the MPN value

4. Save

NOTE: Do NOT tick "This is a custom product"

I would recommend you try this on a small selection of products to verify it works for you @musicfan88 

This sets the value "Custom product" to be false on the product. For some reason this then seems to "FIX" the problem. It's not an actual fix in my opinion as clearly there is a feed issue with Shopify or Google Merchant Centre changed something. This started for us on 30th Nov 2021.

Shopify support also sent me the same "non fix" and haven't acknowledge they are actually still investigating the bug. As @JBrown2  above was told by Shopify support:

"The way to fix it according to them is to go into your Admin, go to Google sales channel and make sure that all of the products have the 'Custom' field set to 'False'".

This does "work" and removes the warning in Google Merchant Centre.

This will affect anyone using Shopify to submit product feeds to Google Merchant Centre so is rather urgent.

[musicfan88]

Ok - so we can confirm that changing the product as "Customer = False" solves the issue?

IF that's the case, then this is manageable. I have an app where I can mass update certain fields on products. It takes forever but at least it's not a manual update. One of the fields I can update is custom product true/false for google feeds.

Can anyone else confirm that updating the custom product field is fixing the issue? Or am I misunderstanding what I've read here so far?

[RDHAdmin]

Yes setting custom product to false on the product should remove the warnings in Google Merchant Centre.

That has worked for me. If you have an automated process, maybe you could do a small amount just to verify for safety (I personally don't like updating them all in one go).

It takes a few mins for it to show in Google Merchant Centre.

[cbsummerbird]

I can confirm that "custom product = false" does indeed bring back the GTIN.

By all means, anyone who is facing this issue should report the issue to Shopifys customer support to make them aware of the issue.

They are currently ignorant about it and is trying to blame the issue on anyone but themselves.

[RDHAdmin]

In reply to me they said it was being looked at but no actual confirmation it's a bug on there end or the alternative that Google Merchant Centre changed their feed requirements.

One thing to note. When you add new products through the website interface, "Custom Product" is not set. So they will all immediately be in the warning/error state in GMC. I'm fixing those by adding MPN on "Google fields" which sets "Custom product" to false.

I can't see another way so far to quickly set "Custom product" to false for a specific product.

[JBrown2]

Ablestar Product Editor app allows you to set the Custom Product field to False in bulk, rather than 1 by 1.

[JBrown2]

AbleStar Product Editor app allows you to set the Custom Product field go False in a bulk job rather than one by one. 

[JBrown2]

Hi,

As @RDHAdmin has said, this fixed my problem yesterday. All of my products are now showing in Google Shopping again and traffic is coming through to my site.

[TracyH2020]

I have been having all the same issues and am beyond fed up. I have almost 5k products in my store and none of the GTIN's are being sent over, or they say they are invalid, when they're all correct. This is a nightmare. Same issue with other things. All have been entered perfectly time and time again, and you go to bulk editor and suddenly Google Shopping Categories are no longer listed etc etc etc. The list goes on. All started happening a few months ago. Has anyone received any valid results/fixes from Shopify? 

[rslygh]

We've been experiencing this too.

If it's tied to the custom product flag, any chance this is getting triggered because the products have a Custom product type? The Standard vs Custom product type options are something that were introduced more recently, and Standard options look to map directly to Google Shopping product categories.

I'll have to go back through the thread and see if any of the recommendations can fix this for us.

[JBrown2]

When I first contacted Shopify support I asked if this was causing the issue, to which they said it ‘could be’ therefore I should remove them.

I removed them and it didn’t help at all, so I wasted time adding them in the first place to then remove them unnecessarily.

[RDHAdmin]

My guess is they are treating products as custom products if the value of custom product has not been set, due to a code logic error.

Based on the Shopify interface, there are three possible values for "is custom product":

1. Not set / null (which is the value when you add a product)

2. True

3, False

When you add a product via the Shopify interface, it's "Not set". This is even if you have GTIN, SKU etc added on the product. Previously, this would submit correctly to Google Merchant Centre.

On 30th Nov 2021, it looks to me like Shopify changed something so that if the value of custom product was "Not set", they stopped including the GTIN and SKU in the Google Merchant Centre Feed. This could be down to some line of code assuming the value will be true or false. For example, IF customProduct == false, add barcode and sku, ELSE don't add barcode and sku. This would then mean all "not set" products are treated as custom products (which is what happened - all products that previously were correct, now showed without barcode and sku in GMC).

Just guessing here based on what I've observed.

If you manually change a product from custom product = "not set/null" to custom product = "false", then it fixes.

Shopify have still not replied acknowledging they are planning to fix this.

Note that ALL products added via the Shopify interface default to "note set/null" for custom product, and have an error/warning in Google Merchant Centre. As soon as you edit custom product and set it to FALSE, then the warning/error clears and the barcode and SKU appear in GMC.

[rslygh]

How is everyone setting custom product = false, outside of using an app?  For the products I'm running into the publishing errors on, when I look at the item within the Google channel settings the "Is custom product" is unchecked already. Checking and unchecking doesn't allow me to save, but based on prior posts it sounds like these products likely have the custom product value = not set/null because they haven't been changed since being loaded.

Are you uploading the custom product setting? Are you adding in the MPN and leaving custom product set to false? This seems like it should be an easy thing to solve and the system should allow you to do it in bulk, but unfortunately I am expecting that this won't be the case without looking at an add-on.

[RDHAdmin]

Hi @rslygh 

Viewing the product, More actions -> Google fields. Set MPN there. Make sure "This is a custom product" is NOT ticked. It seems like it only sets custom product to false from that screen if a value in entered in one of the fields (I've just used MPN).

Based on what you said, it would appear it's on Shopify's side. I.e. the logic on Shopify is excluding the barcode and SKU when custom product is not set (just my interpretation of course).

The other place you can set it is:

Sales channel -> Google

Select "Manage availability"

Add fields -> "Custom Product" (if the column is not already there)

Set the values to "False" for all products

Note: you can shift click to select multiple cells to set them to False in one go.

Look at my screenshot for this second method. On the products that error or have warnings, you will see the value is neither True OR False, it is just blank. If you set the value on this screen, you don't need to add the MPN.

It seems that adding the MPN just forces Shopify to save "custom product" to false for that product.

[rslygh]

Thanks for the shift+click selection on that screen. I'm using an app named Matrixify in my store and found that it supported importing/exporting the Google metafields, so I was able to use that to flip the false flag where it needed to be. It didn't take long before the GTINs started showing up in Google Merchant Center. I set the MPN values too while I was at it.

The homepage in the Shopify admin is now telling me I have over 1000 products that didn't publish to Google, which makes it seem even worse than the 700 or so it reported yesterday before I ran my import. One thing that stands out to me is that I have no errors within Google Merchant Center and all my products still appear to be in there and working with no more GTIN diagnostic errors. If I check the Google Channel within Shopify that also doesn't indicate any issues with the Approved status being the only one with any items.

I had reached out to Shopify support yesterday and referenced this post, but unfortunately I didn't get anywhere and in the end the suggestions was just to try the custom product = false workaround that has been mentioned in here because the support rep didn't have any ideas of his/her own.

I appreciate the suggestions that were given in here. Now if we could only get some official acknowledgement of there being some issue on the Shopify side caused by something they introduced in the last 30 days.

[RDHAdmin]

"The homepage in the Shopify admin is now telling me I have over 1000 products that didn't publish to Google"

This appears to be a status display error in Shopify. I.e. it's not registering "custom product" being set to "false" as an update, so it's showing the out of date status from Google. It's actually fine in Google, but shows as a warning in Shopify. I personally don't like leaving things in that state, so tried to fix it. *At the end of this post I've added what I think is happening*

The way I found to remove this was to make the product unavailable to Google, then turn it back on again. This then sends all the data, including the previously "fixed" custom product = false value to Google Merchant Centre. It also then corrects the status within Shopify.

Possibly other edits might work as well. For example, increase the quantity by 1, save, then lower by 1 and save again. Or maybe something like adding all products to a new collection, then removing them from the collection. Anything that triggers a feed update to be sent to GMC.

I'd test those last two suggestions on a couple of products and see if it fixes in Shopify. If it doesn't work, then do the first option (untick Google sales channel for the product, save, then tick it back). I'm not a fan on bulk sudden edits so again I personally would test on a small number.

* This is the order of events based on my guess, over explaning/thinking but I can't help it heh heh.

1. Product shows as a warning or error in GMC with no sku and barcode, even though they are set and worked prior to Nov 30th.

2. You set custom product to false in Shopify.

3. Shopify sends the feed update, and also gets the current status from GMC which is a warning (your custom product = false update hasn't applied yet), and shows the error in the Shopify admin.

4. Some time later, GMC updates and removes the warning/error as Shopify included the barcode and MPN in the feed.

5. Shopify doesn't get a new status update from the product, so continues to show the warning.

6. When you make a new edit to the product in Shopify, it now updates properly and gets the accurate status.

[RDHAdmin]

One other thing, always remember from now on that with new products you add, to make sure the custom product value is sorted out before you set the product to "active".

I have added many new products to our company's website and all now show the correct status in both Shopify and Google. I did this by setting the product as draft when adding the product. Then go on More actions -> Google fields. I set the MPN value (this lets that screen be saved, forcing Shopify to set custom product to false).

Now I set the product as active.

Our company only adds about 50 to 100 products per week so we are using the Shopify interface. Via apps or uploading, maybe you can just set the custom product value.

[PBOutfitters]

Thank you.  I finally got GTNs in the feed into Merchant Center.  As suggested, I went into the bulk editor in SALES CHANNELS/Manage Availability and selected FALSE in the custom product flag field for all products that had nothing selected.

[Boxtherob]

I am having the same problem with over 27,000 products. I found a new app that sends the feed correctly, but now I'm paying an extra $35 a month. I'm sure Shopify wants the comission more than they want to help sellers.  The problem would have been acknowledged and fix by now if they cared. 

[RDHAdmin]

By the way, I have emailed Shopify to ask if they can set "Custom product" to false by default, rather than no value, but obviously they haven't replied. I don't think they have understood what is happening, even though I've sent screenshots and asked them to look at the feed data they're submitting.

Bear in mind that on every new product, it's defaulting to not set. So every new product will error by default in GMC. My process is, I'm adding as draft, adding the MPN value on Google fields, then switching to active. Doing this, the new product appears correctly in GMC first time.

If using any app or API to add products, make sure custom product is set to false and I believe you'd be fine.

[musicfan88]

Yeah, I've been having to use a Bulk Product Editor to do this. The plans get rather pricey so I had to do it in chunks of 500 products. I have 24,000 on my website, so this was a huge pain.

I'm happy to say I have them all switched over now and it did solve the issue.

I still did reach out to Shopify and finally got a long response. However, they were blaming Google and said the were aware of the issue. The told me how to export a CSV file, set the value and then re-upload the CSV file to update them all in mass. Well, that would work had I not already done all the work. Still, updating all product via CSV sort of scares me. I've had glitches in Shopify where certain fields carry over wrong. Different story...

Long story short, Shopify isn't going to own up to this one. I don't think they are escalating the issue any higher after replying to us, therefore they aren't working on a fix. For now, I think a bulk editor is the way to go. I now have a task scheduled on my bulk editor to just check every morning and change that field on all new products. However, I'm having to pay $19.00 for this app when it should be functionality already built into Shopify. Heck, this issue should even exist to need this functionality in the first place. 

It's a bummer I need Shopify to work with my partner on my business, because I had a much better time running things myself on WooCommerce. not to mention, Shopify doesn't include basic functionality (Waitlists, Remind me later, etc.). For what we pay a month, we shouldn't have to add $100 worth of apps to pull reports and add basic functionality. It's really a racket. End rant. 

[PBOutfitters]

My barcodes have been valid in the feed up until a few days ago!  Haven't changed anything and now all of a sudden getting Google errors that GTIN is missing.  It has to be a change/bug by Shopify not populating barcodes in the merchant feed.

[webwoman]

I can verify that a CSV file won’t work to fill any Google specific fields. I imported a CSV file with all of the correct Google Product Categories. While you can see that they’re there by exporting the data again, when you view the Google Fields, the data is not present. It’s like the basic Shopify data and the Google Fields data are stored in separate databases or something.

I did some experiments. If I enter anything via the product page > More Actions >  Google Fields then do a csv export, the data remains present next time I open Google fields and is present in the exported data. If I import the data via a csv file, it does not show up in Google Fields or in the Google Channel editing screen.

So I’ve had to resort to editing each one manually. The global editing screen in the Google Channel takes forever to load and update. I’ve already lost my work several times when it hung up. Grrr.

<rant>I totally agree with you, Musicman88, regarding basic functions (backups!) should be included. We should not have to pay for additional apps just to back up our data among many other things. </rant>

[DJHNightfly]

We are having the same problem with over 1000 products! We have tried putting False into the custom product field, entering MPN, deleting the custom product field and nothing works. We enter correct barcodes for all our products and have only been having the problem for the last month. 

[AyeletEsq]

I was experiencing the same on our website and was manually updating and saving products. Thank you for posting this I adjusted to "false" and seems to improve things! 

[webwoman]

It looks to me like Shopify is not sending the GTIN/Barcode at all. When I look at the Content API feed results in GMC, my products do not have a GTIN even though in Shopify a Barcode is present.

When I contacted Shopify support via chat regarding this, they referred me to Google since Google is now handling the Google Channel. 

I contacted Google, they referred me back to Shopify saying Google doesn’t have access to modify the Content API which creates the product feed. 

Still waiting to hear back from my latest email to Shopify Support.

[JBrown2]

For the GTIN to show in GMC you need to ensure that in Shopify admin the ‘custom’ field is set to FALSE for each item. 

[X_Sorin]

I've just dived into this today and found this thread. This is definitely still happening that if the Custom Product is not set, there is no barcode/gtin sent to google. Updating products to set this to false should the change right away when google merchant center pulls the update. I hope either google or shopify fixes this, but given how long it's been broken, I don't have high hopes. 

[shz]

This is the cheapest App I found, that solved my issue: https://apps.shopify.com/gtin-fix