Google Merchant Account Suspended, missing value for shipping rates?

Shopify Discussion
1

I was tasked to try and fix my company’s Google Merchant Account which is suspended for data quality issues. We run a big E-commerce store that sells vinyls. Another co-worker before I was hired, created the account and I am new to Google Merchant Account. Our main issue seems to be “Missing value for shipping rate”. We determine shipping rates, based on product price, not the weight of the item. The weight is not even in Shopify settings under shipping rates. I’ve tried to put weight in with the fixed shipping rates, but nothing changed (Although I don’t know if it didn’t change cause I need the account to be reviewed). My question is how do I tell Google Merchant to add a zero value number to product prices for all weight measurements, or is there some way to tell Google Merchant to not even look at the weight value.

Also I am missing the identifiers, (gtin, mpn, brand). What is the solution or possible process to find the identifiers if all my products and account are suspended. Thank you

2

If your shipping prices are free for all products, then go to Google Merchant Center > gear icon > shipping > and setup free shipping by following the step by step guide after you click on the plus icon.

If you are using Shopify’s free shopping app, make sure to disable automatic shipping in the settings of the app.

For product identifiers the following rule applies:

If a manufacturer has assigned a bar code, then submit brand (vendor), MPN (if available), GTIN (barcode), and set identifier exists to yes.

If the manufacturer has not assigned a bar code, then remove the values brand, MPN, GTIN, and set identifier exists to no.

While the official documentation does mention, that you can submit brand + MPN and ignore GTIN. However, in most cases, this will cause issues and generate warnings such as limited performance due to missing identifiers.

And as of June 2021, specific categories and or countries require barcodes to be submitted, regardless if you have any. So, in this case, if you are the manufacturer, you need to get official GS1 barcodes.

Reference: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6098295

A secondary reason for issues is that most merchants tend to use SKU as the MPN values, which is incorrect.

SKU stands for “stock keeping unit” and — as the name suggests — it is a number (usually eight alphanumeric digits) that retailers assign to products to keep track of stock levels internally.

An MPN, or manufacturer part number, is a manufacturer-assigned, unique, alphanumeric value used to identify a product among other products from the same manufacturer.

More info:

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324351

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324461

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324482

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324478

3

The best way to tell Google Merchant to ignore the weight of the item is to set the item weight to 0 in Shopify. If there is no reason for the existence of the weight attribute, then set it to 0. The Shipping calculation on GMC should then ignore the weight in the calculation of shipping rates.

4

For the weight issue.

First go to Google Merchant Center > top right corner > gear icon > shipping > and check your shipping settings that it is not weight based.

If yes, modify it.

If you are using the free shopping app, make sure you change the shipping from automatic to manual. To avoid the GMC shipping settings being overwritten.

5

Hi thanks for the reply. Do I add that under shipping and delivery settings in Shopify? Then general shipping rates? We have many different shipping rates for different states, in store delivery, to Canada, etc., what is the easiest way to input weight value for all items?

6

Destination based shipping is not available in Canada, you will need to setup 1 rate to the whole country.

Yes it can be per weight based, but not location.

You can learn more here: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6069284?hl=en

If you are using the free shopify google shopping app, don’t forget to set the shipping settings in the app to manual. To avoid settings in GMC being overwritten.

7

If anyone has the same issue, I found the solution to be selecting “manually set up shipping settings in Google Merchant Center” instead of automatically importing shipping settings. My store did not have a weight value, so solution was to make it manual and set up shipping settings in GMC.

8

Hi Clarice,

If we switched to cost attribute rather than weight attribute would that fix the issue?

9

Hi there,

Just wondering if you ran into any issues with the change to manual shipping settings in GMC? We have the same issue as what you have.

Thanks,

DT