Google Sales Channel App - Local Feed Partnership Integration Issue

Technical Q&A
1

Hello all,

I am having issues with the Local Feed integration and spending a few days with the Google support team it seems there is an issue with the integration from Shopify’s end. There is a new Local Feed Partnership integration that requires Shopify POS to pass local inventory levels to Google Merchant Centre.

I have already successfully linked Google Sales Channel app with my Google Merchant Centre account and have 99% products approved and active with my primary feed on Google Merchant Centre.

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I am a local store and have all my inventory on Shopify available at my physical location and I have setup Shopify POS for this integration so that I can get Free Local Listings setup.

I have gone through the Free Local Listings onboarding process on Google Merchant Centre and successfully linked all accounts.

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I have also gone through the Google Channel Local Inventory onboarding process and linked everything correctly.

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Despite having everything setup correctly and 99% of all products already syncing with the primary feed, I am having issues with the Local Partnership Feed.

I have spent days going in a circles with the Shopify support team who I am convinced is a bot and not a human.

Until recently, none of my products were syncing properly (missing image, product type, barcode, price, inventory level etc) and now some products have started syncing correctly but majority of the products still have sync issues, even though the same level of data exists per product. So far only about 616 products have synced.

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Out of these 616 products, only 191 are active.

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I am convinced that there is an integration issue and the product team in charge of the integration from Shopify’s side needs to have a look.

However, the support person I have the ticket open with is just replying back to me with article links rather than answering any of my questions and ignoring all evidence presented to them.

I’d be grateful if anyone can assist with this or escalate this to right team within Shopify to have a look.

2

I have seen this issue this week with a client that reached out, and it looks like Google Channel is not working correctly. I recommend for now, to disable it and wait till Google fixes the issue. With enough complaints they will start doing something about it.

Or what I do for my clients is use a better app such as: https://apps.shopify.com/multiple-google-shopping-feeds

However, if you want to resolve the issues at hand, then please share what issues you have, as currently I only see disapproved / invalid, and as you said due to the image. So logically Google takes a few days to process images. You may want to try and wait a few days.

3

Thanks @EmmanuelFlossie , I can now see more of the products having sync issues getting approved. It seems like a really slow process or Shopify finally did something! I think I’m going to leave it on for a few more days and see what happens.

With regards to issues, I’ve noticed something strange, despite both main feed and local feed pulling in the right product price, on the local feed I see this issue as a warning on all approved products.

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I am aware that having a description will be much better for ranking but with over 4000 sku’s and the speed that products get replaced (we run a grocery store), it has been impossible for me to include this information.

I am also seeing a lot of products being submitted to wrong Google product categories. I saw an orange juice submitted to Alcohol > Wines category. In Shopify I have selected the correct category. Would it be best to edit these or leave them if they have minimal impact on performance?

I can see that you’re an expert on the topic, I’d grateful if you can help me understand a question mark I have in my with regards to the main product feed, I only sell locally and deliver locally, I don’t ship nationwide (not yet!). Although I have a shipping fee setup for main feed (I didn’t know about local feed at the time of setup), if a customer comes to my store through the Google Shopping Channel but can’t checkout because they are not local to me, will this affect my rankings within Google Shopping? Or shall I disable my main feed until I start shipping nationwide? What would your recommendation be?

4

I would update the categories, as this will hinder performance.

Yes blocking users will cause a suspension. So I recommend that you remove the shopping ads, and only keep local inventory feed.

So 1 primary local feed

and 1 supplement local inventory feed

5

Thanks @EmmanuelFlossie , I will look into the category issues. I’ll wait for the feed to to fully sync and get an admin person on it.

Right I see, I thought it might be an issue as customers will click through to the website but not be able to checkout due to them not being local. Thank you for clarifying that with me. I don’t want to delete the entire feed and I’m not planning to do any shopping ads or display ads on this main feed. If I just untick the free listings within the feed destination, that should be enough I’m assuming?

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I don’t have the inventory feed setup as a supplement feed, I think the new Shopify Local Partnership Feed covers that? Free Local Listings and Local Inventory Ads are covered in the Local Feed Partnership feed.

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6

You will need to uncheck shopping ads.

7

Thanks buddy, I have unchecked Shopping Ads and Free Listings, it seems I can’t uncheck all 3 so kept dynamic ads on. Hopefully this would suffice if not I can delete the main feed and just keep the Local Partnership Feed.

8

Hi @EmmanuelFlossie , just want to get your opinion on something. I’ve noticed that some of my product titles are completely different in Google Merchant Centre. I have integrated via the Google channel. I am assuming the correct name is being pushed by Shopify but somehow being changed by Google itself. I now have titles such “Product Name | Indian Supermarket | Online Indian Market”. I am not an Indian supermarket and even the product name that it pulls is completely different to the product name on my website.

When I look at the Raw Data attributes in GMC, it shows as Shopify is sending the wrong product title, but how could this be?

Have you seen a similar issue before?

I have even seen some product descriptions on Google storefront displayed in French. My store is in English and no products have French words associated with it. When I look at the GMC data it has no such descriptions associated with the product. This issue is with Google I think and have contacted them about to see what they say.

9

That is very strange, I was first going to suggest maybe your SEO titles. But I think in this case a different website is connected to your Google Merchant Center account.

Check Google Merchant Center > products > feeds

10

Hi Mussty,

Did you ever figure out what was causing this issue? I am currently having somewhat of the same issue. I can’t seem to get rid of the Local Feed Partnership and products that are being inserted have different titles than the products on my website.

11

Hi @chasemartin1 , the wrong title issue is annoying and you have to go through Google support, document each one you find and send them screenshots. I gave up in the end. Everytime they said it was fixed I found more. Each time they asked for evidence. I don’t have time to go through 4000 products listings manually. For the time being I just left it. Will look at it again at a later date.