I exported the products in our store as csv in order to add data for google shopping (category, gender, age group), but after importing the updated csv file, the google shopping fields were still blank within the app. I then had a read over this page https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/import-export/using-csv#csv-files which says the following:
“The Google Shopping fields might be used by an app to sync products to the Google Merchant Center. However, Shopify’s Google Shopping app doesn’t use these metafields. You can ignore fields in the columns that include Google Shopping in their names unless an app tells you to use them.”
Does that mean there is no way to add this data via CSV or do I need to be using a different app to do that? I’m curious why those columns exist in the shopify CSV template? I’m not sure how important that data is for google shopping, but would be great to have a way to add data in bulk.
I too am having this issue. I’m planning to use the google shopify app to integrate to Merchant center, but the google meta data needs to be loaded first.
When there are hundreds/thousands of products in the online store, it would be much more productive to be able to update the google metadata fields via csv rather than through the UI.
Has anyone else found a way to achieve this? I would think this is a common pain point.
Further information - after doing an export I can see that the import did in fact populate the google metadata fields from csv. However as the text that the OP states, it appears that Google shopping channel (and most likely the shopify google app that syncs to merchant center) does not use these particular metadata fields, but uses different fields that are not exposed (available) through the Product import/export functionality and can only be entered through the UI.
This would seem to be a major design flaw. I would be interested in feedback from Shopify as to why there are different metadata fields defined for google.
Is this still a problem? I only recently started using Google Merchant and I have a separate feed in Google Sheets for all my data, but that requires me to manually copy my spreadsheet data into Sheets. The advantage of this is that I have all my Google Shopping fields set up correctly.
I then added the Google App in Shopify, and it’s been synching some products with Google Merchant, but I realize that some of the fields are wrong..like Google Product Category.
My Google Sheet is set up and accurate, and it’s still only a minor inconvenience to occasionally update the stock availability manually, but would be great if I could get Shopify to sync automatically.
I am having the same issue. I have been going one by one updating the info needed for Google shopping app but it is taking forever because I have over 2,000 products. Is there a faster way to do this? Why do they have the google categories listed on the spreadsheet if it doesn’t update them? Thank you.
I’m facing this problem and there is not a single answer from Shopify. Should we understand there is no solution to this? Are you working on a solution? Is there some option to populate the Google fields in bulk from a CSV file. In the template you provide those fields are suposed to be fullfil. Any help will be more than welcome. Thanks in advance
I, too, am having the same issue. Google won’t approve my products because it thinks they are custom. I can’t update the fields and therefore can’t sync with Google. So frustrating. Is Shopify fixing this or do I need to transfer to a different ecommerce solution?
This is causing accounts to get suspended, its honestly PATHETIC on shopify I mean it’s their fault for something of there’s not working… why shouldn’t they fix it?
I just wanted to thank you, this solution worked great. For $20 it saved me countless hours. It’s dumbfounding this issue has been open for at least 3 years from what I can find, but at least you had a quick easy fix you found that worked!
With Matrixify when i exported the metafields, i could only see 2 of the (maybe) 10 google fields, and those 2 were already filled in. So i couldn’t see the custom labels for instance. Anyone else had that problem?
Hello @Robbert2
By default, the Matrixify app exports Metafields that have values set in them for at least one of the exported Products or you can specify to add columns for definitions.
But in this case, as you would not have definitions, you would need to ensure that at least one of the exported Products has a value set in those Google fields.
Then from such a file you could update values also for other products and import back to update.
