Hi - we dont export much outside our own region so I don’t have an
answer or help on this I am afraid. All I do know is once we turned off
automatic price updates in Merchant centre the isseu went away for us.
Topic summary
Core Issue:
Shopify stores selling in the EU/UK face price mismatches in Google Merchant Center when using location-based VAT settings. Google’s crawlers see prices excluding VAT (often from non-EU IP addresses), while product feeds contain VAT-inclusive prices, triggering automatic price updates or product rejections.
Root Cause:
Shopify’s hidden geolocation feature displays different prices based on visitor location before checkout. When “Include or exclude tax based on customer’s country” is enabled, international visitors see ex-VAT prices immediately, which Google’s crawlers detect and flag as mismatches.
Attempted Solutions:
- Disabling automatic updates in Google Merchant Center: Temporarily fixes price display but may cause product rejections
- Resubmitting sitemaps: Helped some users after Google recrawled
- Custom code workarounds: Calculating VAT-inclusive prices in theme code when cart.taxes_included is false
- Tax overrides for crawled countries: Adding tax rates for countries Google crawls from (e.g., Andorra)
Most Effective Solution:
Shopify can disable the automatic geolocation-based price adjustment feature on request (confirmed working for Shopify Plus accounts). This ensures all visitors see consistent VAT-inclusive prices until entering shipping details at checkout.
Current Status:
Recent reports (2023-2024) indicate Shopify support is inconsistent about disabling this feature, particularly for non-Plus accounts. The issue remains unresolved for many merchants, with no user-accessible setting to control this behavior. Google Shopping requires landing page prices to match feed prices regardless of visitor location.