There are two types of Google Merchant Center channels that you can create in StoreAutomator:
1. Buy on Google
Buy on Google is a shopping experience that allows you to sell your products directly on Google and can be created either as a channel or a subchannel in StoreAutomator.
To add a Buy on Google as a channel in StoreAutomator, navigate to: Home/All channels and click on the Add a channel button in the upper right corner. Choose the Buy on Google channel, type your preferred name for this channel name and then click the “+Create” button, as shown below.
The system will then ask you to enter your Google Merchant ID, please enter the ID and hit save.
To add Buy on Google as a subchannel, navigate to All Channels and click on Manage your channels. Click the “Add Channel” button in the upper right corner and then choose Google Shopping. When you click on Subchannel, more options will show you can select the preferred channel. You can choose one of the shopping carts channels as a parent channel such as Woocommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify. Click on the dropdown menu of the parent channel and choose the master channel, provide a name for the channel and click on the +create button.
Your channel is now created, however, there are still some steps that need to be complete before the channel is fully ready to function.
Special Data
If you need to send special data to Google then an XML template needs to be created. Go to Settings>Templates and add a new template. All required fields are automatically sent from the backend of StoreAutomator. However, you can add as many optional fields as needed and map them to send your customized data for the channel.
Click here for the list of required and optional attributes.
2. Google Shopping PLA Feed
A Google shopping feed helps ecommerce sellers promote their products on Google. Your products will appear to Google users without needing to provide your website url. This will steer more traffic toward your website and bring your selling to the next level.
To create a Google Shopping feed channel, navigate to Home/All channels and click on Manage your channels. Click on Add Channel in the upper right corner and choose Google Shopping. More fields will show and you will be asked to choose a parent channel. A Google Shopping feed can only be created as a sub channel for one of the shopping carts channels such as Woocommerce, BigCommerce and Shopify. Click on the dropdown menu of the parent channel and choose the master channel, provide a name for the channel and click on the +Create button.
Creating this channel will automatically create a default flat type Google Shopping template. To check that template, go to Settings>Templates and search for your channel name. When you click on the Edit icon of the template, you will see all the fields automatically generated and mapped. You can change the mapping of these fields or add more fields depending on your customized data. The only two fields that you are required to add are the ProductId and storecode field, which can be defined in your Business Profile.
Click here for a complete list of local inventory fields and their descriptions.
