Creating a Google local product inventory feed can be quite a challenge. There are a couple of steps you need to take before everything is up and running:
- Create your local shops in your Google My Business account (make sure to write down your store codes);
- Create a ‘normal’ Google Shopping feed containing your products in Google’s merchant center;
- Finally, create a local product inventory feed for each store. Please note that Google doesn’t allow the creation of supplemental feeds for individual stores. The entire inventory for all products and stores needs to be included in one local product inventory feed.
Doing so is pretty straightforward using our plugin.
On the first page of the configuration, you have to make sure to select XML or TXT . XML is less error prone so you should go for that one. Should you however decide to use TXT as file format then make sure to use tab as the field delimiter:
On the next page you’ll find four field mappings, three of those are pre-mapped so you don’t have to worry about those. The complex one is the store code. Just make sure that on the fields mapping page, you enter all your different store codes (you can find those in your Google My Business account) pipe separated. In the example below we have added 3 store codes: 3085|3086|3087
This will basically tell our plugin that it needs to put your products in the local product inventory feed three times, once for every unique store code. Bear in mind, this will assume that all the attributes, such as stock, are the same for all of your stores.
When you have only one store to add you can just fill in a single store code with a | behind it. For example: 3085| (this only goes for TXT files, for XML the pipe is not needed)
The pages that follow after the field mapping page are pretty straightforward. Just reach out whenever you need help with creating local product inventory feeds for Google.
