# How to Sell on Google Shopping from Your Shopify Store

> A step-by-step guide to selling on Google Shopping from Shopify: set up Merchant Center, send a product feed, get free listings and launch a first campaign.

Updated 2026-10-20

Canonical: https://awesomestoreapps.com/learn/how-to-sell-on-google-shopping

To sell on Google Shopping from Shopify, you create a Google Merchant Center account, set up shipping and returns, and send your products to it as a product feed. Once they're approved, your products can show in free listings across Google. Link Google Ads and you can run paid Shopping campaigns on top. This guide covers each step in order.

## What you need before you start

Google Shopping is the product side of Google: the image-and-price listings in search results, the Shopping tab, Images and other Google surfaces. Every one of those listings comes from **Google Merchant Center**, which holds your product data. **Google Ads** is where you pay to promote those products.

Before you open any accounts, have these ready:

- A live Shopify store with a working checkout (no password page)
- Clear **shipping** and **return** policies published on the site
- Contact details shoppers can find (email, phone or address)
- Accurate prices and stock on every product
- A Google account you'll use for Merchant Center and Ads

Google reviews your website as well as your products, so a store that looks unfinished or hides its policies is a common reason for early rejections.

## How to sell on Google Shopping: 10 steps

### 1. Tidy up your store

Fix the basics before Google looks at your site:

- Publish a refund/return policy and a shipping policy, and link them in the footer.
- Make sure prices on product pages match what's charged at checkout.
- Remove placeholder text, broken links and test products.
- Check that products you plan to promote are actually in stock or marked as out of stock.

This is boring work, but it's much easier than appealing a suspension later.

### 2. Create your Google Merchant Center account

Sign up for Merchant Center with your Google account and fill in your business details: business name, country, address and website. Google will ask you to **verify and claim your website**. On Shopify, the usual options are adding a verification tag to your theme or verifying through Google Analytics or Tag Manager if you already use them. Follow whatever method Merchant Center offers you at the time.

Use the business name shoppers know. It shows next to your listings.

### 3. Set up shipping and returns in Merchant Center

Google wants shipping costs and delivery times for every country you sell to. Add them in Merchant Center's shipping settings. Keep them simple and accurate: a flat rate, free shipping over a threshold, or rates by price or weight.

Add your return policy too (return window, who pays return shipping). Shipping and returns can show up on your listings, and missing or mismatched shipping info is a frequent cause of product warnings.

### 4. Prepare your product data

Your product data matters more than anything else in Google Shopping. Google decides when to show a product mostly from its title, category and attributes, so put the work in here.

| Field | What Google expects | Tips |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Title | Clear product name | Lead with brand + product type + key attribute (e.g. "Acme Merino Wool Beanie, Navy") |
| Description | Plain-text product details | Materials, sizes, use cases. No promo text or ALL CAPS |
| Image | Clean product photo | No watermarks, text overlays or placeholder images |
| Price | Matches the landing page | Include sale prices correctly |
| Availability | in stock / out of stock | Must match the product page |
| Brand | Manufacturer or your store brand | Required for most products |
| GTIN | Barcode (UPC/EAN/ISBN) | Use real barcodes for branded goods. Don't invent them |
| MPN | Manufacturer part number | Helps when there's no GTIN |
| Google product category | Google's taxonomy | The more specific, the better |
| Gender, age group, color, size | Apparel attributes | Required for clothing in many countries |

If you make your own products and have no barcodes, that's fine. Leave GTIN empty rather than making one up, and supply brand and MPN where you can.

### 5. Choose how to send products to Merchant Center

There are three common ways to get Shopify products into Merchant Center:

1. **Shopify's Google & YouTube channel.** Free, quick to set up, and fine for simple catalogs.
2. **A product feed app.** It builds a feed URL from your catalog that Merchant Center fetches on a schedule. Good when you need more control over categories, titles, custom labels or per-country feeds.
3. **Manual upload** (spreadsheets). Only realistic for a handful of products, because you have to keep it updated by hand.

With a feed URL, you add it in Merchant Center as a **scheduled data source** (the naming in Merchant Center changes from time to time, but look for adding products from a file or URL on a schedule). Google then re-fetches it regularly, so price and stock changes in Shopify flow through without you uploading anything.

The same kind of feed can also fill a Meta catalog, which we cover in our [Facebook product feed guide](https://awesomestoreapps.com/learn/facebook-product-feed.md).

### 6. Check diagnostics and fix disapprovals

After the first fetch, Google processes your products and flags problems. Open the products or diagnostics area in Merchant Center and work through the issues, starting with those affecting the most products.

Common first-time problems:

- **Price or availability mismatch** between the feed and the website
- **Missing shipping** for a target country
- **Missing GTIN, brand or identifiers**
- **Image issues** (too small, promotional overlays, placeholder images)
- **Missing apparel attributes** like gender, age group or color
- **Policy issues** with restricted product types

Fix the data at the source (in Shopify or your feed settings), then wait for the next fetch. Editing things only inside Merchant Center tends to get overwritten.

Review times vary, so don't panic if products sit "pending" for a while after your first upload.

### 7. Turn on free listings

Approved products can appear for free across Google surfaces, including the Shopping tab. In current Merchant Center accounts this is usually enabled by default, but check your programs or marketing settings to confirm your products are eligible to show on Google for free.

Free listings are a good low-risk start. You'll see impressions and clicks in Merchant Center, which tells you which products Google is matching to searches before you spend anything.

### 8. Link Google Ads and set up conversion tracking

To run paid Shopping ads, create a Google Ads account (or use an existing one) and **link it to Merchant Center** from either side.

Then set up **conversion tracking** so Google knows which clicks turn into sales. On Shopify, this is commonly done through the Google & YouTube channel or by adding the Google tag. Without conversion data, automated bidding has nothing to learn from, and you can't tell if your ads pay off.

### 9. Launch your first Shopping campaign

In Google Ads, create a new campaign with the **Sales** goal and choose your Merchant Center account. You'll generally pick between:

- **Standard Shopping campaign:** you control bids and product groups, and you see search terms more clearly. Good for learning.
- **Performance Max:** Google automates placements across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display and more. Less control, but it can scale once you have conversion data.

For a first campaign, keep it simple:

- Pick one country and one currency that match your feed.
- Set a daily budget you're comfortable losing while you learn.
- Start with your best sellers or highest-margin products rather than the whole catalog.
- Use custom labels (for example "bestseller", "high margin", "clearance") to split products into groups you can bid on differently.

### 10. Monitor and improve

Give the campaign a couple of weeks before making big changes. Then look at:

- **Search terms:** add negative keywords for irrelevant searches (Standard Shopping).
- **Products with clicks but no sales:** check price, images and the product page.
- **Products with no impressions:** usually a title or category problem.
- **Merchant Center diagnostics:** new warnings appear as your catalog changes.

Small title edits often make the biggest difference. Adding the product type, material or size people actually search for can move a product from invisible to clicked.

## Free listings vs Shopping ads

|  | Free listings | Shopping ads |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cost | Free | Pay per click (or by goal) |
| Where they show | Shopping tab and other Google surfaces | Top of search results, Shopping tab, partner placements, plus more with Performance Max |
| Control | None over placement | Budgets, bids, product groups |
| Needs | Merchant Center + approved products | Same, plus Google Ads and ideally conversion tracking |

Most stores run both. Free listings bring in some traffic at no cost, and ads give you reach and control on the products that earn the most.

## Mistakes that slow beginners down

- **Launching before the store is ready.** Missing policies or contact details can get an account suspended for misrepresentation.
- **Making up GTINs.** Fake barcodes cause disapprovals. Leave the field empty if you don't have real ones.
- **Leaving the category vague.** "Apparel & Accessories" alone gives Google little to work with.
- **Stale feeds.** If prices or stock in the feed lag behind the site, products get disapproved. Use a feed that updates automatically.
- **Advertising everything at once.** A small, focused first campaign teaches you more and wastes less.
- **Skipping conversion tracking.** Without it you're guessing.

## How Awesome Feeds helps

Awesome Feeds builds a Google-format XML feed URL from your Shopify catalog that you add as a scheduled data source in Merchant Center ([step-by-step guide](https://awesomestoreapps.com/docs/add-feed-to-google-merchant-center.md)). It's updated automatically when products, prices or stock change. [Google Shopping rules](https://awesomestoreapps.com/docs/google-shopping-rules.md) set product category, gender, age group and color across the catalog, and settings cover GTIN, MPN and brand sources, title length and five custom labels for campaign groups. You can also make separate feeds per Shopify Markets country or language. It doesn't create ads or add tracking, so you'll still do that in Google Ads. Plans start at $24/month with a 7-day free trial.

## FAQ

### How much does it cost to sell on Google Shopping?

Creating a Merchant Center account and showing products in free listings costs nothing. You only pay when you run Shopping ads in Google Ads, and you set the budget yourself. Some stores also pay for a feed app or other tools to manage their product data.

### What's the difference between Google Shopping free listings and ads?

Free listings are product listings Google shows at no cost on surfaces like the Shopping tab, and you have no control over placement. Shopping ads are paid, give you budgets, bids and product groups, and can appear in more prominent spots. Both use the same product data from Merchant Center.

### Do I need GTINs to sell on Google Shopping?

You need real GTINs for branded products that have barcodes assigned by the manufacturer. If you make your own products and have no barcodes, leave GTIN empty and provide brand and MPN where possible. Never invent GTINs, as that leads to disapprovals.

### How long does it take for products to appear on Google Shopping?

After your first upload, Google has to review your products and website, which can take anywhere from a short while to several days. Fixing the issues flagged in Merchant Center diagnostics quickly helps. Later updates usually go through faster than the first review.

### Can I use Shopify's Google channel instead of a feed?

Yes. Shopify's Google & YouTube channel is free and works well for simple catalogs. Stores that need more control over categories, titles, custom labels or separate feeds per country often switch to a feed app.

## Related docs

- [Add Feed to Google Merchant Center](https://awesomestoreapps.com/docs/add-feed-to-google-merchant-center.md)
- [Google Shopping Rules](https://awesomestoreapps.com/docs/google-shopping-rules.md)
- [Settings](https://awesomestoreapps.com/docs/app-settings.md)