Google has made a number of updates to its Merchant Center product data specifications, including some that went into effect on April 8th and some that will go into effect on July 1, 2025.
The changes include price attributes for down payments, energy efficiency class attributes, added shopping attributes, member pricing guidance, and sales tax attributes.
On April 8, 2025 these three changes went into effect:
- Google stopped supporting the price [price] attribute for down payments on products with installment pricing. You must use the down payment [downpayment] sub-attribute of the installment [installment] attribute and price [price] must be the alternative price when paid in full up-front instead of in installments.
- The energy efficiency class attributes was be replaced in EU countries by the more general certification [certification] attribute. Google said this will ensure support for products requiring graphical energy efficiency class labels in the EU (covering both rescaled and non-rescaled labels). The energy efficiency class attributes will remain available for products sold in Norway, Switzerland, and the UK.
- Google added a number of new shipping attributes: Google added more shipping options at the offer level, mirroring existing account-level features. This includes a new carrier shipping [carrier_shipping] attribute, a new shipping handling business days [shipping_handling_business_days] and shipping transit business days [shipping_transit_business_days] attributes to specify the operational business days for handling and transit, enabling accurate delivery time estimates on Shopping ads and free listings.
Then on July 1, 2025, these changes go into effect:
- Google updated guidance on member prices: Google said it will no longer allow member prices in the price [price] or sale price [sale_price] attributes. This applies globally and includes member prices for both paid and free to join member programs. Instead, use the loyalty program [loyalty_program] attribute to submit member prices in countries where the loyalty program is available. After this date, including member prices in the price [price] or sale price [sale_price] attributes could lead to offer or account disapproval.
- Google removed some sales tax attributes: Google will no longer require merchants to provide US sales tax (through either the tax [tax] and tax category [tax_category] attributes, or the tax settings in Merchant Center). With this change, offers currently disapproved for missing tax information may begin to receive traffic. Google said this may impact any associated campaign spend.
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