Google has rolled out a new feature to automate the process of updating your inventory with Google Merchant Center. It is called Website-reported Autofeeds and it uses Google Tag Manager tag implemented in your site to manage this.
Google said, "With this, local inventory data is no longer required when adding your online store’s in-store inventory to Merchant Center."
This was spotted by Emmanuel Flossie who posted about this on LinkedIn and on his site and wrote, "Google’s Website-reported Autofeeds offer a streamlined method to automatically import your in-store inventory data into Google Merchant Center—no extra feed files required."
Emmanuel dives into a newly released feature from Google that allows you to automatically import in-store inventory data into Google Merchant Center using website-reported auto feeds. This feature requires integration through Google Tag Manager and involves tagging your website with key product attributes such as Merchant Center ID, Product ID, Store Code, Availability, Price, Country, and Language. It's designed primarily for advanced users or merchants with developer support.
Here is how it works:
(1) A customer on your website shows interest in a product and wants to check its availability in nearby stores. This might involve them clicking a "Check in-store availability" button or selecting a "Find nearby" option.
(2) The customer action prompts a Google Tag Manager JavaScript tag embedded in your website's code.
(3) The tag collects relevant inventory data for the product, such as Merchant Center ID, Product ID, Current availability (in stock or out of stock), Store codes (unique identifiers for your physical locations), Price, Country and Language.
(4) The tag sends the compiled inventory data to Google.
(5) Google automatically matches the received data with your existing product listings in Google Merchant Center.
(6) Your in stock listings, now enriched with real-time local availability information, are displayed to nearby customers searching on Google. This helps drive those customers to your stores.
He made this video to walk you through the process, as well:
This might not be for all but if you have a dev team, it can save you a lot of time. Also check out this new help document from Google with more details.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
