For arlanix/product-feed 1.0
Google Merchant Center
A feed reaches Merchant Center in one of three ways. If you are not sure, use the first: it is what your first feed makes, and it needs nothing on the Google side but pasting an address once.
| Channel | How it works | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|
| File | The feed is published as a file on your store. You paste its address into Merchant Center once, and Google fetches it on the schedule you choose there. | Almost always. Nothing to connect, nothing to set up in Google Cloud. |
| SFTP | The feed is uploaded to Merchant Center's own SFTP server. | Your store is not reachable from the internet, or Google must not fetch from it. Your developer sets up the connection: see SFTP delivery. |
| Google Merchant Center (API) | The module sends products to Merchant Center one by one as they change, without a file. | You want price and stock changes in Merchant Center within minutes, not once a day, and the catalogue is not too large: it is one request per product. The module creates the data source in Merchant Center itself on the first run. Needs a Google Cloud service account, which your developer sets up: see the documentation. |
The field mapping is the same for all three: the Google Shopping feed type and its field catalog, see Mapping.
The file channel
Set Channel to File and give Merchant Center the file's address, as step 11 of your first feed shows.
The other channels
The SFTP and API channels need a connection made once, with keys or passwords from Google: an SFTP login for the first, a Google Cloud service account for the other. That is usually your developer's part, and the documentation walks them through it. Once the connection exists, you choose it in the feed's Channel section like any other setting.