Google has announced the updated version of Merchant Center, which offers more streamlined navigation and easier access to other shopping programs.
The updated Merchant Center has a new responsive interface with a modern look and feel of the rest of the Google’s products. Common tasks and actions have been bundled.
“For example, you can use the new Home page to view recent announcements and dashboard data for your account, and you can find consolidated product feed and product data quality information under the Products page. For more information on navigating the new UI, visit the Help Center.”
Merchant Center can now be used to explore additional programs including Local Inventory Ads, Merchant Promotions, Product Ratings and other along with managing and configuring the product data for Shopping ads.
Some of the most used Merchant Center features have been updated to improve speed and functionality:
- Feed Rules. In response to feedback we’ve heard from you, we’re updating Feed Rules to more closely align with how we see retailers commonly using the tool today.
- Change or update specific values. For example, you can update specific values of the color attribute while keeping other existing color values intact.
- Create new values by combining static values and/or values from different attributes in your feed. For example, you can add size type values to your product title values.
- Extract values from other attribute values. For example, you can populate a color value by searching in the description attribute for pre-selected values (blue, green, red, yellow) that will be suitable for the color attribute.
- Diagnostics page. We’ve increased the freshness of data in the diagnostics page. Now, the latest results from your feed uploads and product updates will be displayed in near-real time instead of twice a day — meaning that you’ll have fresher data to update and optimize your product feeds.
- Currency Conversions. Last month, we announced that we were testing currency conversions, which allows you to convert the currency in your product data locally. With the launch of the new Merchant Center, we’re expanding this feature more broadly to let you easily advertise to users in other countries, while allowing you to continue using your existing website and landing pages without change. Learn how Berlin-based myToys is already using currency conversions to increase their sales abroad.
