Dec

Using Variants in Your Google Product Feed Will Improve Your Print Catalogs

Tim

Google Products Feed, Import / Export Data, Product Data Tags

Google Data Feed

Variants in your Google data feed make better print catalogs

Uploading your product data to Google Product Search is a terrific (and free!) way to increase exposure to your eCommerce site. And now that same data feed that you provide to Google can be used to make print catalogs.

However, there is one problem that we are seeing frequently — each size and color is listed as a separate product. This is not correct. Instead, each color and size should be listed as a separate variant of a product.

Google is adamant on this point. It is worth taking a minute to read section 5 of the Google spec, because they will reject your feed if you do it wrong. Here is what they say: “…you shouldn’t submit several variants of the same product as separate listings …These items will be considered as duplicates which is against our Program Policies.”

The good news is that cleaning up your feed for Google also makes it much better for print catalogs. Catalog-on-Demand automatically uses the variant data. It converts the variant data into a table such as the one you see in this example. If you do not use variants, no table will appear. Instead, the image and description will be repeated over and over — not what you want to send to your customers.

If you’re not sure whether the Google feed from your eCommerce system is correctly handling variants, it is easy to find out with Catalog-on-Demand. Follow the steps listed in this article. Then take a look at the publications and you’ll know instantly if there is a problem. If so, you’ll need to work with whoever programmed your feed generator. It should not be a big deal for the programmer to fix the variant problem. You’ll win twice — once with Google and again with Catalog-on-Demand. You will be able to use your Google Product Search data feed to make print catalogs.

If you have any questions about this or anything else, be sure and contact support. We’re glad to help you!