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This help center shows articles applicable to Merchant Center Next. Learn more about the upgrade and get answers to frequently asked questions.

Manage your shipping settings

I want to set up shipping settings for my entire account

Reminders

  • If you provide multiple shipping information for a product in the same country, we’ll calculate the lowest shipping cost for the product for a given situation and display that rate and the associated shipping speed to customers. If the shipping cost is the same, we'll use the shipping information with the fastest shipping speed.
  • You can provide multiple shipping dimensions, such as setting shipping rate based on both weight and price factors, for a product in the same country by creating an Advanced cost table.
  • The shipping costs you submit to Merchant Center should be as close as possible to what's on your website. If you can't match the costs closely, overestimate the figures you submit.
  • The prices and delivery times configured using the shipping [shipping] attribute will override account-level settings for the matching location for that product if the price [price] sub-attribute is submitted.
  • Updates to your shipping settings made using the automated API, including that by a third party platform such as Shopify, may overwrite manual updates from Merchant Center.
Note: You can also set up shipping or return policies in the Search Console. If you already have return policies setup in Search Console, you can edit them in Search Console or modify them on Merchant Center.

Step 1: Add shipping-related attributes to your products (optional)

Shipping label

  • Shipping information can be associated with either all products or with groups of products, the latter of which can be specified using the shipping label [shipping_label] attribute.
  • The shipping label attribute needs to be added to the products before you set up shipping settings.

Shipping weight and dimension

Learn more about how to update products one by one in Merchant Center.

Learn more about how to update multiple products at the same time from a file to Merchant Center.

Learn more about how to update multiple products at the same time from Google Sheets to Merchant Center.


Step 2: Create new shipping information

Step 1 Sign in to your Merchant Center account.
Step 2 Click Shipping and returns.
Step 3 Click Add shipping policy.

Note: You may configure up to 20 shipping information per country.


Step 3: Choose the countries you ship to

Select a single country or multiple countries you ship to that share shipping costs and shipping options. This should be where you want to ship to and may not necessarily be where the order is shipped from or where your business is based.

  • You can specify multiple countries in a single shipping information, or create multiple shipping information for each country. To use country specific options such as carrier rate, create separate shipping information only for the country.
  • If you convert shipping information with any of these features into a multi-country setup, these features will be removed.

Step 4: Choose which products to associate with this shipping information

  1. Select either “All products” or “specific products”.
  2. If you select “specific products”, choose from the list of shipping labels detected with your product data.

Note: You can proceed with the “specific products” option only if:

  • You already have shipping information turned on for all products.
  • The shipping label is added to your products.

If no shipping labels are available in the list, ensure you added the [shipping label] attribute to your products.


Step 5: Decide how you want to determine shipping speed

You can:

  1. Let Google determine shipping speed by carrier on your behalf (US only).
  2. Or enter specific shipping speed manually.
  • For "Order cutoff", Choose the time of day by which orders must be placed to process them on the same day. Also, select the time zone in which this time is calculated. For example, a cutoff time of 3:00 PM EST means that orders placed after that time won't be processed until the next business day.
  • For "Handling time", enter the minimum and the maximum number of days that processing could take. Add “0” if you process items the same day they're ordered. To choose which days of the week you're processing orders, use the drop-down menu and select a day range (for example: Mon-Fri, Mon-Sat).
  • For “Transit time (days)”, select your Shipping time option and specify the minimum and the maximum number of days that transit could take. Merchants can choose from 3 options:
    • All destinations
    • Destination by zone
      • Zones can be created and edited with postal codes and later used to define shipping speed

Holiday effects on estimated delivery date

Products with handling or shipping times that overlap with a national holiday will have the estimated delivery date extended by a day. The holidays in the following countries are considered non-business days when calculating estimated delivery date: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Example

Here is an example of what estimated delivery date might look like with the settings below in Merchant Center:

  • Order cut-off: 3 p.m. EST
  • 0 - 1 handling days (fulfilled Monday - Friday)
  • 3 - 5 transit days (fulfilled Monday - Saturday)

Google uses the maximum handling and delivery range to calculate the arrival date. If a customer places an order at 8 p.m. EST on Wednesday, the estimated delivery date will be the following Thursday.

Minimum estimated delivery date:
6 calendar days
Maximum estimated delivery date:
9 calendar day
Day of order Day of week Status Day of order Day of week Status
Day 1 Wednesday Order placed after cutoff Day 1 Wednesday Order placed after cutoff
Day 2 Thursday Handling time Day 2 Thursday Handling time begins (Day 0*)
Day 3 Friday Transit time Day 3 Friday Handling time ends (Day 1)
Day 4 Saturday Transit time Day 4 Saturday Transit time
Day 5 Sunday No action Day 5 Sunday No action
Day 6 Monday Transit time (including Delivery day) Day 6 Monday Transit time
      Day 7 Tuesday Transit time
      Day 8 Wednesday Transit time
      Day 9 Thursday Transit time (including delivery day)

* “Day 0” means “same day” for orders placed before the cut-off time. For orders placed after cut-off, “Day 0” is then the next business day. In other words, all handling time is counted starting with “Day 0”, regardless of when the order is placed in relation to the cut-off time.

Regions functionality for speed

Regions allow merchants to manually share different speeds based on customer locations. A region is a geographic area defined by a set of postal codes.

Shipping speed by region is currently available to be defined by postal codes in the following countries: US, DE, FR, GB, IN, BR, CA, AU, and NZ.

To show this information, specify both order handling time and transit time for your products. Learn more about how to Set up estimated delivery time.


Step 6: Calculate your shipping costs

  1. Select the currency that matches the product price associated with this shipping information.
    • The target country may disapprove of your items if there is no shipping service matching products currency and target country. Shipping along with product price will be converted and displayed in the user's preferred destination country.
  2. Merchants can select from 2 “Order value conditions”:
    • “Free shipping over a specific order value”
    • “No shipping below a specific order value”
  3. Choose the Shipping cost option that mirrors how you charge for shipping on your site.
Shipping cost options How you charge Shipping cost type Example
Free shipping All orders get free shipping. Free shipping  
Free shipping over a certain amount You charge your customers on orders below the threshold order value. Free shipping is dependent on order value.

Free shipping is dependent on order value.

Free shipping for orders over $100 USD.

Paid shipping All orders have the same shipping fee. Flat rate fee $5 USD for all orders.
You charge your customers exactly what you pay for shipping with common carriers.

Carrier (available for AU, DE, UK, and US).

You’ll also need to submit the shipping weight and dimension attributes.

Rates are automatically calculated based on common carrier rates for all customers, and the rates update if the carrier rates change.

Learn more in the section below.

You charge your customers exactly what you pay for shipping with common carriers.
Your shipping cost depends on the order value. Price

For orders below $20 USD, you charge $5 USD.

For orders $20.00 and above, you charge $2 USD.

Shipping rate is determined based on package weight.

Weight

You’ll also need to submit the shipping weight attribute

For products up to 5 kg, you charge $5 USD.

For products 5.0001 kg and above, your shipping is free.

Based on destination (AU, BR, CA, DE, FR, IN, JP, NZ, UK, or US only) Switch to the Classic Merchant Center No shipping for Hawaii
  Shipping rate is determined based on number of items. Quantity

You will need to add range of quantity
The shipping fee for buying 1 - 10 products is $10 USD, and 11 - 100 is $20 USD

Shipping cost by quantity

Shipping cost can also be determined by quantity, meaning your rate will be based on the number of items you have. When you use this option, you will need to add a range of quantities.

Example:

The shipping fee for buying 1 - 10 products is $10 USD and 11 - 100 is $20 USD.

Advanced cost table

You can also use an “Advanced cost table”, which calculates shipping cost based on multiple factors.

When you create an “Advanced cost table”, you can create a table with up to 25 rows, 10 columns, and 2 dimensions. You can provide multiple shipping dimensions, such as setting shipping rate based on both weight and price factors for a product in the same country. Below are the listed factors that you can use to calculate costs:

  • Price
  • Weight
  • Destination
  • Number of items

Cost by Region

Regions allow merchants to manually share different costs based on customer locations. Costs are determined by where customers are located by destinations of state/region and postal code. The following chart details availability for shipping cost by Region for region and Postal Code:

Destination by state/region US, DE, FR, IN, JP, BR, AU, NZ
Destination by Postal Code US, DE, FR, GB, IN, BR, CA, AU, NZ

Shipping cost rate type

On top of the “flat rate”, “free shipping”, ”carrier rate” in the table above, you can also use the rate types listed in the table below for shipping cost setup:

How you charge Shipping option Example
N/A Does not ship No shipping for orders under $5 USD
You charge for shipping based on a percentage of the order value. Percentage of product price For an order with a value of $50 USD, you charge 10%, leading to a shipping cost of $5 USD.
Shipping rate depends on distance to the customer. Destination You can set a cost for each destination by region.

Carrier rate (AU, DE, UK, and US only)

Use this option if you charge common carrier-calculated rates. You can choose from supported carriers (for example, UPS, TNT, Hermes) and services (for example, Ground, Next Day Air, 3 Day Select) available.
Region Supported shipping carrier Service
DE DHL Paket
Päckchen
DPD Express 12
Express
Classic Parcel
Hermes Päckchen
Paketklasse S
Paketklasse M
Paketklasse L
UPS Express
Express Saver
Standard
AU Australia Post Regular Parcel
Express Post
TNT Road Express
Overnight Express
TOLL Road Delivery
Overnight Priority
US FedEx Ground
Home Delivery
Express Saver
First Overnight
Priority Overnight
Standard Overnight
2Day
UPS 2nd Day Air
2nd Day Air AM
3 Day Select
Ground
Next Day Air
Next Day Air Early AM
Next Day Air Saver
USPS Priority Mail Express
Media Mail
Retail Ground
Priority Mail
First Class Mail
First Class Package
GB DHL UK Express
Express 12
DPD UK Express 12
Express Next Day
Standard Parcel 12
Standard Parcel Next Day
Standard Parcel Two Day
RMG (Royal Mail) 1st Class Small Parcel
1st Class Medium Parcel
2nd Class Small Parcel
2nd Class Medium Parcel
TNT Express
Express 10
Express 12
UPS UK Express
Express Saver
Standard
Yodel B2C 48HR
B2C 72HR
B2C Packet
Note: If you select FedEx as your carrier, Google will use the delivery date’s lowest cost FedEx service. For example: FedEx Standard Overnight® (not FedEx First Overnight® or FedEx Priority Overnight®) or FedEx 2Day® (not FedEx 2Day® AM).

To use this option:

  1. For "Carrier service*", select one of the supported carriers along with the service (for example, UPS Ground). The carriers are different for each service area.
  2. Enter the "Origin postal code*" where the package will ship from (for example, "94043").
  3. Next, if necessary, select “Manually adjust shipping rates” to make changes to your shipping carrier’s standard rates here. For example, you may have a discount.

Rate modifications

Carrier rates use the standard commercial rates for each carrier, but you can adjust the rates (up or down) by a percentage or flat amount.

Some carriers have multiple rates for commercial and personal purposes. Google uses commercial rates (for example, “Standard” for FedEx and “Daily” for UPS). If you use non-commercial shipping costs (often called retail), you’ll likely need to adjust the rates up by 50-60%.

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