Pickup later enables you to provide a direct online to offline experience for your customers. For items that can be picked up in store within a specific SLA regardless of store availability, pickup later enables you to use your stores as an omnichannel asset and differentiator. Unlike other in-store products, pickup later doesn't require full inventory information.
In order to implement pickup later with product data, you must meet the following requirements:
- The availability
[availability]attribute of your products must be in-stock. - You must be able to identify your store locations which are eligible to fulfill online orders.
- You must be able to fulfill store pickup orders even when a product isn't physically in-stock at your store locations.
Note: To submit inventory information specific to different stores, implement pickup later with in-store inventory data.
On this page
- Website requirements
- Data requirements
- Select participating Business Profile locations
- Opt into Pickup later with product data
- Switch from a landing page experience to and from pickup later with product data
Website requirements
To be eligible for pickup later with product data, your website must meet the following requirements on both desktop and mobile devices, including tablets:
- Must provide option to pick up a product: The landing page or the checkout flow must display the option to pick up the product at a later day.
- Pick up SLA must be: When showing the pick up option in your website, it must be clear when the item will be available for pick up.
- Allow customers to select the store where their order will be shipped: Customers should be able to select to which store a product will be shipped
- Allow customers to complete their order on your website: Customers must be able to purchase or reserve a product via your website for pickup.
- If charged, display the pickup fee: If there are any extra charges for pickup, it must be clear. This can be shown on the checkout flow. For a more detailed overview of what constitutes a misrepresentation, consult our misrepresentation policy.
- Must provide pickup confirmation: A notification must be sent when the order is ready to be picked up (for example, by sending an email or SMS).
- Must show fulfillment option before payment information is entered: Allow customers to view your fulfillment options before checking out. For a more detailed overview of what constitutes a misrepresentation, consult our misrepresentation policy.
Website recommendations
In addition to the website requirements above, we recommend the following:
- Don't require customers to create an account before showing your fulfillment options (for example: provide a “checkout as guest” option).
- Don't require customers to enter address information before showing your fulfillment options.
Data requirements
In addition to the data source requirements for Shopping ads, you must add the following attributes to your primary data source:
| Attribute | Optional or required | Possible values | Note |
Pickup method [pickup_method] |
Optional |
Text/tab delimited example <g:pickup_method>ship to store</g:pickup_method> |
Don't submit the following values:
For each product that's eligible to be fulfilled at one of your store locations, submit “ship to store”. For all other products, submit “not supported”. |
Pickup SLA [pickup_sla] |
Required |
Text/tab delimited example multi-week XML example |
Don't submit the following values:
Submit the maximum amount of time it will take for you to fulfill an online order to one of your stores. If the item's pickup method [pickup_sla] to multi-week if you want to show a fixed annotation, the ad will render the annotation “Store pick-up”. |
Select participating Business Profile locations
By default, Google will show in the linked Business Profile location group.
If all of your store locations are eligible to fulfill online orders, select the Business Profile location group that contains all of your store locations during account linking.
If only a subset of your store locations are eligible to fulfill online orders, organize these stores into a separate location group. During account linking, select this location group.
If you're unable to re-organize your store locations into groups, reach out to our support team by filling out the contact us form and selecting “I want to implement additional features.” Under “Summary of issue” specify the store codes and addresses of the locations that aren't eligible to allow users to pick up your products.
Opt into pickup later with product data
For pickup later with product data, you need to have activated the local inventory ads or free local listings add-on. When it’s ready, follow the steps bellow:
In your Merchant Center account, click the Settings & tools icon
. Then, select Add-ons.
Select your add-ons.
In the "Free local listings" or “Local inventory ads” card, click Go to Free local listings or Go to Local inventory ads.
Click Show me next to the country you want to set pickup later with product data up.
Select "Your in-store product availability".
Select "Let customers know that I can ship products to stores”.
Add a URL that shows a product page with pickup later information.
If you have not started onboarding yet, follow the implementation guide.
Pickup later with product data review status
Your pickup later status can may show:
- Verified: No further action needed.
- Under review: Check back soon. The URL for your web page is under review. This process can take up to a week.
- Request review: Google reviewed and rejected your URL. Ensure that your URL and business meet the pickup later requirements and make any necessary updates. Then, re-submit your product URL example.
- Action required: An invalid URL has been submitted. Review and update the provided link and click Save.
Switch from a landing page experience to and from pickup later with product data
If your product page experience is already reviewed or currently under review and would like to change to pickup later with product data, or if you have on-boarded with pickup later with product data and would like to change your product page experience to pickup later with in-store inventory data, follow the steps below:
Switch to pickup later with product data
Remove your current local inventory and free local listings ads setup
In your Merchant Center account, click the Settings & tools icon
. Then, select Add-ons.
Select your add-ons. In the "Free local inventory" and “Local inventory ads” card, click Go to Local inventory ads and Free local inventory.
Next to the country you want to remove, click Delete and confirm this choice.
- Note: If this is the last country in your set up, the add-on for Local Inventory Ads or Free local listings will be removed and have to be enabled again.
Start your onboarding process with pickup later with product data
In your Merchant Center account, click Settings & tools icon
and select Add-ons.
If you deleted all countries in the previous step, click the Discover tab and enable "Free local listings" or “Local inventory ads” add-on. If you still have enabled countries, select your add-ons.
In the "Free local listings" or “Local inventory ads” card, click Go to Free local listings or Go to Local inventory ads, next to the country you want to set pickup later with product data up.
Select "Your in-store product availability".
Select "Let customers know that I can ship products to stores”.
Add a URL that shows a product page with pickup later information.
Add the required attribute: pickup SLA
[pickup_SLA] and pickup method [pickup_method] as needed, in either your primary or your inventory data source.
Switch to pickup later with in-store inventory data
Remove your current local inventory ads and free local listings setup
In your Merchant Center account, click the Settings & tools icon
. Then, select Add-ons.
Select your add-ons.
In the "Free local listings" or “Local inventory ads” card, click Go to Free local listings or Go to Local inventory ads.
Next to the country you want to remove, click Delete to confirm this choice.
If this is the last country in your set up, the add-on for Free local listings or Local Inventory Ads will be removed and have to be enabled again.
Start your onboarding process with pickup later with in-store inventory data
If you don't have an active country in your account, first enable the Free local listings or Local inventory ads add-on. Follow the implementation guide for local inventory ads and on step 6, select Customers can pick them up later at a store. If your website also has the option to pickup today, you can also select the Customers can pick them up on the same or next day to complement pickup later.
Frequently asked questions
How does pickup later with product data work?
Google will create inventory entries for each product for each of the stores in your linked location group. Since you're able to ship your products indicated in your primary data source to each of your stores, Google will allow you to advertise those products for each of the stores along with the SLA on how long it will take you to ship the product to the store.
Can I advertise products that are marked as "out of stock" in my primary data source for pickup later with product data?
No. Products with the availability “out of stock” in your primary data source aren't eligible for pickup later with product data.
Pickup later with product data enables you to create ads, showing your local products for your online available items. Since your online available products can be shipped to your stores, you can advertise the products along with the SLA on how long it will take to ship these products to all of your stores. For this feature to work, the product needs to be fulfillable online. This will allow Google to guarantee that the product can be transacted on.
By using pickup later with product data in my Merchant Center account, can I also advertise in-stock inventory?
What should I do if a few products can't be shipped to all of my stores?
[pickup_SLA] and pickup method [pickup_method] refer to how to implement pickup later using local inventory ads.Can I submit specific SLAs for different stores using pickup later with product data?
[pickup_SLA] and pickup method [pickup_method] view how to implement pickup later using local inventory ads.How do I recognize my pickup later offers in Google Ads?
Can I use pickup later with product data in combination with local inventory ads and also provide inventory and pickup_sla information via inventory data source?
Yes. To use pickup later for Shopping ads in combination with an inventory data source, you should avoid providing conflicting information between primary data source and inventory data source: For example, if a product is set to ‘in stock’ in the primary data source and also contains pickup later values (for example, pickup_method set to “ship to store” and pickup_SLA set to “3-day”), the information from the inventory data source will take precedence. Therefore, products which are in the local inventory data source will be disregarded for pickup later from the primary data source.
Can I submit the necessary attributes for pickup later for Shopping ads via Google's content API for shopping?
Yes, you can submit product information for pickup later to Shopping ads. However, you will need to re-submit all of the required product information, including the ID [id], title [title], image link [image_link], and others, via the product.insert method with the channel set to "local".
By using local inventory insert API, you can also submit the pickup later attributes, pickup SLA [pickup_sla], and pickup method [pickup_method]. Note that the field “storeCode” is required. You can add the relevant store codes within your Business Profile account or add it directly from Google Search. Learn more on how to submit product information via the Content API for Shopping.
Keep in mind that the attributes required for pickup later for Shopping ads are not supported with the channel set to "online".
How can I migrate from pickup later with shopping data to pickup later with in-store inventory data?
If the pickup later inventory that’s automatically created from your product exceeds our quotas, our support team will contact you to discuss the next steps.
The quotas have been set to be sufficient for the majority of retailers and we expect the quota to be exceeded only in rare instances.
Even if the pickup attributes have been submitted, not all of your products will be able to create pickup later inventory automatically once the quota limit has been exceeded.
These products will be identified through the missing inventory issue in the “Diagnostics” page of the local inventory ads.
If your account has exceeded the limit for the automatically generated pickup later inventory, our support team will either contact you directly or your Google representative.
If your limit has been exceeded our support team will guide you through the next steps. This may involve removing the pickup attribute from several products or limiting the number of stores for which inventory can be automatically generated. If the quota can’t be reduced through these methods, we may need to pause the automatic inventory generation for all the products, resulting in the removal of all automatically created inventory.