If you’re looking for information about how to get started with the local feeds partnership program as a data provider in the classic Merchant Center experience, click here.
A Local Feed Partnership provider can send product, inventory, sales or store data through content API or by uploading files.
Use this guide to join the local feeds partnership program as a point of sale (POS)/inventory data provider. Learn more about Local inventory ads (LIA) and free local listings.
Benefits
- Become a trusted Google Partner
- Provide value to your customers:
- Free and paid promotion of in-store products on Google Search, Shopping ads on Google, and more
- Bring local stores online
- Measure the ability of digital ads and free product listings to drive in-store traffic and sales
Point of sale (POS) and inventory data provider requirements
To join the local feeds partnership program, you need to meet these requirements:
- Product data refers to the offer’s static values (description, size, colour, etc.). You can refresh this data within 30 days. Google uses GTINs as strong identifiers to ingest merchant offers. Most of the offers should have a GTIN. If a GTIN is not available, a combination of different signals make the ingestion easier. Learn more about Product data specification.
- Inventory data refers to quantity and price. Send daily inventory data for each participating store. Learn more About the inventory data specification.
- Sales data is required if regular inventory data is not available. Sales data provides a list of all products sold within a set time period. This is used to predict price and quantity for offers uploaded.
- Store identification (optional) refers to the store code either from the Google Business Profile linked to the Merchant Center account or from a dedicated store data. If you don't know the retailer’s Business Profile store codes, you must be able to send a mapping of your internal store codes to the store addresses for each participating store. Learn more About the shop feed specification.
Note: In order to implement the local feeds partnership program, you're required to upload either an inventory data or a sales data.
Tip: A local feeds partnership provider could only provide GTINs using the POS provider endpoint and Google will match the offer automatically and create the product data. In case the GTIN is not available, a combination of different signals make the ingestion easier. Learn more about Product data specification.
Merchant eligibility requirements
To join the local feeds partnership program, your merchant needs to meet these requirements:
- Store: At least one physical store with at least 11 identifiable products. Learn more About unique product identifiers.
- Local inventory ads: Merchant must not already be using the local inventory ads feature to show their local products on Google.
- POS/inventory data providers: Merchant must authorize you to provide their stores’ sales and inventory data to Google.
- Inventory verification: Merchant must be willing to allow Google to perform in-store inventory verifications in a subset of their stores.
Implementation overview
Here are the steps to implement LIA as a POS or inventory data provider: