Use the delivery label [shipping_label] attribute to group products together so that you can set up specific delivery rates in Merchant Center. The information that you include in this attribute won't be shown to customers.
For example, you might label products 'oversized', 'perishable' or 'free delivery'.
In this article
When to use
Optional for each product
If you want to set different delivery costs or speeds for specific groups of products, use the delivery label [shipping_label] attribute to apply a label to products. For example, for free delivery, some retailers only want certain products to get free delivery and they can add that delivery service to those products with a label.
You can configure delivery costs and speed based on the label in your Merchant Center account settings using delivery labels.
Note: When you add a label to a product, it allows that service while also enabling all of the other services, such as US delivery, weight-based and standard, that are available for that product.
Format
Follow these formatting guidelines to make sure that Google understands the data that you're submitting. Learn when and how to submit your attributes and attribute values in English
| Type | Unicode characters (Recommended: ASCII only) |
|---|---|
| Repeated field | No |
| File format | Example entry |
|---|---|
| Text |
|
| XML feeds | <g:shipping_label>oversized</g:shipping_label> |
To format your data for Content API, see the Content API for Shopping resource.
Minimum requirements
These are the requirements that you'll need to meet to show your product. If you don't follow these requirements, we'll disapprove your product and let you know in your Merchant Center account.
Don't submit invalid Unicode characters. These characters are generally added during your file's encoding process. To avoid them, use UTF-8 encoding. To help prevent encoding issues, submit files in a compressed format. Examples of invalid unicode characters include:
- Control characters (for example, U+200D)
- Function characters
- Private area characters
- Surrogate pairs
- Unassigned code points
Best practices
These best practices can help you to go beyond the basic requirements to optimise your product data for performance.
- Choose your own definition for the delivery label. You can choose values that make it easier for you to configure your delivery settings in Merchant Center.
- Use a delivery label for oversized products and configure delivery settings in Merchant Center if your product is considered oversized by your courier. Oversized delivery costs aren't automatically calculated and automatic courier rates shouldn't be used in this case.
- Use a delivery label for perishable products (for example, cold storage transport) and configure delivery settings in Merchant Center.
- Note that delivery labels are inclusive. If you provide multiple delivery labels for a product in the same country, we'll calculate the lowest delivery rate for the product for a given situation and display that rate to users. For example, if you have one label that specifies free delivery for products over 150 GBP and another label that specifies a courier-calculated rate for all products, then your listing will show free delivery for all products over 150 GBP.
Examples
| Product data for one litre of whole milk | |
| Attribute | Value |
Title [title] |
Whole milk, 1 litre |
Delivery label [shipping_label] |
Perishable |
Delivery length [shipping_length] |
15 cm |
Delivery width [shipping_width] |
15 cm |
Delivery height [shipping_height] |
28 cm |
Delivery weight [shipping_weight] |
4 kg |
| Product data for a 3-metre ocean kayak | |
| Attribute | Value |
Title [title] |
3-metre ocean kayak |
Delivery label [shipping_label] |
Oversized |
Delivery length [shipping_length] |
305 cm |
Delivery width [shipping_width] |
76 cm |
Delivery height [shipping_height] |
38 cm |
Delivery weight [shipping_weight] |
20 kg |