About providing historical order tracking data to display more accurate delivery speeds

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If you're looking for information about linking a partner with your Merchant Center account in Merchant Center Next, click here.

If you use a partner who can provide your order tracking history data, you have the option to link your Merchant Center account directly to your partner account, which will allow Google to use that data to calculate delivery speeds for you that vary depending on a user's location and which of your items they're considering. Alternatively, you can provide your historical order tracking data directly via manual upload or API. Learn more about order tracking signals.

When you begin providing order tracking history, you'll be opted in to 'automatic delivery improvements', a feature that allows Google to use its machine learning models to calculate delivery speeds for all of your offers across eligible countries and listing types. If our delivery models verify that your product could be delivered more quickly to a given user than what you've configured within Merchant Center or your feeds, we'll show the improved delivery speed.

Benefits

Clarity and accuracy: Manually configured delivery speeds are often overly conservative because they typically take the most remote locations into account, resulting in a wide range of delivery times, for example, 3 to 10 days. In general, Google-calculated delivery speeds are based on the customer's location, such as their postcode or state. This makes the delivery speeds more precise, such as three to five days. Providing more accurate delivery times, especially when faster, typically leads to better conversion rates.
Delivery annotation: This data can be used to validate your delivery settings, which qualifies you for the 'fast and free' badge and similar delivery annotations.

How it works

After you have linked your Merchant Center account with a partner or manually uploaded your data, Google will be able to calculate delivery speeds on your behalf. Through your linked account, Google will pull historical order tracking data for your existing offers to calculate customised delivery speeds specific to your business. If we predict a shorter delivery speed, we'll show that to your customers instead of what you've configured in Merchant Center or your feeds.

To link your partner, you need to:

Deliver to US customers.
Use one of our selected partners, including CedCommerce, Sales & Orders, ShipHero, ShipStation and Simprosys.
- If you're using multiple partners, you can link to as many as you'd like.
Alternatively. you can create a historical order tracking feed and manually upload it.

Note: If you're a partner and would like to be added to our list, complete this interest form.

How Google uses the data

Order tracking history data includes:

Order information, including order ID, order creation time, delivery postcode and regional code
Delivery cost charged to the buyer
Delivery information, including the carrier, tracking number, origin, destination and delivery times for each delivery associated with the order
Order line item information, including the products in the order

Not all of the information listed above is required. In addition, we won't be retrieving customer names or exact addresses.

You will have the best results if the order tracking history data that you or your partner submits includes all orders from your website, for example, the site that Google directs your traffic to.

It's OK to include a mix of different user-selected service levels like 'free delivery' and 'overnight'. Google will attempt to separate those in its modelling. But please avoid including order sources that are not representative of your website, for example, marketplaces that require two-day delivery on most orders. If on your partner's platform you don't have control over which order sources you send to Google, it is likely that Google and your partner have already worked together to resolve any issues.

Note: The data that you submit will also be used to make Google's proprietary machine learning models better for all retailers, including your business. But we will never share your data with any other retailer or third party, outside aggregated, anonymised benchmarks, such as those used in the Shopping Experience Scorecard. Learn more about Google's Privacy Policy.

Instructions

There are a few ways to use partner data with your Merchant Center account:

You can create a delivery service based on partner data.
Or if you already have a delivery service, you can use partner data for delivery performance verification.
Create a delivery service using data from your partner.

Create a delivery service using data from your partner

To use partner data to create a delivery service, follow these steps:

Click Add delivery service under 'Your delivery services' on the main delivery page.
Enter a name for your delivery service, for example, 'Standard ground delivery'.
Select one of the eligible countries under 'Which countries can you deliver to with this service?'.
Select the currency used in the country and make sure that it matches the currency listed in your feed. If the currency is different, your items may be disapproved.
Click Next to configure the delivery time settings.
Select Your delivery data from partners under 'How do you want to determine delivery times for this service?'.
Select your partner and follow the prompts to link your account.
1. If you don't work with one of the available partners, select 'Share order history using a file'.
2. Download Google's template and prepare your order tracking history data in that format.
Upload your order tracking history data as a .csv or .tsv file.
Confirm the backup delivery time for Google to use when there's not yet enough delivery data to create an estimate for a given customer, item or location. This is required. Learn how to set up estimated delivery times.
Click Next to configure the delivery rates that you charge your customers.

Link a partner on the delivery services overview page

On the delivery services overview page, click Delivery data verification.
Click + New verification.
Select your partner and follow the prompts to link your account.
1. If you don't work with one of the available partners, select 'Share order history using a file'.
2. Download Google's template and prepare your order tracking history data in that format.
3. Upload your order tracking history data as a .csv or .tsv file.
Click Done.

Link a partner directly from your partner's website

Learn more on how to initiate the process from each of our supported partners below:

Once you have initiated the account linking process from your partner's website, you will be redirected to Merchant Center. Sign in, if not already, and proceed to connect your Merchant Center account to the delivery partner. You'll be redirected to the partner's website to complete the linking process.

Unlinking

To manage your linked partner or to unlink, you can navigate to the 'Linked accounts' settings within Merchant Center and click on the 'Platforms' tab. Unlinking a partner removes Google's authorisation to retrieve any data from this partner. All prior data from this partner will be deleted within 120 days. Any delivery service that has used this partner data will remain active and will now rely on your backup delivery times.

If you've linked a partner when creating a delivery service, you can pause or delete the delivery service that's linked to a partner or that uses manually provided order tracking data at any time. You can also convert a partner-based delivery service into a standard, manually configured policy at any time and vice versa.

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