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 local inventory ads 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 feed 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] |
Required Optional starting September 1, 2024 |
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 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 local inventory ads 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 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 Active.
In the “Local inventory ads” card, click Show me.
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 for local inventory ads 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 instore inventory data, follow the steps below:
Switch to pickup later with product data
Remove your current local inventory ads setup
In your Merchant Center account, click settings & tools icon
, and select Add-ons.
Click Active and then, in the “Local inventory ads” card, click Show me.
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 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 “Local inventory ads” add-on. If you still have enabled countries, select Active.
In the “Local inventory ads” card, 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.
Add the required attributes: pickup SLA
[pickup_SLA] and pickup method [pickup_method] in either your primary or your inventory feed.
Switch to pickup later with in-store inventory data
Remove your current local inventory ads setup
In your Merchant Center account, click settings & tools icon
, and select Add-ons.
Select Active.
In the “Local inventory ads” card, click Show me.
Next to the country you want to remove, click on delete and confirm this choice.
If this is the last country in your set up, the add-on for 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 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 feed?
Yes. To use pickup later for Shopping ads in combination with an inventory feed, you should avoid providing conflicting information between primary data source and inventory feed: 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 feed will take precedence. Therefore, products which are in the local inventory feed 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 localinventory.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".