About shipping settings

When submitting your products to Merchant Center, you’ll also provide information about how much you charge for shipping. Your shipping settings are used across Google programs, including Shopping ads and Shopping Actions. Shipping cost is the most common reason for users abandoning their shopping choices, so you’ll want to be sure your shipping settings are accurate and up-to-date.

This article explains how the various shipping settings work and when to use them. Learn more about setting up shipping settings

Submit shipping correctly for your target country

Australia, France, and United States

Required for products that target any of these countries.
Match availability on your landing page with the shipping information that you submit to Merchant Center. If you don’t deliver your products across the entire target country, then use "No shipping" to exclude certain states or postal codes.
Submit the shipping cost for a user's location, not for a business or separate collection point.

Japan

Optional for products that target this country.
Match availability on your landing page with the shipping information that you submit to Merchant Center. If you don’t deliver your products across the entire target country, then use “No shipping” to exclude certain prefectures.
Submit the shipping cost for a user's location, not for a business or separate collection point

Czechia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Required for products that target any of these countries.
Submit the shipping cost for a user's location, not for a business or separate collection point.

Norway or Sweden

Optional for products that target any of these countries.
Submit the shipping cost for either a user’s location or for a collection point. For Sweden and Norway, you can submit the shipping cost to a collection point for the following carriers: PostNord, DHL, Bring, and Schenker.

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Vietnam

Optional for products that target any of these countries.
Submit the shipping cost for a user's location, not for a business or separate collection point.

How it works

To show ads to a particular country or region, you must offer shipping and correctly set up shipping costs for that area. The shipping costs that you submit to Merchant Center must match the costs that you charge on your website. Note: If there is a discrepancy between the shipping cost on your website and the shipping cost you submit to Merchant Center, the cost submitted to Merchant Center needs to be the greater of the two.

Because shipping costs vary by a variety of factors, the shipping settings in Merchant Center allow you to set up shipping tables based on factors like weight, price, destination, and more. Choose the shipping options that mirror how you charge for shipping on your site. If you charge your customers exactly what you pay for shipping with common carriers, you can also select carrier rates in some countries and Google will automatically calculate the shipping cost for you.

Shipping settings can also take into account product data that you submit using shipping attributes: shipping_label, shipping_weight, dimensions (shipping_length, shipping_width, shipping_height).

What should be included in shipping

Shipping covers the cost charged by a shipping carrier or other cost directly related to shipping. A cost is considered to be a shipping cost if it’s described using the words "handling", "delivery", "shipping", "logistics", or "carrier". Shipping can include cross-border charges if the cost is included under a shipping term on your website. Shipping should also include insurance costs related to any of the five terms above.

Ways to set up shipping

To get started with shipping, figure out what types of shipping cost models you need to add based on how you charge shipping. Keep in mind that the shipping costs that you submit to Merchant Center must match the costs you charge on your website or overestimate those costs.

How you charge	Shipping option	Benefit
Free shipping for certain ranges	Free	Simple to configure and maintain
A flat shipping rate for all orders	Fixed rate	Simple to configure and maintain
Your shipping is based on rates from supported carriers	Carrier rate along with the `shipping_weight` and dimension attributes (available for AU, DE, and US)	Rates are automatically calculated based on common carrier rates for all users, and the rates update if the carrier rates change
Based on a percentage of the order cost	Percentage of order total	Simple to configure and maintain and allows for varied shipping rates based on price
Based on more than 2 dimensions	Subtable	Add additional dimensions to your shipping service
Exclude a group of products from delivery in a shipping service	No shipping	Easily define products that you want to exclude from the shipping service
Unique shipping costs for one particular product	The `shipping` attribute	Allows you to manually override account settings for a product with unique shipping rates

Shipping-related product data

Shipping cost is often dependent on product details such as price, weight, or size. If you charge shipping based on these attributes or if you want to use carrier rates (which are calculated based on weight and size) you should add the relevant information to your product data.

Product details	Attribute	What to add
Product weight	The `shipping_weight` attribute	Include a shipping weight for each product so you can vary the shipping cost based on the weight
Product dimensions	The `shipping_length`, `shipping_width`, and `shipping_height` attributes	Include dimensions of a product to use for carrier rates
Different shipping costs for a group of products	The `shipping_label` attribute	Define groups of products (e.g., perishable or oversized) and then apply special shipping rates to those groups
Different transit times for a group of products	The `transit_time_label` attribute	Specify transit times for product groups to provide greater accuracy in estimated delivery dates

How more advanced shipping settings work

Depending on your shipping model, you might want to learn more about one or more of the more advanced settings described here.

Carrier rates (AU, DE, UK, and US only)

Use this setting if you charge shipping based on a carrier-calculated rate. You can choose from supported carriers (e.g., UPS, TNT, Hermes) and services (e.g., Ground, Next Day Air, 3 Day Select) available.

Region	Supported shipping carrier
Australia	AusPost, TNT, TOLL
Germany	DHL, DPD, Hermes, UPS
United Kingdom	DHL, DPD, Royal Mail, TNT, UPS, Yodel
United States	FedEx, UPS, USPS

To use carrier rates, you’ll also need to submit shipping-related attributes (see table above):

shipping_weight
shipping_length
shipping_width
shipping_height

Learn more about setting up carrier rates.

Rate modifications

Carrier rates use the standard commercial rates for each carrier, but you can adjust the rates (up or down) by a percentage or flat amount.

Some carriers have multiple rates for commercial and personal purposes. Google uses commercial rates (e.g., “Standard” for FedEx and “Daily” for UPS). If you use non-commercial shipping rates (often called retail), you’ll likely need to adjust the rates up by 50 – 60%.

If you have a contract with the carrier, then you might need to adjust your rates up or down (using a negative number) by a percentage or flat amount.

Subtables and complex shipping models

Use a subtable if your shipping is based on more than 2 dimensions. For example, use a subtable if your shipping is based on price, weight, and destination. Learn more about setting up subtables

Shipping from outside the country of sale

If you ship across borders, you normally incur additional costs such as customs, duties or import tax. Do not include such costs in the shipping attribute unless the shipping provider is fully responsible for the handling of goods through customs and the cost is included under a shipping term on your website. Learn more about export requirements

Note: Shipping to South Korea from outside South Korea is not permitted.

No shipping

Use the "No shipping" option to indicate that you don’t offer shipping for particular products through a shipping service. For example, if you don’t ship products over 50 lbs using your express service, use "No shipping" to indicate that.

For products that target Australia, Japan, or the United States, you can use "No shipping" to exclude shipping to certain states (AU and US), postal codes (AU and US), or prefectures (JP). For example, you can specify that you don’t ship outside of Tokyo prefecture or to a range of postal codes that represent the East Coast of the United States.

For those countries, still set up shipping for the areas that you do ship to, and make sure to specify "No shipping" for any areas that you do not ship to. Learn more about setting up shipping settings

Delivery zones (AU, FR, and US only)

Use this option if you want to specify shipping costs for groups of postal codes and you ship to customers in Australia, France, or the United States. You can use postal codes directly in a rate table or create custom delivery zones. For example, you might have a special shipping rate around your warehouse or for a particular city. Learn more about setting up delivery zones

Transit time labels

If you ship different grouped products, you can create a transit time label for each group of products and apply the transit_time_label attribute to the corresponding products in your feed. Transit time labels help give your customers a more accurate estimated delivery date, which can help influence their purchase decision. Learn more about transit time labels

Oversize and freight shipping (LTL)

Carriers have limits on how large or how heavy a package can be. Larger products are normally shipped using freight shipping. Freight carriers are not supported by the carrier rate feature, so if your product is too big to ship through common shipping carriers, you’ll need to manually set up a rate table. Note: This only applies to the Shopping Ads product. LTL and freight shipping are not currently allowed on the Shopping Actions program.

Here are some tips for setting up freight shipping:

Tag oversized or heavy products with the shipping_label attribute. With the shipping_label attribute, you can give oversized products a label (e.g., oversized) and then specify special shipping for those products. For example, you could add a shipping label for common freight classes.
Add rates based on weight and destination using tables and shipping groups. It’s easiest to split up complicated shipping settings, either by using subtables or shipping groups.
- Base rates on shipping labels. Using shipping labels, you can create different rate tables for different product groups by creating shipping groups. For example, you could use the shipping_label attribute to indicate a freight class for each product. Then create a group for each label such as one group for Class 70 and one for Class 100.
- Base rates on weight and location. If you don’t want to use shipping labels, you can link subtables for different weight classes with different rates for each state or group of postal codes.
Overestimate the cost. If you can’t provide an accurate cost, then overestimate. Your products won’t be disapproved for providing a higher shipping cost than what your website states. If you provide a lower cost than the one listed on your website, your products will be disapproved.

Learn more about setting up shipping settings

Estimated delivery time

Estimated delivery time is an important piece of information for people evaluating a possible purchase. If you want to show this information in your Shopping ads, you can specify a time in transit for each of your shipping services and a handling time for each product.

Transit time refers to the time it takes the shipping company to deliver the product to your customer. You can configure transit time options within each shipping service in your Merchant Center account.

Handling time refers to the time it takes for an order to be ready for pickup by the delivery company. This includes the time to process the order, send it to the distribution center and the time until it is picked up by a delivery company. You submit this either in Merchant Center within the shipping service or with your product data (use the max_handling_time and min_handling_time attributes). Learn more about setting up estimated delivery time

Holiday shipping cut-off

The holiday shipping cut-off setting allows you to submit temporary deadlines if you have special delivery settings for a particular holiday, like Christmas or Mother’s Day. Your ads will clearly state if a purchase will be delivered in time for a holiday, based on a date and time you enter into the “Show from” field.

For example, if the last day to order that allows you to guarantee an order will arrive in time for Christmas is December 15th at 2:00 PST, then setting this deadline in Merchant Center will result in your ads displaying text that tells customers that their order will arrive by December 24. That text will stop showing the day after your cut-off (in this example, the text would stop displaying on December 15th after 2:00 PST)

Merchant Center is programmed to offer holiday shipping cut-offs for the following US holidays:

Valentine’s Day
Easter
Mother’s Day
Father’s Day
Independence Day
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Christmas