When submitting your products to Merchant Center, you'll also provide information about how much you charge for delivery and how long it'll take for customers to receive their orders. Your delivery settings are used across Google features, including Shopping ads, and free product listings.
Delivery speed and cost are two of the most common reasons why customers abandon their shopping choices, so you'll want to make sure that your delivery settings are accurate and up to date.
This article explains how the various delivery settings work and when to use them. Learn more about setting up delivery settings
How it works
To show your products in a particular country or region, you must offer delivery and correctly set up delivery speed and costs for that area. Delivery speed and cost can be configured within each delivery service in your Merchant Center account or via the delivery settings API. You can also override the account level delivery settings with the delivery [shipping] attribute on an individual product level.
Delivery settings can also take into account product data that you submit using delivery attributes:
- Optional delivery attributes include delivery label
[delivery_label], delivery weight[delivery_weight], dimensions (delivery length[delivery_length], delivery width[delivery_width]and delivery height[delivery_height]). - To further specify delivery times for certain products, you can use the transit time label
[transit_time_label]attribute. - To enable same-day delivery, the local delivery label
[local_delivery_label]attribute can be added to your local product inventory feeds.
When to provide delivery settings
You need to provide delivery settings in the following situations:
- If you want to show your products in any of the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States.
- If you want to show your products in an additional country that is not a product's primary country of sale. Learn more about submitting feeds to multiple countries
What should be included in delivery
Cost
- Delivery costs by default are for delivery to a customer's home or business address, in some countries you may also indicate what the delivery costs are for collection point delivery.
- For Canada only, submit delivery costs exclusive of taxes.
- Countries which currently allow you to share delivery costs for home and business address or collection point delivery
- Argentina*
- Austria
- Belgium
- Chile*
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Italy
- Finland
- France
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Spain
- Sweden
- United Kingdom
*For Argentina and Chile, you may alternatively submit the delivery cost to a collection point or a shop for in-store collection
[delivery], price [price], tax [tax] or any other attribute. Learn more about Colorado retail delivery fee.Delivery costs should include cross-border charges if the cost is included under a delivery term on your website. Delivery costs should also include insurance fees related to any of the terms above.
If you provide delivery settings for products that you sell in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
- Match availability on your landing page with the delivery information that you submit to Merchant Center. If you don't deliver your products across the entire target country, use 'No delivery' to exclude certain areas.
Speed
Delivery speed is an important piece of information for people evaluating a possible purchase. If you want to show this information, specify both order handling time and transit time for your products for each of your delivery services. Learn more about setting up delivery speed
- Order handling time is the number of working days needed to process an order before it is dispatched. It normally begins when an order is placed by a customer and ends when a carrier picks up the parcel for delivery.
- Transit time is the number of working days that it takes for a carrier to deliver a parcel once it's picked up from your facility.
If you deliver to US customers: (a) from warehouses based in the US and use one of our select carriers to deliver your parcels or (b) use one of our select partners, you can choose to let Google calculate a unique delivery speed for each customer based on their delivery location. Learn more about letting Google calculate delivery speed
Ways to set up delivery cost
As delivery costs vary by a variety of factors, the delivery settings in Merchant Center allow you to set up delivery tables based on factors like weight, price, destination and more. Choose the delivery options that mirror how you charge for delivery on your site. If you charge your customers exactly what you pay for delivery with common carriers, you can also select carrier rates in some countries and Google will automatically calculate the delivery cost for you.
To get started with delivery, figure out what types of delivery cost models you need to add based on how you charge for delivery. Make sure that you match or overestimate the delivery costs that you submit to Merchant Center in comparison to the costs that you charge on your website.
| How you charge | Delivery option | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Free delivery for certain price ranges | Free delivery over a certain amount (basic cost settings) | Free delivery for orders over £20 |
| Free delivery | Free delivery (basic cost settings) | |
| A flat rate for orders falling between a certain range | Range based (basic cost settings) | £5 for orders below £20 |
| A flat delivery rate for all orders | Flat rate (basic cost settings) | £5 for all orders |
| Your delivery is based on rates from supported carriers | Carrier rate along with the delivery weight and dimension attributes (available for AU, DE and US) |
FedEX Ground, UPS Ground, USPS Media Mail Rates are automatically calculated based on common carrier rates for all customers and the rates are updated if the carrier rates change |
| Based on one or more of the following dimensions (order price, weight, number of items or destination) | Delivery rate table (advanced settings) | £5 for orders up to 5 kg |
| Based on a percentage of the order cost | Percentage of order total (delivery rate table in advanced settings) | 5% of order total |
| Based on more than two dimensions | Sub-table (delivery rate table in advanced settings) | Based on order price, weight and destination |
| Exclude a group of orders from delivery in a delivery service |
Minimum order value (advanced settings) if the orders to be excluded are defined only by order price Delivery rate table (advanced settings) if it's defined by one or more of the following dimensions: order price, weight, number of items or destination |
No delivery for orders under £5 No delivery for Hawaii |
| Unique delivery costs for one particular product | The delivery [shipping] attribute |
Allows you to manually override account settings for a product with unique delivery rates |
Delivery-related product data
Delivery cost is often dependent on product details, such as price, weight or size. If you charge delivery 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 | delivery weight [delivery_weight] |
Include a delivery weight for each product so that you can vary the delivery cost based on the weight |
| Product dimensions | delivery length [delivery_length], delivery width [delivery_width] and delivery height [delivery_height] |
Include dimensions of a product to use for carrier rates |
| Different delivery costs for a group of products | delivery label [delivery_label] |
Define groups of products (e.g. perishable or oversized) and then apply special delivery rates to those groups |
| Different transit times for a group of products | transit time label [transit_time_label] |
Specify transit times for product groups to provide greater accuracy in estimated delivery dates |
How more advanced delivery settings work
Depending on your delivery model, you might want to learn about some more advanced settings described here.
Minimum order value
If you require that customers purchase a minimum amount before you'll provide delivery, then you can enter that information when setting up your delivery settings. Learn more about minimum order value
Carrier rates (AU, DE, UK and US only)
Use this setting if you charge for delivery 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 delivery carrier |
|---|---|
| Australia | AusPost, TNT, TOLL |
| France | Geodis |
| Germany | DHL, DPD, Hermes, UPS |
| United Kingdom | DHL, DPD, Royal Mail, TNT, UPS, Yodel |
| The United States | FedEx, UPS, USPS |
To use carrier rates, you'll also need to submit delivery-related attributes (review the table above):
- Delivery weight
[delivery_weight] - Delivery length
[delivery_length] - Delivery width
[delivery_width] - Delivery height
[delivery_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 delivery rates (often called retail), it's likely that you'll 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 like -10) by a percentage or flat amount.
Sub-tables and complex delivery models
Use a sub-table if your delivery is based on three or more dimensions. For example, use a sub-table if your delivery is based on price, weight and destination. Learn more about setting up sub-tables
Delivery from outside the target country
- If you deliver across borders, you normally incur additional costs such as customs, duties or import tax. Don't include such costs in the delivery attribute unless the delivery provider is fully responsible for the handling of goods through customs and the cost is included under a delivery term on your website. Learn more about export requirements
No delivery
Use the 'No delivery' option to indicate that you don't offer delivery for particular products through a delivery service. For example, if you don't deliver products over 50 kg using your express service, use 'No delivery' to indicate that.
For products that target Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, you can use 'No delivery' to exclude delivery to certain areas. For example, you can specify that you don't deliver outside of Tokyo prefecture or to a range of postcodes that represent the east coast of the United States. Learn more about setting up delivery settings
Delivery zones
Delivery zones are used to create custom regions so accurate delivery costs and transit times can be set for dispatches to customers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
For example, if you're located on the east coast of the United States, you may notice higher costs and extended transit times when delivering orders to the West Coast. Learn more about setting up delivery zones
Transit time labels
If you deliver differently grouped products, you can create a transit time label for each group of products and apply the transit time label [transit_time_label] attribute to the corresponding products in your feed. Transit time labels help to give your customers a more accurate estimated delivery date, which can help to influence their purchase decision. For example, you could add the transit time label 'heavy' to items with higher delivery costs due to their weight. Learn more about transit time labels
Oversized and freight delivery (LTL)
Carriers have limits on how large or how heavy a parcel can be. Larger products are normally delivered using freight delivery. Freight carriers aren't supported by the carrier rate feature, so if your product is too big to deliver through common delivery carriers, you'll need to manually set up a rate table.
Here are some tips for setting up freight transport:
- Tag oversized or heavy products with the delivery label attribute. With the delivery label
[delivery_label]attribute, you can give oversized products a label (e.g. oversized) and specify special delivery for those products. For example, you could add a delivery label for common freight classes. - Add rates based on weight and destination using tables and delivery groups. It's easiest to split up complicated delivery settings, either by using sub-tables or delivery groups.
- Base rates on delivery labels. Using delivery labels, you can create different rate tables for different product groups by creating delivery groups. For example, you could use the delivery label
[delivery_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 another for class 100. - Base rates on weight and location. If you don't want to use delivery labels, you can link sub-tables for different weight classes with different rates for each state or group of postcodes.
- Base rates on delivery labels. Using delivery labels, you can create different rate tables for different product groups by creating delivery groups. For example, you could use the delivery label
- Overestimate the cost. If you can't provide an accurate cost, you should overestimate. Your products won't be disapproved for providing a higher delivery cost than what your website states. If you provide a lower cost than the one listed on your website, your products will be disapproved.
The holiday delivery cut-off setting allows you to submit temporary deadlines if you have special delivery settings for a particular public holiday, like Christmas or Mother's Day. Your items will clearly state if a purchase will be delivered in time for a public holiday, based on a date and time that you enter into the 'Show from' field.
Holiday delivery cut-off will override all other estimated delivery date logic, so it's important to select a deadline that provides you with enough time to guarantee delivery on all orders placed before the cut-off. If, for example, the Christmas order deadline is set for 24 December, items ordered up to that day will be guaranteed to arrive by Christmas. This may require you to dispatch orders at weekends or upgrade the delivery speed to meet the delivery promise.
Merchant Center is programmed to offer delivery cut-offs for the following US holidays:
- Valentine's Day
- Easter
- Mother's Day
- Father's Day
- Independence Day
- Halloween
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas
Same-day delivery
The same-day delivery option allows retailers to indicate which products are eligible for same-day delivery. Eligible products will then be displayed to customers, showcasing their availability for same-day delivery across Google. Learn more about same-day delivery