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In this help center, you can find content for both Merchant Center Next and the classic Merchant Center experience. Look for the logo at the top of each article to make sure you're using the article for the Merchant Center version that applies to you. 

Implement pickup later for Shopping ads

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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.

Pickup later for Shopping ads run in conjunction with Shopping ads, only surfacing when customers are more likely to engage with pickup later based on user intent.

In order to implement pickup later for Shopping ads, you must meet the following requirements:

  1. You must be active for Shopping ads.
  2. You must be able to identify your store locations which are eligible to fulfill online orders.
  3. 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, please implement pickup later using local inventory ads.
To show your in-store product on Google please follow this implementation guide to show local inventory ads or free local product listings.

Implementation guide for pickup later for Shopping ads

Follow the steps below to implement pickup later with Shopping ads:

  1. Review the website requirements for pickup later. Once you're certain that your website meets the requirements, submit your example product landing page.
  2. Set up your accounts.
  3. Enable local inventory ads.
  4. Link your Business Profile and select your location group.
  5. Under “Countries with Business Profiles”, select the country where you want to request an eligibility review for pickup later for local inventory ads.
  6. In the “local inventory data” section, select No, I don't know what's in-stock at my stores, but I can ship products to my stores.
  7. In the “Pickup later” section, select If a product isn’t in stock, ship to store is available.
  8. Submit your example product landing page URL in the “Example product page for pickup later” field.
  9. Click Save.
  10. Google will conduct an eligibility review of your website.
  11. Add the required feed attributes to your product data.
  12. Verify your About page (Austria, Germany and Switzerland only).
  13. Link Google Ads and enable your campaigns.

Website requirements

To be eligible for pickup later for Shopping ads, your website must meet the following requirements on both desktop and mobile devices, including tablets:

  • Display the option to pick up a product on your landing page or in your checkout flow.
  • Allow customers to select the store where their order will be shipped.
    • Stores can be displayed after clicking on a link (for example: “check availability”) or by entering a postal code or address.
    • Alternatively, store selection can occur in your checkout flow after a customer has added an item to their cart.
  • Display the item’s price on your product page.
    • Note: the price must match the value of the price [price] attribute in your primary feed. For a more detailed overview of what constitutes a misrepresentation, please consult our misrepresentation policy.
  • Indicate pickup date and pickup fee (if a pickup fee will be charged).
    • This may be displayed in your checkout flow alongside store selection. For a more detailed overview of what constitutes a misrepresentation, please consult our misrepresentation policy.
  • Provide an option to select other store locations.
    • This may be displayed in your checkout flow alongside store selection.
  • Provide a pickup confirmation message when the order is ready (for example: email or SMS).
  • Don't require customers to enter payment information before showing your fulfillment options. For a more detailed overview of what constitutes a misrepresentation, please consult our misrepresentation policy.
  • Allow customers to complete their order (for example, complete the purchase or reserve the item) on your website.

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.

Select participating Business Profile locations

By default, Google will show local inventory ads for all store locations 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, please 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” please specify the store codes and addresses of the locations that aren't eligible to allow users to pick up your products.

Feed requirements

In addition to the feed requirements for Shopping ads, you must add the following attributes to your primary feed:

Attribute Optional or required? Possible values Note
Pickup method [pickup_method] Required

ship to store

not supported

Text/tab delimited example
ship to store

XML example
<g:pickup_method>ship to store</g:pickup_method>

Don't submit the following values:

  • buy
  • reserve

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

next_day

2-day

3-day

4-day

5-day

6-day

multi-week

Text/tab delimited example
multi-week

XML example
<g:pickup_sla>multi-week</g:pickup_sla>

Don't submit the following values:

  • same day

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_method] is set to “not_supported” leave pickup SLA [pickup_sla] blank.

Tip: You can set the pickup SLA [pickup_sla] to multi-week if you want to show a fixed annotation, the ad will render the annotation “Store pick-up”.

Link [link] Required URL parameter or URL path The link [link] attribute that's used for Shopping ads will also be used for pickup later for Shopping ads.
Mobile link [mobile_link] Optional URL parameter or URL path If you have a mobile-optimized page, submit the mobile link [mobile_link] attribute

FAQ

Expand all Collapse all

How does pickup later for Shopping ads 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 feed 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 feed for pickup later for Shopping ads?

No, products with the availability “out of stock” in your primary feed aren't eligible for pickup later for Shopping ads.

Pickup later for Shopping ads 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 for Shopping ads in my Merchant Center account can I also advertise in-stock inventory?

Products enabled through pickup later for Shopping ads only allow you to showcase products that can be picked up at your stores regardless of whether the item is in the store when the order is placed. Pickup later for Shopping ads doesn't allow you to advertise actual inventory within your stores. To be able to advertise through pickup later for Shopping ads, you will need to enable the local inventory ads program card within your Merchant Center account. To be able to advertise any in-stock items within your stores, you will need to set up local inventory ads as indicated in our implementation guide.

What should I do if a few products can't be shipped to all of my stores?
Products that can't be shipped to all of the locations in your linked location group aren't eligible for pickup later for Shopping ads. Set the pickup method to “not supported” for these products. To submit store specific attributes for pickup SLA [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 for Shopping ads?
No. Pickup Later for Shopping ads only allows you to set the maximum SLA for all of your stores. This means that if a product can be shipped to most of your stores within 3 days but for a few stores it can take up to 4 days, you need to submit the SLA for this product as “4-day”. To submit store specific attributes for pickup SLA [pickup_SLA] and pickup method [pickup_method] please see how to implement pickup later using local inventory ads.
How do I recognize my pickup later offers in Google Ads?

Pickup later for Shopping ads will appear as Segment Click type “Shopping - Product - Local”. Ads enabled through pickup later for Shopping ads will be represented in Google Ads exactly the same way as local inventory ads. Learn more on how to include local inventory in a Google Shopping campaign

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], etc., 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".

Important: The availability of offers must be set as “out of stock”.
How can I migrate from pickup later for Shopping ads to local inventory ads?

Our team will be happy to assist you. Please contact us using this form. Note that we require both ‘quantity’ and ‘availability’ information in the inventory feed.

Is there a limit to the number of offers or stores I can submit for pickup later with product data?

If the pickup later inventory that’s automatically created from your product exceeds our quotas, our support team will contact you to discuss the next steps.

The quotas have been set to be sufficient for the majority of retailers and we expect the quota to be exceeded only in rare instances.

What happens if I exceed my limit?

Even if the pickup attributes have been submitted, not all of your products will be able to create pickup later inventory automatically once the quota limit has been exceeded.

These products will be identified through the missing inventory issue in the “Diagnostics” page of the local inventory ads.

What should I do if I suspect that my limit has been exceeded?

If your account has exceeded the limit for the automatically generated pickup later inventory, our support team will either contact you directly or your Google representative.

If your limit has been exceeded our support team will guide you through the next steps. This may involve removing the pickup attribute from several products or limiting the number of stores for which inventory can be automatically generated. If the quota can’t be reduced through these methods, we may need to pause the automatic inventory generation for all the products, resulting in the removal of all automatically created inventory.

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