Product feed

Your store holds information about the products you sell. A product feed organizes that information into records another system can read. Each record describes an item through named attributes, such as its ID, price, image, and availability.

How a product feed works

A typical workflow starts with an export from your store or product database. The data is mapped to the destination’s required fields and delivered in a supported format. The destination processes the records and reports problems with missing or invalid values.

For Google Merchant Center, product data sources can use files, Google Sheets, or the Merchant API. File formats include tab-delimited text and XML. A file-based feed and an API connection use different delivery mechanisms, but both supply structured product information.

Google also distinguishes primary and supplemental data sources. A primary source introduces products. A supplemental source adds to or updates products already present in a linked primary source.

Example

Imagine a retailer selling one backpack in two colors. Its export contains a separate record for each variant, with the relevant image, color, price, and availability.

When the navy backpack sells out, the retailer updates that variant’s availability. The next delivery carries the changed value to the destination. The red backpack keeps its own stock status.

This is an illustrative workflow. It does not specify a complete feed or a required update schedule.

What to check

Check the destination’s specification before exporting. A column name or value accepted by one channel may need a different representation elsewhere.

Keep changing information aligned with the store. In Merchant Center, availability must agree with the landing page and checkout. A technically readable file can still describe the wrong offer. Review the processed product data as well as the exported file.