How to Upload Volusion inventory to Google Product Search

Uploading your Volusion products to Google Shopping can be a cumbersome process, but when done correctly can greatly improve your store traffic and sales volume.  Google Product Search allows potential customers to comparison shop by selling price, and by total price that includes shipping and tax, without having to click on every individual web site link that offers this item for sale.

Beginning on September 22, 2011, Google will put into place stringent specifications for every Google Product Search Feed.  If all of their requirements are not met (or not met correctly) your account may be suspended.  After a few suspensions, they warn that your account could be permanently cancelled.  

Among some of the new requirements (all of which are meant to improve the shopping experience for their users by displaying only accurate and pertinent information) are:

Availability (is your item in stock?, on order?, etc.)
High quality photographs (400 x 400 pixels minimum).  Every item must have a photo up to (10).
Google Product Category (using Google's own taxonomy for each item)
Data Freshness (if you change your price or description, you need to upload a new feed immediately!)
Apparel items must have a separate feed for each color, size, etc.
Titles and descriptions cannot contain exclamation points & cannot be in all CAPS
Tax & Shipping rates must now be included in your feed by item
Prices must now include a currency, such as "USD"
Shipping weight must now include a unit of weight, such lb, pound, oz, ounce, g, gram, kg, kilogram.

See all Product Feed Specifications

HIRE SOMEONE TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU

If you'd like to hire someone to upload your Volusion store products to Google Product Shopping on a regular basis, I offer this service for a reasonable fee (far less than what Volusion charges).  The rate depends on how many items your store has, the quality of the existing data and how often you'd like the upload performed.  No charge for consultations, so feel free to contact me and we'll set up a time to discuss your needs.

I can also improve your export data by improving your store content within Volusion (prior to export) so that you are in full compliance with Google's Shopping requirements.  Assuring that your store has concise and meaningful product titles and descriptions, along with high quality photographs and fresh accurate data, gives all  search engines the power to attract potential customers to your store and convey a sense of quality and professionalism. 

DO IT YOURSELF - UPLOAD VOLUSION INVENTORY ITEMS TO GOOGLE SHOPPING / PRODUCT SEARCH

For those that would like to attempt this process yourselves, here's one way to get it done:

Note: These instructions are for Volusion W09 version. 

• Volusion > Inventory > Import/Export
• Data Export
• Table=Products

• Click to select the field names on the left (minimally):

Volusion Field Name	Google Data Feed Name
ProductCode	ID
ProductName	title
ProductURL	link
ProductPrice	price
ProductDescription	description
ProductCondition	condition
ProductManufacturer	brand
ProductCode	mpn
PhotoURL	image_link
Google_Product_Type ProductWeight Category Tree	google_product_category  shipping_weight product_type




• Export To – Tab Delimited
• Export Now
• Download the file to your hard drive

This is where the process can get a bit cumbersome.  Volusion's field titles do not match the field titles required by Google Shopping import, so you will need to either change them after your export the data from Volusion (using your favorite text/database editor), or "Save your Export" in Volusion with specifications on exporting fields with new titles.  

For example, from the list above you can see that Volusion's field title is "Product Code", but in Google import it has to be "ID".)  You can get a full list of Google Shopping headings (data feeds) here.  

Once all field titles have been changed and all data fields have been inspected to be sure they are not blank, or contain invalid data (such as Product name can't be longer than 70 characters), you will need to export this file as a tab-delimited .txt file.  Give it a name like StoreUpload.txt.

Next, navigate to your Google Merchant Center account and login.

• Click on Data Feeds
• Click on New Test Data Feed (advised because of the new stringent requirements)
• Leave Target Country (US) and Format (googlebase) alone.
• Enter your Data Feed Filename (ex. StoreUpload.txt) and click on Save Changes
• Click on "Edit" next to your data feed file name.
• Set "Use Quoted Fields" to Y
• Save Changes
• Click on Manual Upload > Browse and select your StoreUpload.txt file from your hard drive and import.

Your file should begin processing now.  Google will compare this file to what is actually on your storefront on a daily basis, so be sure to always upload a new Product Feed if you make any changes to your Volusion store data.

Good luck, and leave a comment below if you have any questions.