Automatic shipping updates improve the accuracy of your products’ shipping information. This feature helps customers predict when they'll get their orders, which can help improve your overall shipping performance. Currently, automatic shipping updates will only take effect in the United States. Merchants outside of the United States may choose to opt into automatic shipping updates.
On this page
Benefits
Accurate shipping information allows you to:
- Keep your shipping data up-to-date
- Help customers predict when they are likely to receive a product.
- Allow customers to easily compare delivery times between products.
- Improve the chance of customers making a purchase based on shipping time.
How it works
Automatic shipping updates use historical tracking data to improve the accuracy of shipping information. Historical tracking data is acquired from partner linking. It records and calculates shipping information, including crawled shipping speeds and performance shipping speeds.
- Shipping speeds found on your online store: This is shipping speed and cost information Google finds on your online store. When available, automatic shipping updates will closely match what is shown on your online store.
- Performance shipping speeds: These are the actual shipping speeds for each product based on the time it takes to deliver to each location. When available, automatic shipping updates will show highly accurate information.
Our systems can use shipping speeds found on your online store, or performance shipping speed data to make updates. We calculate shipping speed data based on order tracking history from your past transactions. You can share this tracking history with Merchant Center by linking a partner account.
Note: You have to start the linking process from the partner's website. Once available, you can choose to enable automatic shipping updates to get more accurate shipping information.
Get started
Automatic shipping updates need historical tracking data or data found on your online store to make improvements. Before you use automatic shipping updates, make sure to:
- Allow Google StoreBot to find information on your online store. The Google StoreBot can update your shipping information based on data it finds. Learn more About the Google StoreBot crawler.
- Submit your historical tracking data using Order Tracking Signals via Merchant API .
- Link your Merchant center account to a partner account and share your tracking history with Merchant Center.
By default, automatic shipping updates are turned off for all Merchant Center accounts. To turn them on, go to the Automations page and select the options (prices, availability, condition, or shipping) that you want to update automatically. You can also link a partner account to turn them on. Businesses with linked partner accounts will have automatic shipping updates enabled automatically
Best practices
Here are some best practices to ensure that you get the best out of the automatic shipping updates feature:
- Make sure shipping data on your online store or partner accounts is up to date.
- Turn on automatic shipping updates early.
- Update and improve your shipping policies based on automatic shipping updates.
Frequently asked questions
How can I provide my shipping performance data to Merchant Center?
You can provide performance data by linking your partner account to Merchant Center.
What if my shipping information is inaccurate?
When will automatic shipping updates start to work once enabled?
How often does Google crawl my store pages?
Additional resources
- Learn more about linking a partner with your Merchant Center account
- Learn more about letting Google calculate your shipping speeds based on your carrier
- Learn more about showing customers that you offer free and fast shipping
Learn more about how to Set up shipping settings for an entire account
