How to Connect Shopify to Google Shopping Using Automated Product Feeds

Selling products on Google Shopping is a great way to reach a wider audience and boost your sales. While Shopify doesn't offer a built-in integration with Google Shopping, there's an easy solution. Instead of uploading product data manually, you can automate the entire process using a product feed app such as Mulwi. Even better – once it's set up, you won’t need to update the data yourself, as the service keeps everything fully synchronized. Let's take a look at how to connect your store to Google Shopping and start increasing sales quickly.

What are product feeds and why are they needed?

A product feed is structured information about a product saved as a file in various formats convenient for export: XML, TXT, and CSV. It often includes the name, price and discounted price (if available), description, article ID, SKU, and other important information. This makes it easier to export product data and place it on external marketplaces.

Automated feed upload is an alternative to manually adding products to marketplaces. What are the advantages of this approach:

• Saving time. And not only for adding products but also for updating information, because if you use special services, for example, Mulwi feeds will be automatically synchronized and modified;
• Minimizing errors. All because the human factor is reduced - all data will be automatically taken from your online store;
• Ability to add a catalog of products at once. Feeds can include hundreds of items, which is especially important if you have a large assortment;
• Easy work with many marketplaces. You need to create a feed once, and then you can adapt it to dozens of different external marketplaces - from Google Shopping to Facebook.

Guide to connecting Shopify to Google Shopping

You need to use special apps to connect your online store to Google Shopping. Step-by-step instructions on how to use Mulwi:

1. Install the Mulwi Shopping Feeds app, which can be found in the Shopify App Store.
2. Launch the app through the admin panel on the Shopify service.
3. Select the "Create a new shopping feed" option.
4. Click on the “AI category mapping”/”Auto Map” option to match product categories in your Shopify store and Google Shopping: the tool will automatically analyze the name, type, description, and attributes of your category, e.g. "Men's Clothing", and match the most appropriate one on the marketplace.
5. Check that all mandatory fields are correctly filled in. Mandatory/optional items will be marked in the interface.
6. Generate the feed in an appropriate format. For example, CSV/XML is suitable for Google Shopping. The process takes less than a minute.
7. Check the correctness of your feed. To do this, open it in the Mulwi app and select the "QC"/"Feed quality"/"Check issues" option (names may vary between versions of the app). Review the report with a list of potential issues: formatting errors/duplicate content/missing mandatory attributes (for example, GTIN). Correct the mistakes yourself through the Mulwi app.
8. Log in to your Google Shopping Merchant Center account. If you don't already have one, create it, the process takes 30 minutes to 2 hours as you need to provide all the necessary documentation. Then go to the ”Inventory” tab and click on the "Add Products via Upload" button.
9. Following the instructions from Google Shopping, upload the generated file (CSV/XML).
10. Check if your products are displaying correctly on Google Shopping.
11. Go to the Mulwi app, open the Google Shopping product feed, and select 'Feed Update Schedule' to set up automatic synchronization with the marketplace. You can choose the frequency of updates (every 3 hours, every day, once a week). Save your changes.

Important info: if all crucial fields with product descriptions in your Shopify store are filled in, such as SKU, GTIN, and brand name, the app will transfer the information to the feed on its own and this file can be used on Google Shopping immediately. But if the product descriptions in Shopify are incomplete, you need to enter the missing data yourself.