Finally figured out Google Merchant

[vkmcewen]

I have no idea why that's not an option for you. I'd call tech support. They're always available & I turn to them if I can't find the answers here. Good luck!

[gigahertz6]

I have no idea why that's not an option for you. I'd call tech support. They're always available & I turn to them if I can't find the answers here. Good luck!

Hi vkm,

What was happening, in the admin panel, I was going to:

Products>import/export>custom export sets

instead of going to the proper route:

Marketing>Shopping engines>gooogle base/froogle

to export my sets. And yes, "expiration-date" was definitely there. LOL. But when I upload my file I get the following errors -

Uploaded on Apr 7, 2011 6:38 pm PDT
Test Upload 0 of 88 items inserted - Processed on Apr 7, 2011 6:38 pm PDT
Destinations: Product Ads, Product Search

Total File Size: 35.30 KB
Detected attribute language: English
Detected encoding: US-ASCII
Detected delimiter: ,
Detected file format: Text
Recent uploads
Apr 7, 2011 6:38 pm PDT - 0 of 88 items inserted
Item Errors - 123 items with errors 123 items affected
53
Extra tabs (53 errors)

Your items contain more attributes than those specified in the header row.
Learn more.
Examples: Examples:
Item Nr. Line Nr.
1 2
2 3
3 4
4 5
5 6
35
Invalid date time format in attribute: expiration date (35 errors)

Please enter a date and time in the correct format: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.
Examples: Examples:
Item Nr. Line Nr. Value
16 17 "2011-05-06"
21 22 "2011-05-06"
26 27 "2011-05-06"
30 31 "2011-05-06"
43 44 "2011-05-06"
35
Invalid price (35 errors)

We don't accept non-numeric values, zero (0), or negative prices. If you are including the currency code or symbol, please make sure it matches the currency of the target country.
Examples: Examples:
Item Nr. Line Nr. Value
16 17 "40.99"
17 18 "59.99"
18 19 "81.99"
19 20 "18.99"
25 26 "33.99"

Does anyone have any insight on how to fix this?

Thanks in advance,

Bryon

[vkmcewen]

Bryon-
Is there any way you could attach your txt file (or at least the top title row & first line of product)? I'll try to figure out what's going on. Or you could compare mine to yours & see what might be different. I uploaded the .txt file in a previous post in this thread.

[gigahertz6]

Bryon-
Is there any way you could attach your txt file (or at least the top title row & first line of product)? I'll try to figure out what's going on. Or you could compare mine to yours & see what might be different. I uploaded the .txt file in a previous post in this thread.

hi vkm,

when I click "Click here to download the export file" a new tab opens up in my browser. https://www.macdimms.com/assets/exports/file.txt Are you able to view that link?

Bryon

[vkmcewen]

Bryon-
*First I want to make sure that you're on a PC, not a Mac. I really only know the PC side of this. If you're a Mac user, please ignore the small novel that follows....

I was able to get to your info. From there, these are the steps I follow:
-Save page as: Text File
-open Excel
-open your file (I usually have to change the parameters so that I'm searching for 'all files' and not just excel files to find it).
*I think you're OK up to this point. I want to make sure that we're on the same page for everything after this*

-on the 'Import file' popup, I choose 'Delimited', then 'Next'
-choose 'Tab' under the delimiter choices, then 'Next'
-choose 'General' under column data formula, then 'Finish'

Now your info should be in a spreadsheet. I usually tweak a couple things. First, I've recently encountered errors with my expiration date. It's somehow just a day or two longer than what's allowed by Google. So I just alter it by a few days.

By default, my GTIN comes up in scientific notation (weird), so I format the whole column as a number with no decimals.

Now you're ready to save it again. However, you have to be sure that it's saved as a txt file again.

-Choose 'Save as'
-Choose either 'Other format' and save as type Text-tab delimited
-----or 'Save as' and choose 'text-tab delimited'
-----these both get you to the same point. :)

I then get some errors when excel is also trying to save my file as a regular spreadsheet, and I just cancel out & ignore those.

From your file sheet, the only issue I actually see is possibly within your description. If you've typed those in a way that there's actually a tab embedded in them, that *might* be causing your problem. Try the above walk-through & let me know what errors you get.

[gigahertz6]

Bryon-
*First I want to make sure that you're on a PC, not a Mac. I really only know the PC side of this. If you're a Mac user, please ignore the small novel that follows....

I was able to get to your info. From there, these are the steps I follow:
-Save page as: Text File
-open Excel
-open your file (I usually have to change the parameters so that I'm searching for 'all files' and not just excel files to find it).
*I think you're OK up to this point. I want to make sure that we're on the same page for everything after this*

-on the 'Import file' popup, I choose 'Delimited', then 'Next'
-choose 'Tab' under the delimiter choices, then 'Next'
-choose 'General' under column data formula, then 'Finish'

Now your info should be in a spreadsheet. I usually tweak a couple things. First, I've recently encountered errors with my expiration date. It's somehow just a day or two longer than what's allowed by Google. So I just alter it by a few days.

By default, my GTIN comes up in scientific notation (weird), so I format the whole column as a number with no decimals.

Now you're ready to save it again. However, you have to be sure that it's saved as a txt file again.

-Choose 'Save as'
-Choose either 'Other format' and save as type Text-tab delimited
-----or 'Save as' and choose 'text-tab delimited'
-----these both get you to the same point. :)

I then get some errors when excel is also trying to save my file as a regular spreadsheet, and I just cancel out & ignore those.

From your file sheet, the only issue I actually see is possibly within your description. If you've typed those in a way that there's actually a tab embedded in them, that *might* be causing your problem. Try the above walk-through & let me know what errors you get.

Wow vkm,

your very detailed instructions worked beautifully. I guess the part I was missing was the "save page as" in the browser and then opening the file in excel. You have done a GREAT service to me and anyone else reading this thread experiencing the same difficulties. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me (and other users).

Gratefully,

Bryon

[soly1210]

Can't figure it out.

I can't figure out how to get into the categories with the other companies! Can anyone help me?

[vkmcewen]

Did you try the walkthru that I posted in this thread? Once I got it loaded, it took a few days to see my products listed in the 'compare prices' pages with the other companies.

Are you getting any error messages associated with your feed?

[soly1210]

yes i did

I did walk through all of that and still didn't work. What did you do for the attributes? Did you have to add them or just make sure that your item numbers, brand, and picture all matched up?

[vkmcewen]

I searched for every one of my products on Google, and made sure the manufacturer ID as well as the GTIN (longer sku number) that I had on 3dCart was *exactly* the same. This was key for me, as the manufacturer ID varied some on how it was listed on Google. For example, one of my products by Skydog (brand) with the manuf # 1234 was listed in Google shopping as SD1234. So I just changed my 3dCart info to match. I got many of my gtin numbers from Google. I copied & pasted them into 3dCart. Sometimes an extra 'space' somehow showed up at the end of the gtin, so I checked them all to make sure that didn't happen.

I only included a few attributes & they're listed on my screenshot. I think it took a few days to process, so if you know that you have your gtin and manuf ID the same, maybe give it a few days. It was certainly a frustrating, looong process for me, then one day my stuff was suddenly where I wanted it. At one point, I even made a spreadsheet to make sure I was only changing one thing on my feed at a time, so I'd know what worked & what didn't.

HTH! :)

[vkmcewen]

By the way, my image & description are my own, so those didn't match Google's. If my product is one sold by a few places & there's a 'compare prices' page, my product takes on the stock photo by default. The photo isn't nice like my own, but the fact that my product is served up in a 'compare' page trumps the photo.

For my items that aren't sold by many other vendors & there is no 'compare prices' page option, my products keep my photos. I think it's the best of both worlds. :)

[soly1210]

what about the title

Was your title exactly the same?

[vkmcewen]

No, our titles are not the same. Some are more different than others, but didn't make any difference.

[sportscenterisnext]

I've read everything within this forum several times over of the Google Merchant, just wish there was like an idiots guide to this.

[cjscreativeimages]

Wow vkm,

your very detailed instructions worked beautifully. I guess the part I was missing was the "save page as" in the browser and then opening the file in excel. You have done a GREAT service to me and anyone else reading this thread experiencing the same difficulties. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me (and other users).

Gratefully,

Bryon

I have to agree, I was totally lost before I read your posts vkm and now its working perfectly! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!

CJ