Google Merchant & Shipping Costs Issue

Update:
The way I have setup shipping, is that I have 1 Shipping Zone (US) and 4 Shipping Methods in Woocommerce. No plugins are used:

Method A (Free): 0$
Method B (Paid): 10$
Method C (Paid): 20$
Method D (Paid): 30$

If I map the g:shipping>Shipping and g:shipping_label>Shipping Label in the field mapping section, then only the 1st, Shipping Method A is shown on my feed, the one with 0$ cost. The 3 other Shipping Methods are not shown:

<g:shipping>
<g:country>US</g:country>
<g:service>
Method A (Free)
</g:service>
<g:price>USD 0</g:price>
</g:shipping>

How can I show the other 3 Shipping Methods?

Hi k3nsai,

Thanks for using our plugin and reaching out to us. Sorry to hear you are experiencing issues with your shipping costs.

Let me try answering your questions:

How can I show the other 3 Shipping Methods?

You can not. The plugin checks if products meet the criteria for free shipping. When the products do it adds the free shipping costs. In those cases it won’t add the other shipping costs;

For the record, shouldn’t the manual shipping methods that I have setup in Google feed be enough?

Yes, when you add the shipping costs directly in Google’s merchant center there is no need to add the shipping costs in the feed either. Adding the shipping label in your feed might be required though.

Hence, I would try to get this to work without having to add the shipping costs to your feed.

All the best,
Eva

Hi Eva and thank you for your prompt reply.

The problem is that I have things setup as you mentioned:

I have manually added the shipping methods in Google Merchant but I got a message from Google this morning (after 4 months being active) that:

Account has been blocked because of violations…
Inaccurate Shipping costs (due to inconsistent shipping costs between the feed and the landing page). The shipping costs in your product data don’t match the shipping costs on your product landing pages or at checkout on your website.
…
Example:
Value in landing page – 30.00USD
Value in the data feed – 0.00USD
….

Any ideas?

p.s.
The only things missing from my feed is the Shipping Label mapping. Should that be present and would that make any difference? FYI Shipping Label on its own will not be shown, I have to also map Shipping for it to show, is that normal?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by k3nsai.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by k3nsai.

Hi k3nsai,

Account has been blocked because of violations…
Inaccurate Shipping costs (due to inconsistent shipping costs between the feed and the landing page). The shipping costs in your product data don’t match the shipping costs on your product landing pages or at checkout on your website.

Although Google mentions there is an inconsistency between your landing pages and feed it most-likely means your shipping cost settings in your merchant center (and not feed).

With regards to your shipping label question. It’s optional but it might actually help Google to determine what the correct shipping costs need to be as it seems they are now drawing the wrong conclusion. See this for a more detailed explanation on how to implement it: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324504?hl=en

Could you give me an example of a landingpage for which Google believes the shipping costs are 30 USD? I’ll have a quick look as to why Google believes the shipping costs is 30 USD whereas you told Google it is 0 USD.

Best,
Eva

Here is a landing page for you to check:

https://rebrand.ly/rc7lsxr

According to Google:
Value in landing page – 30.00USD
Value in the data feed – 0.00USD

Hi,

I did some checking but as far as I can tell there is no way for Google to automatically detect a shipping costs of 30 USD. Combined with the fact your products were fine for 4 months I think you have been manually reviewed by a Google employee who checked your shipping costs and probably came across things like this in your check-out: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eikyj81gg0ppfxq/30shipping.png?dl=0

I think your best bed it to reach out to Google’s support if you believe they made a mistake in their manual review.

Best,
Eva

That would make sense, although it raises questions on the credentials of the manual reviewers… but that is not a topic for this thread ??

Thank you for your feedback, I will contact my Account Manager and will let you know what they say, in order to help others with the same issue!

Hi k3nsai,

Yeah let’s not go there, that would become one long thread ??

Let me know what the outcome was and if we need to help to get the issue sorted.

Best,
Eva

In the meantime, for anyone having the same issue, you can add the following snippet in Woocommerce to force it to display 0.0$ next to your free shipping method, just in case the tech-savy Human Google reviewer cant tell the difference:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_cart_shipping_method_full_label', 'woo_append_0_to_shipping_label', 10, 2 );
   
function woo_append_0_to_shipping_label( $label, $method ) {
 
if ( ( $method->cost ==0 ) ) {
$label .= ': ' . wc_price(0);

}
return $label;
}

Hi,

Assuming the issue at hand has been resolved and/or our support is no longer required I am going to close this topic for housekeeping reasons now.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to us again whenever you need our help.

All the best,
Eva