Google Merchant Center is now rolling out automatic shipping updates through the Automatic Improvements tab.
According to Google, “Automatic shipping updates improve the accuracy of your product shipping information. This feature helps customers better predict when they’ll receive their orders and can also help improve your overall shipping performance.”
For now, this feature is only available in the United States. Google explained, “Currently, automatic shipping updates will only take effect in the United States. Merchants outside of the United States may opt in, but the updates won’t be applied yet.”
How It Works:
Automatic shipping updates use historical tracking data to improve the accuracy of your product shipping information. This data is collected through partner linking, allowing Google to track and analyze shipping times over time.
The system looks at both crawled shipping speeds (from your website) and actual performance shipping speeds (based on real delivery times). This helps provide more accurate shipping estimates to your customers.
Crawled Shipping Speeds: These are shipping times that Google gathers directly from your website. If this data is available, automatic shipping updates will closely match what you display on your site.
Performance Shipping Speeds: These are the actual delivery times recorded for each product and location. If this data is available, the automatic updates can provide highly accurate shipping estimates based on real delivery performance.
Google’s system uses either crawled shipping speeds or performance shipping speeds when updating your shipping information.
This data is calculated using order tracking history from past transactions.
To provide this data, you’ll need to link your partner account (such as your shipping or order provider) to Google Merchant Center and allow data sharing through your third-party provider. Please note: the linking process must be started from the partner’s website, not from the Merchant Center.
Once the data is connected, you can enable automatic shipping updates to help ensure your shipping information is as accurate as possible.
I first spotted this update through Hana Kobzová, who shared the news on PPC News Feed and also posted the image below on LinkedIn:
Hana explained, “There are no official screenshots yet, so I’ve created a mockup to show how the feature might appear in the interface (see image below).”
She added, “Since shipping details often change without being communicated, this feature is especially exciting.”
There’s an ongoing discussion about this on LinkedIn.
