gtin invalid – nothing is working

Hello
I think you should install yoast plugin and then try to edit the product that is linked to more than one category
From product edit page you’ll have an option to set the primary category for that product.

Waiting for the plugin support to confirm

Hi thanks for your reply.
I have yoast plugin and I already changed the products categories (for the site I’m working on uploading to google merchant) to just one category – and every product is showing as invalid gtin.

Hi Seacress,

For most Google categories the g:gtin field is a mandatory field which also has to meet their strict requirements. You can read all about those requirements on:

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324461?hl=en

There are only very few categories for which a g:gtin is not required. You can find those categories on the above URL too. So make sure you map your categories to those Google categories.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Eva

Hi Eva,
Thank you but no, this doesn’t really help. ?? I read that yesterday through google merchant and I understand what it’s asking for however I do not ever have the physical products in my possession so it’s not possible for me to look at the product for the UPC. I am working with wholesale distributors who assign their own product id for internal tracking purposes, so I’m assuming that’s why it doesn’t work when I map the gtin to product id. I have ordered from many of them in the past and there was no barcode / UPC code on anything I received. How do I find something that isn’t there? I have thousands of products on my site(s) I can’t imagine asking for every one…

Thanks I appreciate your help.

So far I think I figured out the gtin – it has to be mapped to the SKU not the product id as the video shows…

I am still wondering however, when I do get to my other sites that have products in multiple categories, how do I map those? i.e. Fall – includes jackets, coats, sweaters, etc.

I appreciate your help. ?? Thank you!

Hi seacress,

g:gtin is not the same as SKU. When you will map your SKU to Google’s g:gtin field it will disapprove your products. You can only map the g:gtin field to an attribute that meets Google’s requirements for the GTIN.

I suggest you go through this online topic about GTIN’s. It tells you exactly what to do when you do not have valid GTIN’s for your products:

https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Shopping-and-Merchant-Center/What-to-do-if-product-does-not-have-UPC-MPN-or-GTIN/td-p/432068

Hope this helps.

Best,
Eva

Thanks Eva. I removed gtin and there’s no errors – so far, so good! Fingers crossed!!

I am still wondering however, when I do get to my other sites that have products in multiple categories, how do I map those? i.e. Fall – includes jackets, coats, sweaters, etc. any help on this is greatly appreciated. When I had a Women’s category with multiple items on the current feed I’m working on, i.e. dresses, pajama’s, shirts, etc. it kept causing errors on the mapping. I had to remove everything from the Women’s category so it only appeared in one – for this site it’s not so bad, not many products but my other sites have thousands.

Thanks ??

Products can only be mapped to one category for most marketing channels, such as Google Shopping. Google does not allow products to be mapped to multiple categories.

When you have Yoast’s SEO plugin installed our plugin will use the primary category for mapping to Google’s category taxonomy.

All the best,
Eva

Thanks Eva. ?? That helped, removing it altogether ??
The other issue (with merchant) that I’m having now is the sizes of kid’s clothes (do I add that in the attributes?) and labeling items “women’s” and “adult” – It’s in the title but apparently that’s not enough for google, lol. ??

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. It’s getting there!!

Hi again Eva,
Ok, having another issue, lol. It’s for shipping. I set up the google shipping as close as I could to match my WooCommerce settings and everything kept saying that no shipping was set. So I mapped the attribute in the plugin to my shipping – now it’s not liking my shipping because I have it set as a flat amount plus a percentage: 7 + [fee percent=”17″]. When I tested my shipping on my site, it works but apparently google doesn’t like it. Some of my distributors / vendors have really high shipping and I’m shipping from around the globe – globally- so I have it set this way to try and help cover some of those costs (which I’m sure it’s not even high enough for some of my vendors and I’ll be coming out of pocket.) I’m also trying to keep shipping prices low… do you have any suggestions? Everything I’ve previously searched online for shipping with WooCommerce wasn’t very helpful – they say either raise the prices and offer free shipping, or set a low flat fee and raise the prices, or the method I’m using, a low amount plus a percentage.

I appreciate your help! ?? Sorry to bring in so many topics to one support item – please let me know if you’d prefer I start a thread? Thanks again!!

Hi seacress,

With regards to your questions:

• Sizes: yes you need to have a custom attribute for your products in which you store the size of the products. That custom attribute than needs to be mapped to Google’s g:size field;
• Gender and age group: same goes for the g:gender and g:age_group fields. You need to have a custom attribute for that, fill it with values for your products and than map those to the correct Google fields.
• Shipping: I am afraid there are not many more options than you have already mentioned yourselves. One other option you could try, but it might be too much work, is create shipping classes for every vendor you have so you can set shipping costs per vendor and link those shipping classes to those products. This should get you there, but than again when you have thousands of products this will be time-consuming to set up

Hope this helps?

All the best,
Eva

Hi Eva,
I changed all of my shipping rates, classes, etc… what a chore! However the most recent issue I’m having now is sizes and colors! ?? I mapped everything in the attributes but because some of the sizes are European (I have size charts / conversion explanations in the descriptions) it’s kicking it back for the US advertising… I’m selling globally and when a product is based out of the EU, I use European sizes. I also am adding shoes and it doesn’t like the EU sizes for the US. I’m afraid if I change all of the sizes to US sizes, then it’s still going to have the same problem for the EU upload. I’ve tried sizing like US 8, US 10, for clarification but it didn’t like that, so I had to change the sizes to just 8, 10, etc and it doesn’t like that either. Am I missing something on sizes?

As for colors, it doesn’t like Blue – for the US. It also doesn’t like dark blue, navy blue and a few other basic colors. So confusing that the most basic of items are getting kicked back.

I also have robes for girls and teens, I added the sizes 5 -7, 11-14, and it doesn’t like that either nor does it like Blush Floral and others. So from what I can see google doesn’t like sizes or colors, but insists on it, lol. Is there a way around this?

I appreciate your help. ??

Hi,

Google does support sizes that go for both the US and the EU. You do however have to make sure they meet Google’s requirements.

See the example’s on (Standard sizes):
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324492?hl=en

When using the standard sizes is not an option you will have two make two different product feeds, one for the US and one for the EU.

With regards to colors: Google is accepting pretty much every exotic color. See: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324487?hl=en

So when your products are being disapproved than I think that is caused by something else.

All the best,
Eva