Google's pickup options in product feeds are no longer just for Local Inventory Ads (LIA) clients. Understanding what's eligible and how to implement these are critical in keeping up with the competition in the Google Shopping space.
Pickup Options : Today or Later?
There are two main pick up options - Pickup Today and Pickup Later. These attributes can be assigned via [pickup_sla] and [pickup_method] in either the product feed or the local inventory feed and have to enabled and approved in the Google Merchant Center.
Pickup Today
This does require a Local Inventory (LIA) set-up although the attribute assignment can be submitted in the product feed as long as the product's pickup eligibility applies to all locations. If Pickup Today is available only for specific stores, this must be submitted through the local inventory feed. Each product that is opted into Pickup Today has to offer same-day or next-day pickup from the time the order is placed. Google has some website requirements for items to be eligible for Pickup Today. Here is what to do on the feed side:
[pickup_sla]- same_day; next_day[pickup_method]- Buy; reserve; not supported (no blanks allowed here)[availability]- In stock
Pickup Later
This option does NOT require a Local Inventory (LIA) set-up but there are certain website requirements including allowing shoppers to select what store they want to pickup the product. This is also only eligible for products that can be picked up in ANY store. Take advantage of a "LIA-type" PLA annotation without having the heavy LIA tech/lift implementation. Here's what to do within in the Product Feed:
[pickup_sla]- next-day; 2-day; 3-day; 4-day; 5-day; 6-day; or multi-week (if you use multi-week a fixed annotation will show with "Click and collect")[pickup_method]- deliver to shop (submit this if the product is eligible to be delivered to a store location); not_supported (if the product can't be delivered to the store). No blanks allowed here.[availability]- In stock
For Local Inventory set-ups there is more flexibility for the Pickup Later implementation allowing you to provide granular [pickup_sla] information at the store level for each product. Google does have some website requirements you will need to be aware of. Take advantage of this to advertise offers where [availability] is set as 'out of stock' and otherwise wouldn't be eligible to show up in Shopping Ads. Here's what to do within in the Local Inventory Feed:
[pickup_sla]- next-day; 2-day; 3-day; 4-day; 5-day; 6-day; or multi-week (if you use multi-week a fixed annotation will show with "Click and collect")[pickup_method]- ship to store (submit this if the product can be delivered to the relevant store); not_supported (if the product can't be delivered to the relevant stores) No blanks allowed here.[availability]- Out of stock
Notice that Google calculates the day of week in place of the 2-day; 3-day; 5-day or 6-day value that is provided in the feed.
This can be a powerful addition to your existing PLA Badges and Annotations strategy. VersaFeed is able to help advise if you are eligible for this and implement.