Google Shopping Feeds for Multiple Countries on Shopify

A country needs its own feed as soon as it has its own currency or its own language. Leave it on a shared feed and Google converts the price itself, quoting a shopper in Australia a number your checkout will not charge. That one decision has shaped every feed we have built for Shopify merchants selling into over 100 countries since 2015.

This page covers the rule Merchant Center actually applies, what binding a feed to a Shopify market changes in every row, and what to check before you register the second feed.

Do you need a separate feed for each country?

You need a separate feed as soon as a country has its own currency or its own language. Countries that share both with a country you already sell to can ride the feed you already have.

Merchant Center settles this in three cases. Where a new country uses the same language and the same currency, Google's documentation says you "don't need to take any additional steps to customize your data". Where the language matches but the currency does not, Google says "any currency conversions will take place automatically, so the customer finds the cost in their local currency". Where both differ, Google says you "should create a separate data source with the product data translated into the new language".

On Shopify that question is usually settled before you reach Merchant Center. A Shopify market exists because a region gets its own prices, its own URLs and often its own translations, so a market you went to the trouble of creating is almost always a market that differs on currency, language or both. New Zealand added to an Australian market, or Austria added to a German one, changes neither, and those countries belong on the feed you already run.

What does Google do when the currency is different?

Merchant Center converts the price for display, and Google calculates that converted figure using its own rate.

Google's price attribute documentation asks you to "submit an amount and currency that match the price on your landing page and the checkout pages", and to "show the price in the currency of your target country prominently on your landing page and checkout pages". Currency conversion satisfies the shopper's wish to see a familiar number. It does not satisfy that rule.

A converted price is safe only when your storefront charges the converted amount too, and a Shopify market with its own currency does not. That market applies its own rounding and its own price adjustments, so Google's conversion and your checkout are two independent calculations that agree by luck. When they disagree, the gap sits between the feed and the landing page, and the merchant owns it.

Which Shopify markets can become a feed?

Only markets with a web presence, because every row in a feed carries a link and a market with no storefront has no page to link to.

Shopify reports a type alongside each market. Business to business markets describe a company location and point of sale markets describe a physical location, so neither backs a public product page. FeedShine filters both out and offers you only what is left, which is why a market visible in Shopify admin can be missing from the feed setup screen.

One market is easy to discard by mistake. The catch-all market covering everywhere you have not named specifically reports no type at all, and it is a legitimate feed target. It is often the market serving the largest number of countries in the account, so writing it off as an empty value removes the feed with the widest reach.

What does a market-bound feed change in every row?

Price, link and translated text all move to that market's values, so every row describes the page a shopper in that country will actually open.

• Price comes from the market's currency and its price adjustments, not from the store's base currency.
• Link points at the market's URL, which is either its own domain or its subfolder on the primary domain.
• Title and description use the market's translations wherever translations exist.

The same product therefore appears in two feeds as two rows. The default id format stamps the market's country into each one, matching what Shopify's own channel emits, so the AU row and the UK row are two offers and each is registered against the country its feed serves. The other id formats leave the country out, and the two rows then share one id. Both work, because Merchant Center reads a feed's country alongside the id rather than the id alone.

<item>
  <g:id>shopify_AU_812345_43210</g:id>
  <title>Merino Wool Crew Neck Sweater Navy M</title>
  <g:price>149.00 AUD</g:price>
  <link>https://example.com/products/merino-crew</link>
</item>

<item>
  <g:id>shopify_GB_812345_43210</g:id>
  <title>Merino Wool Crew Neck Sweater Navy M</title>
  <g:price>79.00 GBP</g:price>
  <link>https://example.co.uk/products/merino-crew</link>
</item>

How many feeds do you end up with?

One feed for every market you advertise in, plus one for the catch-all market if you also sell to countries with no market of their own.

The count follows the markets you advertise in rather than the markets you have. A store with nine markets running Shopping campaigns in three countries needs three feeds. Building the other six is cost with no return, because each feed is another file to generate, another registration to keep alive and another place a stale price can surface.

In FeedShine each market feed takes a feed slot, so your plan sets how many markets you can run at once. The counts are in plans, billing and limits.

What breaks first when you add the second country?

Shipping settings and Google Ads location targeting break before the feed does, because a correct file for a country you have not configured still stops at Merchant Center.

• Shipping has to reach the new countries. Google asks you to "make sure you've correctly configured shipping information to cover these countries or provided the shipping attributes on a product level".
• Location targeting has to agree. Google states that "the location targeting you set in Google Ads must match the target countries you select in Merchant Center".
• Policies are enforced per country, so approval in one country is no promise of approval in the next.

Domains decide the account structure. A website can be claimed by one Merchant Center account at a time, so markets sharing a single domain through subfolders belong in one account. Markets living on their own top level domains, a .co.uk beside a .eu, need either their own accounts or sub-accounts under an advanced account, and the domains you already gave those markets make that decision for you.

How do you check a country feed before you register it?

Open the generated file, take one item's link and load it. The price, the currency and the language on that page have to match the row that sent you there.

1. Pick a product with a price adjustment in that market

   A product priced the same everywhere passes this check even when the feed is bound to the wrong market, so it proves nothing.

2. Open its link straight from the feed

   Use the URL in the file. Searching the storefront yourself tests a different link.

3. Compare the three fields

   Price, currency and language on the page against the row. Any one of them differing means the feed is not bound to the market you think it is.

4. Register the feed for that country

   Each market feed has its own URL and is registered separately in Merchant Center.

The steps for binding a feed to a market are in feeds for Shopify Markets, the registration itself is in register your feed in Google Merchant Center, and the price attribute reference covers what Google accepts in the field this article keeps returning to. For everything a Shopping feed can carry, see Google Shopping feeds.