The first thing most people do when shopping online is to check out prices. If a store has low prices compared to competitors, people tend to buy from that store. 

Price is a required shopping feed attribute and a ranking factor in Google Shopping campaigns. 

Another closely related attribute is the sale price, you can only use it if you are running a sale. Since a sale doesn’t run in perpetuity, there’s a day the sale begins and a day it ends. So we’ll discuss the price, sale price, and sale price effective date attributes in this post. You can see our other posts on shopping feed optimization.

The Price Shopping Feed Attribute

Customers need to know the price of an item before deciding if a product is worth it or not. Price is always a positive number, except in cases where a product is sold at zero downpayment but with a monthly subscription cost.

Submit the price as a number, and append the corresponding currency code. For instance, 25.00 USD for US dollars or 10.50 CAD for Canadian dollars. Always submit prices up to two decimal places, if the price is more than two decimal places, Google will round it off to two decimal places.

Always submit the correct updated price. The price in your shopping feed should always match the prices on the landing and checkout pages. When prices don’t match, the affected product is disapproved. In your Google Merchant Center account, the disapproved products will be accompanied by the reason “Mismatched value (page crawl): (price [price]).” 

Follow these guidelines when submitting prices;

  • Price should be prominently displayed on checkout and landing pages
  • Be transparent about shipping costs and any extra fees and costs that are not part of the product price. Extra costs can include export and import costs. Set up these additional costs and shipping fees in the Merchant Center account.
  • The submitted price should apply to all customers in the target country, not just members. If it only applies to members, membership must be free and the membership signup process must be easily completed on the landing page or checkout. On the landing page, clearly show the discounted membership price.
  • Prices should be consistent across all regions in a target country unless Google supports regional pricing in that country
  • Submit a price and currency combination that is compatible with the target country.
  • Present product variants and their respective prices clearly and understandably.
  • If there’s a minimum order value, specify it in shipping settings. If you only sell in bulk, show the price for the minimum quantity of items that are eligible for purchase.
  • If you sell in bulk and also sell samples, submit the price of a sample.
  • Prices should be static rather than dynamic, so they shouldn’t dynamically change with live exchange rates or auction bids.
  • For wireless plans in the US, the activation fee doesn’t fall under the price attribute. It falls under additional costs and fees that you set up in the Merchant Center account.
  • Follow local pricing guidelines for items sold with subscription plans and installments
  • Abide by applicable pricing and tax laws.
  • Submit the total overall price for multipacks and bundles. Not the price of each item in the pack or bundle.
  • If a product has a minimum advertised price (MAP) agreement use that as the price. Consider a shoe that can’t be advertised for less than $50 and you sell at the same price or less. Submit $50 as the price, and if you sell the item at a lower price, clarify that information using text on the landing page and checkout.

Prices change occasionally and it can be a lot of work to update them manually. Set up automatic item updates for key product information such as price and availability status to avoid Merchant Center disapprovals.

Sale Price

During a sale, you want to show customers that they can enjoy bargains. So you need to submit the sale price which should always be less than the non-sale or base price. This is an optional attribute but if you are running a sale, you should use it so that you can get more clicks and conversions.

The formatting requirements are the same as for the price attribute but with a few additions:

  • The sale price can be less prominent than the non-sale price on the landing page
  • You must clearly show the sale price and the original prices on the landing page
  • The sale price should be clearly shown on the landing page and checkout
  • Keep submitting the original price along with the sale price. Don’t reduce the original price in the price attribute.

Sale Price Effective Date

To tell Google and by extension, potential customers, about how long a sale will run, submit the sale price effective date attribute. When people see an end date for a sale, they may be more inclined to buy rather than miss out on a good deal.

Submit the date using the ISO 8601 standard, with the start date, time, and time zone. Then a (/) separator, then the end date, time, and time zone. The format is:

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm±[hhmm].

If you don’t set the time, the sale will start at midnight on the start date and end at 11:59 pm on the end date. For example, if a sale starts on December 24th, 2023, starting at 8 December 29th, 2024, at 5 am New York time, the submitted value will be

2023-12-24T08:00 -0500/2023-12-29T22:00-0500.

This will tell Google when the sale starts and ends, including at what time. Don’t forget to take your ad account’s timezone into account with these settings.

Conclusion

Since price is a compulsory attribute, follow submission guidelines to ensure products show up on Google Shopping. Use the sale price attribute to drive higher sales volumes. The sale price effective date attribute can help create a sense of urgency that can bring in more sales. Here’s another post about the product title attribute.