Guide

How to switch a Google Shopping feed without losing products

Moving a store to a new platform, or a feed to a new app, replaces every product Merchant Center knows about at once. Products that keep their ID keep their history and approvals; everything else starts over or disappears. This is the checklist we use before a cutover.

1. Keep item IDs stable

Merchant Center identifies a product by its id. When the new feed sends the same product under a new ID, Google sees one product removed and a different one added. Performance history, Smart Bidding signals and any product-level reporting start again, and the new item has to be reviewed.

• Find out what the new platform uses as the ID. Some channel apps use a generated value such as shopify_US_123_456 instead of your SKU. Most feed apps let you choose the ID source: pick the one that reproduces the old IDs.
• Check letter case and spaces. SKU-1, sku-1 and SKU-1 are different values to a comparison. Do not let the new feed change them.
• If IDs must change, change them in one planned step and expect a learning period. Do not change them again a week later.

2. GTIN, MPN and brand

• GTINs are the strongest way to recognize the same product across feeds. Export them as text: spreadsheets often turn 012345000017 into 12345000017, which is no longer a valid 12-digit UPC.
• A GTIN should belong to exactly one item. When several variants share one GTIN, it identifies none of them.
• Products without a GTIN need mpn and brand, or identifier_exists set to no where that is correct (custom or handmade products, gift cards).

3. Item groups and variants

• Variants of one product share an item_group_id and differ by color, size, material, pattern, gender or age_group.
• New platforms often generate their own group IDs. A changed group ID is not fatal, but it changes how variants are grouped in reporting and in listings.
• Watch for values that change form: M becoming Medium or Navy becoming Blue splits filters and can confuse variant matching.

4. Price, currency and availability

Price format

Send a number and an ISO 4217 currency code, for example 15.00 USD. A bare 15 or $15 is a problem waiting to happen.

Currency

A new store set up in the wrong market or base currency can send 18.00 CAD for a product that was 18.00 USD. The price must match the landing page and the target country.

Sale price

Sales scheduled on the old platform are not always migrated. Check that running promotions still carry a sale_price, and that ended ones do not.

Availability

Use in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder or backorder. A new platform that has not synced inventory yet may mark everything out of stock on day one.

5. Duplicate IDs and missing values

• Every ID must be unique in the feed. Duplicates usually come from a parent product and its variants exported with the same ID, or from two data sources merged together.
• Check that every item still has a title, link, image link, price, availability and brand. Missing images and links are common when URLs change during a migration.

6. Compare the feeds before you switch

1. Export the current feed (from the old platform, the feed app, or the Merchant Center data source) and the new feed, as CSV, TSV or XML.
2. Open FeedSwitchCheck and load both, or try the demo first. Files stay in your browser.
3. Start with Removed and ID changed: those are the products that lose history or disappear.
4. Then review Needs attention: duplicate IDs, currency changes and missing values.
5. Fix the new feed's settings, export again, and compare the same catalog again until only the changes you intended are left.

FeedSwitchCheck compares the files you give it. It does not connect to Merchant Center, so it cannot see disapprovals, supplemental feeds or rules applied inside Merchant Center.

7. Cutover checklist

• New feed uses the same item IDs, or ID changes are planned and accepted
• No duplicate IDs; every GTIN belongs to exactly one item
• Prices carry the right ISO currency code for the target country
• Availability reflects real inventory on the new platform
• Item groups and variant attributes are consistent
• Titles, links, images and brand present for every item
• Old feed kept until the new one is approved, then switched in one step

Compare your feeds