Merchant Center Products vs. GBP Products

[bfrazier]

We have a client/chain business that has brick and mortars. They're in the Merchant Center already, with their products visibly showing on the front-facing side of GBP. In this situation, do you know if the "Products" feature is still available in GBP? If it is, we're trying to figure out if we double down on GBP + Merchant Center Products or do we just go with Merchant Center because doing the former isn't useful? Thank you!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

My understanding is you don't need to set them up in GBP if you already have them setup in Merchant Center.

 

[bfrazier]

My understanding is you don't need to set them up in GBP if you already have them setup in Merchant Center.

Thank you for your feedback, @Colan Nielsen! Very helpful and much appreciated.

 

[Rand_dd]

Yes, the 'Products' feature is still available in GBP, even if you're already in Merchant Center. I'd recommend using both, as GBP products can drive local sales and Merchant Center products can drive e-commerce sales. But if you had to choose, Merchant Center might be the way to go since it's more geared towards e-commerce.

 

[GMBapi.com]

Hi @bfrazier. It is a pretty complex decision. My understanding is that you can use Google MErchant Center Next for chains with less than 50 locations. Above that number of GMB accounts, you need to connect the Google Merchant Center and add a "local inventory feed" in order to show a live inventory check on the GMb locations. Once you connect either one of the Merchant Center versions, your manually added Google Products will be pushed ot the background. It is struggle to disconnect the Merchant Center after that. So you have three options. I have written them out in our "how to bulk upload products to GMB" service description. Let me know if you want to have a quick chat, we have a lot of experience getting this live for chains.

 

[bfrazier]

@GMBapi.com and @Rand_dd Big thanks to you both for your thorough answers. Very helpful! I'm sharing all feedback with my team. Cheers!

 

[klharris08]

Yup - for chains once you link Merchant Center it's the only option available. Image below.