Google Merchant Center Feeder for ZC v1.5.x [Support Thread]

[schoolboy]

How do I apply the false identifier to individual products in the feed instead of to them all?
Some of the products we sell do not have a GTIN/UPC number. They have a model number which is already in place.

The module allows you to set certain Google "required data" fields as PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES.

This is how I configure my zencart store BEFORE I start using the Google Feeder Module.

1. Every product has a unique MODEL name - usually an abbreviation of the product name. I sell unique, customised engraved items so do not have any UPN or GTIN numbers. But Google REQUIRES at least something here and will accept MPN. The module will parse the MODEL name/number int the feed by default, so Google accepts this. If you sell branded products, and need a GTIN or UPN, then you will need to install Numinix Product Feeds, so that these can be inserted into the product data when you add or edit products. But esentially, I make sure each product I sell has a unique MODEL name/number. This is essential for other reasons as well (such as if you use easy populate, or wish to control stock levels efficiently.)

2. I set up SEVERAL "manufacturers". Now while I am the sole manufacturer of all the products I sell, I "leverage" the manufacturers' data in several ways. For example, the Google feeder module does not allow us to specify individual products to exclude, so what I do is for products I do not want in the feed, I allocate a "manufacturer", then, in the Google Feed Configuration, I set "Excluded Manufacturers" to the zen ID of that manufacturer - in my case, the ID is "17", so all products with manufacturer=17 will not be incuded in the field. I use manufacturers for organisation in AdWords and Google Shopping, where this is interpreted as "Brand", and if you want to structure your Shopping Campaigns to take advantage of Google Product Codes, then this is a very useful way of doing it.

3. ATTRIBUTES. As I say, the feeder module will "search" for specific Attribute Options and their Values to include in the fields needed to satisfy Google Requirements.

I have ATTRIBUTES (Option Names) called:
- Google Product Category
- Material (with Option VALUES = Brass, Chrome, Silver, Aluminum, Gold, Plastic)
- Color (with option VALUES = Black, Blue, Green, Gold, Pink, Purple, Red, Silver)
- Age Group (with option VALUES = Adults, Kids)
- Gender (with option VALUES – (Male, Female, Unisex)

Not ALL product categories need these google datasets, but again... I leverage these to appeal to my Google Shopping Campaign, where I can use the Google Product Category to add better "granularity" to the feed, and to then use this as a sorting feature in the AdWords/Shopping Campaign.

In my case I have a bit of a problem, because most of my products have colour attributes anyway. As Googlefeeder will recognise "color" (and the English spelling "colour") as a Googlefeed feature, I set up a separate Option Name called "Main Colour" - because a lot of my products need colour dropdown attributes for my customers uses. By creating an Option Name "Main Colour", with all its relevant Option Values, I can then set the "Color" Option Name and Values to suit what gets parsed into the Google XML feed. The Option Names are set as READ ONLY.

Now... SOME of my products appeal to customers looking for engraved tags as "fashion" accessories - such as sterling silver dogtags. Other tags I sell are aimed at Pet Owners, while some tags I sell are Medic-Alert tags. I also sell keyrings. Other tags are aimed at industrial customers. Each of these needs separate Google Product Categories: eg:
175: Clothing & Accessories / Handbag & Wallet Accessories / Key Chains
976: Business & Industrial / Signage
5093: Animals & Pet Supplies / Pet Supplies / Pet ID Tags
5965: Health & Beauty / Health Care / Medical Identification Tags & Jewellery
So, in ATTRIBUTES, (Option VALUES), I create the following:
For OPTION NAME – Google Product Categories – Option Values =
175
976
5093
5965
Now… SOME of these product categories must also satisfy Google’s criteria of GENDER, and AGE GROUP… such as Google Categories 175 and 5965. So for my fashion dogtags and medical alert tags, I add the attributes (option values) of Gender (option values= Male, Female, Unisex) and Age Group (option values = Adults, Kids) and Color (option values= Gold, Silver). For other Google Product Categories – such as 5093 (pet id tags) – I do not need to specify Gender or Age Group, so do not need to apply these Option Names/Values to all my Pet ID tags. But for 175 and 5965 I DO need to specify them.
I have structured the SORT ORDER of my Option Names and Values to “list” these at the bottom of the attributes display in Product Info pages – but I use some nifty tricks with the Option Values Comments field – where I insert various HTML tags to “hide” these from view from people who are looking at the Product Info page. HTML tags such as <!—and (to close it later) --> will be “parsed” into the page html, rendering these attributes “invisible” to page visitors. I then make sure all my GOOGLE ATTRIBUTES are “encased” in these tags (using sort orders) so that they all fall within the <!—and -- > tags.
The resulting HTML sent to the browser, therefore looks like this

 <div class="wrapperAttribsOptions" id="txt-attrib-3">
<h4 class="optionName back"><label class="attribsInput" for="attrib-3-0">Front first line</label></h4>
<div class="back">
<input type="text" name="id[txt_3]" size="30" maxlength="18" value="" id="attrib-3-0" />  

</div>
<br class="clearBoth" />
</div>





<br class="clearBoth" />
<h3 class="attributesComments"><!-- GP database edit --><hr /></h3>

<div class="wrapperAttribsOptions" id="txt-attrib-7">
<h4 class="optionName back"><label class="attribsInput" for="attrib-7-0">Back first line</label></h4>
<div class="back">
<input type="text" name="id[txt_7]" size="30" maxlength="18" value="" id="attrib-7-0" />  

</div>
<br class="clearBoth" />
</div>





<br class="clearBoth" />

<div class="wrapperAttribsOptions" id="txt-attrib-8">
<h4 class="optionName back"><label class="attribsInput" for="attrib-8-0">Back second line</label></h4>
<div class="back">
<input type="text" name="id[txt_8]" size="30" maxlength="20" value="" id="attrib-8-0" />  

</div>
<br class="clearBoth" />
</div>





<br class="clearBoth" />

<div class="wrapperAttribsOptions" id="txt-attrib-9">
<h4 class="optionName back"><label class="attribsInput" for="attrib-9-0">Back third line</label></h4>
<div class="back">
<input type="text" name="id[txt_9]" size="30" maxlength="20" value="" id="attrib-9-0" />  

</div>
<br class="clearBoth" />
</div>





<br class="clearBoth" />
<h3 class="attributesComments"><!-- GP database edit</h3>

<div class="wrapperAttribsOptions" id="ro-attrib-30">
<h4 class="optionName back">Google Product Category</h4>
<div class="back">
5965<br />
</div>
<br class="clearBoth" />
</div>





<br class="clearBoth" />

<div class="wrapperAttribsOptions" id="ro-attrib-31">
<h4 class="optionName back">Color</h4>
<div class="back">
Gold<br />
</div>
<br class="clearBoth" />
</div>





<br class="clearBoth" />
<h3 class="attributesComments">--><HR /></h3>

<div class="wrapperAttribsOptions" id="drp-attrib-1">
<h4 class="optionName back"><label class="attribsSelect" for="attrib-1">Confirm your selections...</label></h4>
<div class="back">
<select name="id[1]" id="attrib-1">
  <option value="3" selected="selected">Please make a selection...</option>
  <option value="1">Yes. Everything is correct</option>
  <option value="2">Engraving is not required</option>
</select>

</div>

SO… the page VISITOR does not see these attributes – but Google Merchant Feeder Module DOES, and will parse the values into the XML feed.

[schoolboy]

See where the <! -- starts ...

<!-- GP database edit

then what it hides...

Closed By <h3 class="attributesComments">--><HR /></h3>

All achieved with Attributes Comments - and some nifty SORT ORDERS

[CSGODeimos]

The module allows you to set certain Google "required data" fields as PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES.

I'm already using Numinix for UPC. So basically I just set it up so it hides Manufactures by ID if they don't have a GTIN/UPC?

Another question, a few of the products on the site have free shipping, but if I look at Google Shopping, it's showing it having $8 shipping. What the hell do I do for that? I've already setup shipping services in merchant shopping center but it doesn't seem to work.

[numinix]

I'm already using Numinix for UPC. So basically I just set it up so it hides Manufactures by ID if they don't have a GTIN/UPC?

Another question, a few of the products on the site have free shipping, but if I look at Google Shopping, it's showing it having $8 shipping. What the hell do I do for that? I've already setup shipping services in merchant shopping center but it doesn't seem to work.

I'm not certain this will work, but you could enable to free shipping module in the configuration and it should add free shipping to the products that are eligible. It's always best to setup shipping in Google Merchant Center. You could also try their Promotions manager and manually add free shipping to the products that are eligible. If there are a lot, then it's probably not a good idea.

Note: GMCF no longer meets all of Google's specifications. We have discontinued development on this plugin in favor of our premium version which was completely rewritten using a different XML library and is continuously developed and updated for the latest specifications.

[CSGODeimos]

I'm not certain this will work, but you could enable to free shipping module in the configuration and it should add free shipping to the products that are eligible. It's always best to setup shipping in Google Merchant Center. You could also try their Promotions manager and manually add free shipping to the products that are eligible. If there are a lot, then it's probably not a good idea.

Note: GMCF no longer meets all of Google's specifications. We have discontinued development on this plugin in favor of our premium version which was completely rewritten using a different XML library and is continuously developed and updated for the latest specifications.

We currently have the "FREE SHIPPING!" module installed, it shows the free shipping on eligible products. Do you mean setup shipping in Google merchant center with the labels etc? So Shipping < Fedex Ground < Labels etc. If I were to purchase the premium version, would it detect free shipping on GMC feeds? for any products that free shipping is activated on?

[schoolboy]

For some reason, there is a fault with the "preg-split" command in "Payments Accepted".

I worked out a raw hack to get it to provide a valid feed. I know more about the far side of Pluto than I do PHP, but my hack seems to work.

1. In the admin console for Google Merchant Center Feeder, I leave the "Payments Accepted" field BLANK (empty)

2. Then, in : includes/classes/google_base.php

... REMOVE lines 418 - 422

      if (defined('GOOGLE_PRODUCTS_PAYMENT_METHODS') && GOOGLE_PRODUCTS_PAYMENT_METHODS != '') { 
        foreach($payments_accepted as $payment_accepted) {
          $item->appendChild($dom->createElement('g:payment_accepted', trim($payment_accepted)));
        }
      } 

In their place, I inserted:

      { 
          $item->appendChild($dom->createElement('g:payment_accepted', 'PayPal'));
      }
      { 
          $item->appendChild($dom->createElement('g:payment_accepted', 'MasterCard'));
      }
      { 
          $item->appendChild($dom->createElement('g:payment_accepted', 'Visa'));
      } 

Where each line inserted:

{ 
          $item->appendChild($dom->createElement('g:payment_accepted', 'WHATEVER-METHOD-ACCEPTED'));
      } 

... indicates a "Payments Accepted" value.

Of course, this now only works for the methods I listed.

[Amethyst_fairy]

Thanks all I actually figured it out for my error after fighting with another plug in because I have a very large database over 8,000 products went into configuration menu changed time out to 500 and memory to blank and I was finally able to get it to work in case anybody else is still having issues.

[charmlt]

Wow! It's a good thing I posted this, It's happening again and I forgot that it had happened before. Problem SOLVED!... Again.

[Fjolsvith]

I discovered a bug with this addon. After a few weeks of working it through with no forum response to my plea for help, I finally got it running. I discovered that with PHP 7.0, the feed doesn't work, and it doesn't give any indication why.

There is a PHP command called 'split' that is removed in PHP 7.0 that the 'google_base.php' class uses. If you replace that command word with 'explode', the addon will run on PHP 7.0.

Best way to know if you might be affected by this bug is if you click the 'Confirm' button and the popup window displays 'Processing: Feed - Yes, Upload - No' but then is blank after that line.

[charmlt]

That may be, I'm using PHP Version: 5.6.28 (Zend: 2.6.0) without fail.