Automatic delivery updates improve the accuracy of the delivery information of your products. The feature can help your customers predict when they get their orders, and it can help improve your overall delivery performance. Currently, automatic delivery updates will only take effect in the United States. Merchants outside of the United States may opt in to automatic delivery updates.
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Benefits
Accurate delivery information allows you to:
- Ensure that your delivery data is up to date
- Help customers predict when they are likely to receive a product.
- Allow customers to compare delivery times better between products.
- Improve the chance of customers making a purchase based on delivery time.
How it works
Automatic delivery updates is a feature that uses historical tracking data to improve the accuracy of delivery information of your products. Historical tracking data is acquired from partner linking. It records and calculates all delivery information like crawled delivery speeds and performance delivery speeds.
- Crawled delivery speeds and cost: Crawled delivery speeds and cost are delivery speed information crawled from your websites. If available, automatic delivery updates will closely match what is shown on your websites.
- Performance delivery speeds: Actual delivery speeds of each product based on time delivered for each location. If available, automatic delivery updates will show very accurate info.
Our systems can use crawled delivery speeds or performance delivery speed data when making updates. Delivery speed data is calculated based on order tracking history data from past transactions. Order tracking history data can be integrated to Merchant Center by linking a partner account and allowing data sharing on your third-party provider. Note that you have to initiate the linking from the partner website. Once available, you can choose to enable automatic delivery updates to get more accurate delivery information.
Get started
Automatic delivery updates need historical tracking data or crawled data to make improvements to delivery information. Before you use automatic delivery updates, make sure that you:
- Allow Google StoreBot crawler to crawl your website. The Google StoreBot crawler can update your delivery information based on crawled website data. Learn more about the Google StoreBot crawler.
- Use order tracking signals via Content API to submit your historical tracking data.
- Link your Merchant center account to a partner account and share your tracking history with Merchant Center.
All Merchant Center accounts are opted out of automatic delivery updates by default. To opt in, Check each option (prices, availability, condition or delivery) that you would like to automatically update in the Automatic improvements page. You may also link a partner account to opt in automatic delivery updates. Merchant accounts with linked partner accounts will have automatic delivery updates already enabled.
Best practices
Here are some best practices to ensure that you get the best out of the automatic delivery updates feature:
- Make sure that delivery data on your websites or partner accounts are up to date.
- Enable automatic delivery updates early.
- Update and improve your delivery policies based on automatic delivery updates.
Frequently asked questions
How can I provide my delivery performance data to Merchant Center?
You can provide performance data by linking your partner account to Merchant Center.