Change in Googlebase Shipping Attribute

I had been adding things to my datafeed, and reading the googlebase section for new information.  I guess I didn’t read it enough, because all of a sudden I got errors in my feed.  It was my shipping section.  I never had issues before, but now all of a sudden – WHAM!  I just couldn’t figure it out!  The wording on the error stated basically they are no longer supporting it, and that makes NO SENSE!

I went to the help section, and read other messages from people having the same issue.  One poster got a message back from googlebase that stated to add the shipping charge within the price of the product.  I’m sorry but that is insane if you want to look competitive, or what about if you have TONS products already live?  I wrote them myself and got some generic answer about “Check the help section”.  I wrote back a second time and FIRMLY asked them if they got rid of this attribute!  I finally got my answer!

Thank you for your email. Currently, we are unable to support the  shipping attribute. Please know that this was a recent change and we are very  sorry for any inconvenience it has caused you. Our engineers are working on a
resolution for the future, however, at this time, the shipping attribute will not function as normal. To resolve the errors in your file, please remove the attribute, and then upload your file again.Google Base is a beta product, which means that it is constantly changing and developing. As a work around, please include your shipping  information under the description attribute.Again, I am very sorry for the trouble. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.Sincerely,
Elaine
The Google Team

At first I was upset!  Then I thought about the datafeeds, and figured WELL it my listings take people directly to my site!  They will see the shipping there anyway!  What about the individual items you have live?  It sounds like you have to change ALL of your listings to accomodate this now.

My other posts regarding googlebase:

Payment Options for Googlebase

How Often to upload to Googlebase

Googlebase Bulk Upload Experience

Googlebase Attributes

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy, Award or Gift

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy, Award or Gift

Male Basketball Bobblehead Trophy Award or Gift is about 6″ (6 Inches) tall, and comes with a star on its base! Colorful and detailed and will be a hit with your next award or trophy event.

The Male Basketball Trophy is Part Number RBH-520 and we will send you an engraved plate. The trophy is individually packed, and will be shipped directly to you!

With this fun design will be appreciated for years to come! Grab something new besides the traditional awards you may have received in the past.
data feed, datafeed, blogging, blog, froogle, search engines, small business, home based business, marketing strategies, googlebase, google base, attributes, online store, shipping, tags

How often to upload to Googlebase?

When I first started I did a couple of individually to get the hang of the system.  YES it is all time confusing, and please make sure you mark on your calendar WHEN these things are due to expire!  Products expire in 30 days.  I have heard theories that the fresher the content at times the more likey you are to come up on top for your search terms.  It is said to re-submit your items regularly.  I’m going to do an experiment, and will report back as to what I find regarding that!  I have handful of items I listed individually.  I’m going to leave those alone for now, and allow them to stay ‘as is’ to see what the traffic would be.  Then I will make sure I load a couple of new ones, and then change the date, etc and see what happens.

Has anyone else heard of theories like this?  Below is one item I entered on its own.

Disney Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore Collectable Ceramic Toothbrush Holder

This Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore Collectable Ceramic toothbrush Holder is about 6.5 Inches Wide by 4.25 Inches tall. It has a part number of AJ9303, and UPC Code of 076657298374. The label states it is hand painted, and has the Disney named molded on the bottom. SPRINGS made in China is also present. The manufacturer of this item is “C.S. BROOKS”. This would be very pretty for your bath or collectable shelve! Children and adults alike would enjoy it!

I added a number of new items to my store 

Googlebase Bulk Upload Experience!

Well!  I read and read about googlebase for the last couple of days.  I decided – okay!  I will take 10 of my trophy items that I sell that I think are rather hot items (lol hint hint!), and place them on the bulk upload and see what happens! 

From the reading I have done so far the MORE custom attributes you use the better chance of someone hitting your item!  Remember they do actually have to deal with your item.  You place something up, and just use tricks to get to a product and google will ZING you!  My question would be do the attributes do anything for the bulk upload?  I sent in a question to the googlebase staff for answers to that question!  The reason I questioned this was I found when you do the bulk upload, and your items are listed – do a search!  You will find them, and when you click on them – ZOOOOOOOOM right to your webpage!

I looked at the ‘required‘ attributes, and some of the suggested ones.  If you look at the list of required attributes not EVERYONE can use all of them!  So if you are a newbie like myself – what the heck do you do?  Lets take the UPC code for example!  The supplier I use for supplies doesn’t have UPC codes in little bags of parts that I receive to place the items together before shipping.  LOL!  If you have the UPC code – USE IT!  Another one is IPSN number, MPN (Manufacturers part number).  Lets say you sell a custom product like myself, and you have NONE of those…what the heck do you do?  Well according to a sample data feed I saw from singlefeed.com you use a Unique Internal Code.  What is that?  Its a product code that you use for your product!  You made it up in your head – it looks good…….KIDDING!  Find something for your own system of your own business, and give it a part number!  One of these numbers are a requirement!  If you can’t supply one because you don’t have it – make your own!

Singlefeed has a blog that explains what ‘data feeds’ are, and here on this singlefeed page if you scroll down they will show you an example of a good data feed.  I have not used this company, nor have I heard much about them.  They do have some good information on their blog.  I remember someone on a board on ecrater mentioning that they asked for to much personal information during sign-up for their comfort.  Remember that is personal preference – you check it out if you want to!  Anyway, it gave great examples of how to lay it out, and definitions of what the attributes are! 

It was a long process getting this up, and I have to wonder if it is worth it for me!  They say if you don’t have to time to do all the products at first try 20 products, and then do another 20 etc.  From what I have heard your items don’t go live right away either – even if the screen says so!  At times it may take hours or days there doesn’t seem to be a system to it!  TIME for things to happen – how frustrating for a newbie!

A few things I did notice is when you are setting up your attributes heading section if you wish to use more than one word you use “_” instead of a space.  I’m talking within your title headings like:  payment_checkout for example.  For the item description itself you don’t have to do that.

Since google now has their own payment program much like paypal there is a trick it seems to mention your paypal option.  I missed the part of my reading on the singlefeed portion about WHERE to mention ‘other’ types of payment plans!  According to singlefeed you MUST have a quantity option available to use the google checkout, and the mention of the google checkout must be under “payment notes”.  If you have unlimited supply they recommend just using 99 for now.  I guess that is up to YOU as the person doing this!  You just need to be sure you can actually get your hands on the product if a large Qty came in!  Believe or not payment type is NOT the field you use for google checkout!  You use that for your other options!  I already have an error on that, and fixed it (hopefully) and soon the file I saved will be good for future use!  I saved my excel file as a normal excel file, and then ‘saved as’ the delimiter they asked for in their instructions.

Remember to use the free overture keyword tool I have listed in the links section.  For each category I listed I plugged in lets say “soccer trophy” to see what came up relating to that for search terms.  One of the extra attributes was events, and I used the event type descriptions within that.  I noticed (and from experience) that for bowling they like to use bowling banque awards instead of “trophy”.  I placed that in my event portion.  Be creative!  You never know what you will see in the search terms they come up with!  Will it work?  I have no idea, but its worth a try right?

Car Show Cruise Automotive Racing 1960s Theme Oval Award Resin Trophy Gift Resin with Gold Accents

26088 Part Number

Car Show and Cruise Automotive Racing 1960’s Theme Oval Legend can hang on wall, or use the desk stand – see picture. This trophy, award or gift will be well received by your recipient! They come in specially designed boxes!

These are approx 8.5” x 8”, and we will send you engraved plate

The highly detailed sports figures are handsomely framed in an oval shaped resin and gold plaque. Something new besides the traditional awards we may have received in the past. I always get comments of PRAISE from these types of products!

You have a group that you need to buy for? NO PROBLEM…we can do groups for you as well! Please let us know the number you need, and we will arrange to get your what you would like for your engraving.

Google Base Attributes

When I started to read about attributes I had NO idea what the heck they were talking about!  As I dug digger I found they are basically facts about the product you are selling!  Size, Color, Model Number, Measurements, etc. are part of the list!  Its actually a pretty cool idea I would think!  If you are hard to fit, and you KNOW what sleeve length you need for example you can search for shirts that FIT instead of going into all these ads that don’t apply!

I found two articles that go into more detail!

Google Base Attributes Redefine Online Shopping and Google’s Froogle (Google Base Uploads) To Require Specific Fields

Here is google page of requirements worth noting! GOOGLE

Golf Trophy Resin Statue Full Color Award

Midnight Wreath Resin Trophy Award or Gift

Size is appox 6″
Plate area is approx. 1-3/8 x 3-1/4″
Second picture is the packaging it comes shipped in.

With this charming design you have the weight of resin material, and full color and almost a 3-day effect for this very inexpensive award! Something new besides the traditional awards we may have received in the past. I always get comments of PRAISE from these types of products!

They are Individually boxed and we will send you an engraved plate for it.

You have a group that you need to buy for? NO PROBLEM…..we can do groups for you as well! Please let us know the number you need, and we will arrange to get your what you would like for your engraving.
online store, small business, home based business, blogging, search engines, search engine, googlebase, attributes, golf, google,