Google makes pickup cost and minimum order value mandatory in UK and EEA
Google will require pickup cost and minimum order value for in-store pickup products in the UK, Switzerland, and all EEA countries starting September 2026.
Retail
Google announced on April 28, 2026, that two new product-level attributes - pickup cost and minimum order value - will become mandatory for in-store products in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and all European Economic Area countries starting September 30, 2026. The announcement expands on the annual Merchant Center product data specification update published on April 14, 2026, adding a distinct enforcement deadline and geographic scope that merchants operating across Europe will need to address before the end of Q3.
The September 30 deadline applies specifically to merchants who charge pickup costs or impose minimum order values on their websites and whose in-store products are enabled for pickup in Merchant Center. According to the April 28 announcement, starting that date, "if pickup costs or minimum order values are applied on your website and in_store products are enabled for pickup, you will have to provide the associated costs" using the relevant attributes. Products that do not comply may be disapproved.
What the two attributes do
The pickup cost [pickup_cost] attribute specifies the fee charged when a product is bought or reserved online for collection at a physical store. According to the Merchant Center documentation, the attribute uses two sub-attributes. The first, pickup cost flat rate [pickup_cost_flat_rate], captures the fee itself - formatted with a period as the decimal separator and including the ISO 4217 currency code, for example 3.00 EUR. The second, pickup cost free threshold [pickup_cost_free_threshold], is optional and captures the order value above which the pickup cost is waived. If the free threshold is set to 20.00 EUR, only products with a price below that amount will carry the flat-rate pickup fee in product listings.
The attribute supports a wide range of currencies. According to the documentation, accepted value ranges differ by currency: 0 to 1,000 for AUD, CAD, CHF, EUR, GBP, NZD, SGD, and USD; 0 to 3,000 for RON; 0 to 5,000 for AED, BRL, DKK, HKD, ILS, MYR, NOK, PLN, SAR, SEK, and TRY; and up to 20,000,000 for IDR and VND. Each currency range reflects purchasing power differences across markets.
The minimum order value [minimum_order_value] attribute allows merchants to define the minimum spend a shopper must reach before an order can be placed. According to the documentation, shoppers will see this value on ads and free listings before visiting a merchant's website. The attribute has four sub-attributes: country [country] (required), service [service] (optional), surface [surface] (optional), and price [price] (required). The country sub-attribute takes an ISO 3166-1 country code such as DE or CH. The surface sub-attribute accepts three values - Online [online], Local [local], or online plus local [online_local] - and defaults to online_local if not specified.
Minimum order value can be submitted up to 100 times per product, which allows merchants to configure different thresholds across countries and shipping services within a single product record. The attribute can be used in all countries, not only those where it will be required. However, merchants are instructed to submit it only when a product's price is equal to or lower than the stated minimum order value.
Format and feed implementation
Both attributes follow Merchant Center's standard sub-attribute formatting conventions. For text feeds, the minimum order value attribute header uses the format minimum_order_value(country:service:price), with the value expressed as US:standard:20 USD. If a merchant does not specify sub-attribute names in the header, Google assumes the values appear in order: country first, then price. Blank colons are used to skip optional sub-attributes while maintaining position: US::25 USD, for example, omits the service sub-attribute.
For XML feeds, the minimum order value attribute wraps sub-attributes in individual tags:
<g:minimum_order_value>
<g:country>DE</g:country>
<g:service>express</g:service>
<g:surface>online</g:surface>
<g:price>50 EUR</g:price>
</g:minimum_order_value>
For pickup cost in a text feed, the header minimum_order_value(country:service:price) mirrors the same structure, while the XML implementation uses:
<g:pickup_cost>
<g:pickup_cost_flat_rate>3.00 USD</g:pickup_cost_flat_rate>
<g:pickup_cost_free_threshold>20.00 USD</g:pickup_cost_free_threshold>
</g:pickup_cost>
According to the documentation, merchants must not submit multiple different prices for the same product at the product level. The currency of the minimum order value price sub-attribute must also match the currency used in the product's main price [price] attribute. If a price cannot be represented in the target country's currency - for example 1.0012 EUR - Google will round it to 1.01 EUR.
A key dependency exists for merchants using the shipping [shipping] or carrier shipping [carrier_shipping] attributes at the product level. According to the documentation, specifying either of those attributes overrides account-level shipping settings, which means any minimum order value set at the account level is also overridden. Merchants in that situation must explicitly include the minimum_order_value attribute in their product data to preserve that threshold.
What triggers the requirement
The mandate is conditional rather than universal. Not every merchant operating in EEA markets needs to submit these attributes. The requirement is triggered by two factors occurring together: the merchant applies pickup costs or minimum order values on their website, and their in-store products are enabled for pickup in Merchant Center. Merchants without physical pickup operations, or those whose websites do not impose any such fees or thresholds, are unaffected.
The documentation also notes that in-store products in the UK and EU and EFTA countries where a website requires a minimum spend for customers to buy or reserve products online for in-store pickup already carry this requirement under the minimum order value rules. The April 28 announcement formalises and extends that requirement with a clear enforcement date.
For the pickup cost attribute specifically, the documentation sets out clear verification rules. The submitted value must exactly match the pickup fee displayed to customers on product pages or at checkout. Fees must be disclosed before payment information is entered. Merchants are instructed not to submit store-specific costs - only a single pickup cost at the product level, not differentiated by individual store location.
The broader April 14 specification update
The April 28 announcement explicitly references the annual product data specification update published on April 14, 2026, describing the pickup cost and minimum order value changes as additions to, rather than replacements of, what was announced there.
The April 14 update introduced several other changes. A new handling cutoff time [handling_cutoff_time] attribute allows merchants to set a daily deadline for processing online orders. New sub-attributes - loyalty program label [loyalty_program_label] and loyalty tier label [loyalty_tier_label] - were added to the shipping [shipping] attribute to allow product-level specification of loyalty shipping benefits.
A new video link [video_link] attribute is also being introduced. According to the April 14 announcement, merchants can begin submitting links to product videos immediately, but serving and policy and quality validation will not begin until June 30, 2026. Technical validation errors for the attribute will be reported starting April 14. From June 30, policy or quality errors with submitted videos will prevent the video from serving but will not affect the associated product offer.
Looking further ahead, the April 14 update also announced changes to image size requirements. Starting January 31, 2027, the minimum resolution for images submitted in the image link [image_link] and additional image link [additional_image_link] attributes will increase to 500x500 pixels across all product categories. Warnings for non-compliant images began appearing in the Merchant Center "Needs attention" section from April 14. Google also noted that some smaller images will be automatically optimised to meet the new requirement, which will prevent disapproval without action from the merchant; these optimised images will be marked with a warning in Merchant Center.
Why this matters for European merchants
The EEA encompasses 30 countries - the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. Switzerland, while not an EEA member, is included in this specific requirement. For any retailer using local inventory ads or free local listings across these markets and offering click-and-collect or buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) fulfillment, September 30, 2026, represents a hard compliance deadline. Products that do not carry the required attributes when the merchant's website applies the relevant fees may be disapproved.
The announcement arrives in the middle of a sustained period of product data specification changes at Merchant Center. Google required separate product IDs for online versus in-store items from March 2026, a change that added significant feed complexity for omnichannel retailers. That requirement means that by the time the September 30 pickup cost mandate takes effect, merchants should already be operating with distinct product records for their in-store inventory - exactly the records to which the new attributes will need to be attached.
The 2025 annual specification update had already expanded product-level shipping options, including new attributes for carrier-based shipping costs and business day specifications. The 2026 update continues in that direction, pushing more account-level shipping configuration down to the product level. This product-level granularity is consistent with a broader trend documented at PPC Land in which Merchant Center data is increasingly consumed not only by traditional shopping ads but also by AI Mode, Gemini, and agentic commerce infrastructure - surfaces where completeness and accuracy of cost data carry more weight than in a simple list of search results.
The pickup cost attribute surfaces in local inventory ads alongside free local listings, meaning shoppers searching for in-store product availability on Google will see pickup cost information directly in the ad unit before clicking through. That pre-click disclosure is stated explicitly in the Merchant Center documentation as a mechanism to ensure users understand what they will pay before visiting the merchant's website.
The requirement also connects to a wider pattern of Google pushing merchants to surface total cost of purchase upfront. Loyalty program shipping annotations, which Google expanded to 14 countries in March 2026, follow a similar logic: showing delivery costs - or the absence of them for loyalty members - before the user clicks. Pickup cost mandatory disclosure sits in the same category of pre-click transparency signals. Together, these changes shift cost communication from the checkout page toward the product listing itself.
For merchants managing feeds through the Merchant API, the new attributes will need to be incorporated before September 30. The Content API for Shopping, which is scheduled for shutdown on August 18, 2026, will technically be unavailable before the enforcement date arrives - meaning all merchants on legacy API integrations should be migrated to the Merchant API well in advance.
Feed complexity is a practical challenge. Merchants with large catalogs operating across multiple EEA markets face the task of auditing which in-store products are enabled for pickup, checking whether their websites impose pickup costs or minimum order thresholds for those products, and then mapping the correct values into product data for up to 30 countries. The minimum order value attribute's support for up to 100 values per product provides the necessary capacity for cross-market configurations, but the data collection work upstream of that submission sits with the merchant.
Timeline
- April 13, 2024 - Google announces Merchant Center product data specification changes, including free shipping threshold and optional changes to local inventory ad attributes. PPC Land coverage
- April 8, 2025 - Google announces the 2025 annual Merchant Center product data specification update, expanding shipping attributes at the product level. PPC Land coverage
- September 20, 2025 - FeedArmy launches Shopify local inventory tracking for Google Merchant Center via Google Tag Manager. PPC Land coverage
- January 6, 2026 - Google announces mandatory separate product IDs for online versus in-store items when attributes differ, with enforcement starting March 2026. PPC Land coverage
- March 25, 2026 - Google expands loyalty program annotations - including member shipping benefits - to 14 countries and to AI Mode and Gemini surfaces. PPC Land coverage
- April 14, 2026 - Google publishes the 2026 Merchant Center product data specification update, introducing handling cutoff time, minimum order value, video link, and loyalty shipping sub-attributes; image size enforcement warnings begin.
- April 28, 2026 - Google announces that pickup cost [pickup_cost] and minimum order value [minimum_order_value] will be required in the UK, Switzerland, and all EEA countries for in-store products enabled for pickup starting September 30, 2026.
- June 30, 2026 - Video link [video_link] attribute begins serving; policy and quality validation checks for submitted videos begin.
- August 18, 2026 - Content API for Shopping scheduled shutdown; Merchant API becomes the sole programmatic access method.
- September 30, 2026 - Enforcement begins: pickup cost and minimum order value attributes are required for in-store products enabled for pickup in the UK, Switzerland, and all EEA countries where these costs or thresholds exist on the merchant's website.
- January 31, 2027 - New 500x500 pixel minimum image resolution requirement takes effect for image link and additional image link attributes.
Summary
Who: Google, through the Merchant Center Help Center team, directed at retailers and e-commerce merchants with in-store products enabled for pickup in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and EEA countries.
What: Two new mandatory attributes - pickup cost [pickup_cost] and minimum order value [minimum_order_value] - will be required for in-store products where pickup costs or minimum order values are applied on the merchant's website. These attributes allow product-level declaration of pickup fees, free threshold amounts, and minimum spend requirements, which will be shown on local inventory ads and free local listings before shoppers click through.
When: The announcement was published on April 28, 2026. Enforcement begins September 30, 2026. The attributes were introduced as part of the broader 2026 product data specification update announced on April 14, 2026.
Where: The requirement applies to the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and all EEA countries (30 countries total). The attributes themselves can be used globally, but the mandatory enforcement is limited to these markets for in-store products enabled for pickup.
Why: Google is requiring these attributes to ensure accurate total cost information appears on local inventory ads and free local listings before shoppers visit a merchant's website or store. The change is part of a broader shift toward pre-click cost transparency in Google Shopping surfaces, alongside loyalty shipping annotations and free shipping threshold disclosures. Merchants whose in-store products show pickup costs or minimum order requirements online must declare those costs in their product data or risk product disapproval after September 30, 2026.