Google is warning retailers connected to Google Merchant Center that they should use the Additional Countries instead of Merchant Center "shipping settings".
According to Google, advertisers should control the product availability only in the feed, by using the "additional countries" feature. Google clarifies that this applies to both Shopping ads and free listings.
Retailers have until September 30 to implement the additional countries in the feed. Until then, Google will use Merchant Center shipping settings.
Until now there were two ways for products to become available in multiple countries:
- Retailers could specify countries through shipping settings
- Or could specify countries in your Shopping ads feed (either as the country of sale, or by using the "additional countries" feature).
The last option is the one that remains.
This month, Google also announced that Shopping Ads can now be displayed to users in multiple countries sharing the same language.