How to: Set up your merchant account - Google Base

[Matthew.Major]

A lot of clients run into some confusion when trying to get this channel set up. I wanted to give a brief tutorial on how to set and manage the merchant account side of this channel.

1. Creating - Choosing an account.
You will need to have a Google account to set up the merchant account. If you do not have a Google account registered for your business yet; you will need to do so. You can follow this link for more information " https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount "

If you have an account for Google, be it for adwords or analytics, you will want to use this account. The reason for this is that you need to use the Google account that has your website URL registered to it.

2. Once you have created or located the proper account, you will want to log in to " Google Base "

3. You will look for the datafeeds link in the blue box on the right hand side of the page and proceed to that page.

4. At this point you will want to look to the right hand side of this page and locate the "FTP Information" section, under which you will see a link to "Sign Up". When you click this link it will prompt you to create a unique user name and password. These will not be the same as the login you created for the Google account. Once you have chosen these, write them down, print them, paint them on the wall whatever you need to do to not lose them.

5. After completing the FTP setup you will return to the datafeeds section. Now you will want to locate the New Data feed button at the top left section of the page. Once you click that it will prompt you to enter the Display name (the name that will show up next to your products when shoppers view them) a description of your website and last but not least the website URL.

5a. Upon clicking next you will be asked to enter in a file name. This is an important step. You need to make sure that this file name matches the file name you have or will enter in FeedPerfect! It also must end with a text file extension. As a point of reference we always recommend feedperfect.txt

5b. Next you will want to chose products from the drop-down menu for Item Type. Ignore the second dropdown and click the "Register Datafeed and Continue..." button.

5c. The page you will now see can be completely disregarded because one of the beautiful things about FeedPerfect is that it is going to automatically format your product file to match these specifications! So scroll on down to the bottom of the page and click the "I'm done formatting my file. continue to uploading.." button.

6. You will now see the screen that you will see from now on when you check the datafeed section of Google base. This screen is where you can, at ANY time, check the health of your datafeed. The only thing that is left to do now is complete the set up of the channel in FeedPerfect, upload the file and check its status on this page in 24-48 hours!

Pat yourself on the back, pour a nice tall glass of juice, milk, bourbon and wait for the datafeed to go live!

[erikko]

good thing you put up that topic, there are still some who don't know how to set up their shop in froogle