Hey everyone! If you’re managing vehicle listings in Google Merchant Center, you’ll want to pay close attention to this update.
Google has introduced a new value for the availability attribute in Google Merchant Center, specifically aimed at vehicle listings. The new value is called “build to order”, and it’s a game-changer for dealers and sellers who carry vehicles that aren’t sitting on a lot waiting to be driven off.
What Does “Build to Order” Actually Mean?
The “build to order” availability value is designed for situations where a vehicle isn’t immediately available in dealership inventory, but it can be customized and ordered directly by the customer.
Think about brands like Tesla or Rivian, where buyers often configure their own vehicle from scratch, choosing trims, wheel covers, battery options, and more. These aren’t vehicles you can just walk in and buy off the floor. They’re made to the customer’s spec, and now Google Merchant Center has a proper way to reflect that.
If your listings fall into this category, it’s time to make the switch.
What You Need to Update
There are two places you need to make sure the “build to order” value is applied correctly:
1. Your Structured Data
Head into your structured data and update the availability field to BuildToOrder. This needs to match what you’re submitting in your feed, consistency between your structured data and your data feed is critical to avoid disapprovals.
2. Your Data Feed
In your Google Merchant Center data feed, update the availability attribute value to build to order. Make sure it’s applied to all relevant vehicle listings.
Don’t Forget: Condition Must Be Set to “New”
This is an important one, and it’s easy to miss.
If you’re using the “build to order” availability value, your condition attribute must be set to “new”. If the condition is set to “used”, your product will be disapproved. Google requires that build-to-order vehicles be listed as new, which makes sense, these are freshly configured, customer-specified vehicles, not pre-owned ones.
So before you go live, double-check both:
- ✅ Availability:
build to order - ✅ Condition:
new
Quick Checklist
Before wrapping up your updates, run through this:
- Update your structured data availability to
BuildToOrder - Update your data feed availability attribute to
build to order - Confirm your condition attribute is set to
new - Review listings for any disapprovals after the update