Google Merchant Center is currently experiencing a technical issue with configuring shipping destinations with overlapping UK postcode regions. Despite appearing as overlapping, in reality, they are not. The root cause can be traced back to Google’s initial failure to account for the unique structure of UK postal codes.
Consider this example: if you create a destination with the grouped postcodes TW9, TW10, and TW11 and subsequently create a second group comprising TW1, TW2, and TW3, Google Merchant Center will indicate overlapping between two regions. It’s important to clarify that this is not the case, highlighting the system’s misinterpretation.
To further illustrate this glitch, another instance would be when targeting M1 versus M11 or N1 versus N11. The system falsely detects these as overlapping regions when in reality, they are distinct.
The Solution From Google
Our Community Managers within the Google Ads community have explained that resolving this issue requires the creation of new shipping settings for the additional postal codes. Google acknowledges that this approach does increase labor and an extensive list of shipping options, yet it remains the sole solution to the issues. Rest assured. We have communicated our feedback to Google.
This still does not work, the regions save correctly but when trying to assign regions against shipping labels for shipping cost the two regions state they overlap and the shipping settings cannot be saved.
Which postcodes are overlapping? I will check on my end.
Hi Emmanuel, the reason this does not work is because although the regions create ok when you split the offending postcodes when you go to assign them to shipping methods the overlapping issue flags up.
Hello Luke, from tests I did, when adding the full post codes, I am able to set everything up. It does mean the broad targeting in the other shipping option needs to be removed. Meaning all post codes must be in the full format, not catch all.
How did you get a list of full postcodes?
I would recommend checking the post office website, or some 3rd party service that can give you the full list.
As an example, I have 2 regions now X and Y, X contains N1 and Y contains N11. When I set up a shipping service I set an advanced pricing table to split by region and cost Region X costs 3.60 from £0 – £500 and region Y costs £5 from £0 – 500 this throws up an error that region Y contains overlapping postcodes to region X
Correct, this is the expected behavior. As explained you need to use the full postcode. So in your case (as an example), region X will be N1 0AB, and region Y will be N11 1AA. And you add all applicable postcodes. This is the only way forward.
I’ve come across this issue this evening and tried to resolve it by using the full postcode.
However, the full postcode rather than the outward code is throwing up the error ‘Invalid postal code specification’ Is there a resolution to this?
You are saying the full postcode is not working? What is the postcode you used?
That’s exactly what I am saying. I’ve tried with a combination of postcodes (with and without the spacing) and always get the error ‘invalid postal code specification’
CF10 1AA
CF10 1AB
CF10 1AD
CF10 1AE
CF10 1AF
CF10 1AG
CF10 1AH
CF10 1AJ
CF10 1AL
CF10 1AP
CF10 1AQ
CF10 1AR
CF10 1AT
CF10 1AU
CF10 1AW
CF10 1AX
CF10 1AY
CF10 1AZ
CF10 1BA
CF10 1BB
Hello Sarah, I can see that it is now indeed broken. Can you post your question here: https://support.google.com/google-ads/community?hl=en
And I will escalate this for you, however please note Google support is very bad now. And this issue you have has existed for many years with no fix, so I don’t think this is a priority for Google, I’m just telling you what I know. And is best to instead setup an overestimate so it covers all regions. It’s better to do that, then get Google to fix it, as it has already been many years. (not the exact issue, but similar)
Amazing!
This saved me so much time!!
Pleasure. And thanks for sharing your appreciation!