Suppose you’re a merchant who frequently updates pricing, availability, or sale prices more than once daily. In that case, you might have already encountered the limitations of standard data feed scheduling in Google Merchant Center. By default, most merchants rely on a primary feed that updates once daily—typically at midnight or early morning. But what if you need to reflect price changes before lunchtime?
This article outlines a practical solution for merchants who don’t have access to automated Content API setups or advanced feed management tools. We’ll explore how supplemental feeds can help you keep your listings accurate throughout the day without manual intervention.
Why Supplemental Feeds?
Let’s say your regular product data feed runs at midnight, but by 11:00 AM, you’ve updated pricing and stock levels across your entire catalog. If you wait until the next scheduled update, your Google Shopping listings will display outdated information for hours.
To solve this, you can create a supplemental feed that Google fetches separately—at a different time than your main feed. When Google processes this supplemental feed, it overwrites any previously submitted values (as long as the product IDs match), allowing you to sync updated pricing and availability multiple times daily.
While you can trigger a manual fetch of your main feed, a scheduled supplemental feed is a more convenient, automated approach that doesn’t require daily involvement.
Common Alternatives (and Their Limitations)
In an ideal setup, your data feed management tool would handle all updates automatically:
- Content API for Shopping: Applications using the Content API can push changes to Google Merchant Center in real-time. This is the most dynamic and efficient method (for updates on a per-product level) but typically requires developer support or an advanced platform and has a slower full-push method.
- Automated feed uploads (TSV/XML): Some apps generate and host feed files (TSV, XML, etc.) and ping Google to re-fetch whenever a new file is ready. This also works well but relies on the app’s ability to control the fetch behavior.
However, not all merchants use such tools. If you’re generating a feed URL dynamically—meaning the feed is built fresh whenever someone visits the link—then the options above may not apply.
The Solution for Manual or Semi-Automated Setups
If you don’t have a real-time integration or a tool that pushes updates, here’s a method you can use:
- Duplicate your main feed or create a lightweight version that only includes pricing-related fields to generate a second feed file.
- This file can be hosted on your server (just like your primary feed).
- In Google Merchant Center, add this new file as a supplemental feed.
- Schedule the fetch to run when you know your prices are updated—for example, at 11:30 AM and 4:00 PM.
Google will then fetch this file and update your existing products using the provided values as long as the product IDs match between the supplemental and primary feeds.
This approach gives you flexibility without needing real-time APIs or third-party software.
Which Attributes Should Be Included?
Your supplemental feed should contain only the attributes you wish to update. In this case, the following are recommended:
- id – Must match the product ID in your primary feed
- price
- availability
- sale_price
- sale_price_effective_date (if applicable)
Including just these fields reduces server load and file size while still delivering timely updates.
Requirements
- You must schedule the supplemental feed to fetch within the Google Merchant Center at specific times.
- The ID values in your supplemental feed must match your primary feed’s IDs.
- The feed file should be in a supported format (TSV, XML, or Google Sheets).
🙋Questions or Need Help?
Try MerchantCodex (Courses, Forum, Coding, etc)
Or do you have a private question or need private specialist support? Get in touch! I’m happy to help you optimize your Google Shopping listings for the best performance.