Many Greek e-shops put all their energy into Skroutz and BestPrice and overlook a channel that is literally free: Google's free listings. With a properly configured Google Merchant Center, your products can appear in the Shopping tab, in Images and on other Google surfaces without paying per click. The same groundwork is what you'll need later if you decide to run Shopping ads.
Merchant Center's interface and settings change often. The steps below describe the logic; check Google's current menus and requirements as you go.
What you need before you start
- An e-shop on HTTPS with working product pages and a complete checkout.
- Clear contact details and policies (returns, shipping, terms); Google checks them.
- Access to the site's Google Search Console (it helps with verification).
- Your product catalogue with prices, images, brand and barcodes.
Step 1: create the account and verify
Create a Merchant Center account with the business's Google account, not an employee's personal one. Fill in your business details, then verify and claim your domain. The easiest route is usually through Search Console or a meta tag.
Step 2: shipping and returns settings
This is where most mistakes happen. Google wants to know:
- Where you ship (Greece, Cyprus, other countries).
- What shipping costs, with the same rates and free-shipping threshold as your checkout.
- How long delivery takes (handling time plus transit time).
- Your returns policy: window, return cost, method.
If Merchant Center costs don't match the site, products may be disapproved or shown to shoppers with the wrong information.
Step 3: the product feed
There are three main ways to get products in:
- A connection from your platform. WooCommerce has Google's official extension and several feed plugins; Shopify has an official Google channel.
- A feed file (XML or CSV) at a URL that Merchant Center fetches on a schedule.
- Automatic crawling of your site based on structured data. Convenient, but you get less control.
For Greek shops that already have a good Skroutz feed, option two is usually the most reliable: same data source, a separate output in Google's spec.
Fields you must not skip
- id, title, description, link, image_link
- price (including VAT for Greece) and sale_price when discounted
- availability
- brand
- gtin (the EAN), or mpn when there's no GTIN
- condition (new/used/refurbished)
- google_product_category, or at least a clean product_type
- For apparel: color, size, gender, age_group and item_group_id for variants
Step 4: switch on free listings
Make sure the free listings programme is active on your account. After Google's review, which can take anything from a few days to a bit longer, approved products start to appear.
Common problems and what they mean
Price mismatch
The feed price differs from the product page. Usually cache, currency, VAT, or a discount visible only in the cart. Fix the source, not just the feed.
Availability mismatch
The feed says "in stock" while the page says "sold out". Common with variations. The feed needs to refresh often.
Missing GTIN
For branded products Google expects the barcode, and without it visibility may be limited. For handmade or own-brand products without a barcode, correctly declare that no GTIN exists rather than inventing one.
Account suspended for "misrepresentation"
The most stressful message. It usually means Google can't find enough trust signals: incomplete business details, vague returns or shipping policies, exaggerated claims, or inconsistencies between the site and the account. Fill everything in, make policies easy to reach from every page, and request a review.
Image issues
Watermarks, promotional text on the image, placeholders, very low resolution. The main image should show the product clearly.
Making it perform
- Titles: brand + product + key attributes. The first words carry the most weight.
- Descriptions: real information, not the manufacturer's text pasted without a check.
- Product schema on the product page that agrees with the feed.
- Product reviews, if you collect them, can help how listings display.
- Monitoring: Merchant Center shows impressions and clicks per product. In GA4, traffic from free listings usually appears as organic Google traffic.
From free listings to ads
Free listings are an excellent first step, but they give you no control over where and how often you appear. Once your feed is clean and you've seen which products attract clicks, you can link Merchant Center to Google Ads and start Shopping campaigns on a small budget. The order matters: correct data first, advertising second. Ads on top of a feed with wrong prices or availability just pay to send frustrated visitors to your site. Keep the same shipping and returns settings across both, so shoppers see consistent information everywhere.
It also helps to decide early which products you actually want to push. Not every item in the catalogue deserves ad spend; best-sellers, high-margin lines and products where your price is competitive are the obvious starting points.
Checklist
- Domain verified and claimed.
- Business details complete and identical to the site.
- Shipping and returns configured with real costs.
- Feed with GTIN, brand, condition and correct VAT-inclusive prices.
- Automatic feed refresh.
- Free listings switched on.
- A weekly look at the diagnostics/issues section.
If you already have a Skroutz feed, many of the same principles apply; see our Skroutz XML feed guide.
If you'd like help setting up Merchant Center or resolving a suspension, our product feeds service covers it, or simply send us a message.