Overview
Connecting Akeneo PIM to Google Shopping via Akeneo Activation lets you manage product listings and offer data—including pricing, sale prices, and stock—from a single place. In Akeneo Activation, publishing products and managing offers are two distinct operations. Understanding this distinction is essential to keeping your Google Shopping listings accurate and up to date.
Before you can export offer data for a product to Google Shopping, that product must be exported to Google Shopping at least once through a standard product export. Google Shopping requires complete product information to exist before it accepts offer updates.
Publishing new listings on Google Shopping
To publish a new product listing on Google Shopping for the first time, run a product export job in Akeneo Activation.
The initial product export sends your complete product information from Akeneo PIM—including titles, descriptions, images, and category-specific attributes—to create the listing on Google Shopping. This step is required before any offer data (price and stock) can be sent.
Workflow for new listings:
- Configure your product catalog for the Google Shopping channel in Akeneo Activation.
- Import price and stock data via the Offers workflow (see Managing offers for Google Shopping below).
- Run a product export to publish the listings to Google Shopping.
Updating existing offers on Google Shopping
Once a product listing exists on Google Shopping, update offer information—such as pricing and stock levels—using the offer export job. This is faster and more efficient than a full product export because it only sends offer-specific data.
Use the offer export for routine updates including:
- Price adjustments (base price or sale price)
- Stock level changes
To update core product information (such as the product title or description), run a full product export again. The offer export is limited to offer-specific attributes.
Managing offers for Google Shopping
In Akeneo Activation, managing price and stock for your Google Shopping channel uses a dedicated Offers workflow that is separate from the main product catalog mapping. Offer data is imported into Activation using the Offer API, flat-file (manual CSV), or FTP import methods, and then exported to Google Shopping automatically every 15 minutes or on demand.
See Import product offers to Activation for details on all available import methods, including how to configure the FTP-based offer import job.
Supported offer attributes
The following offer attributes are supported for the Google Shopping channel in Akeneo Activation:
- Product Price: The standard selling price of the product.
- Product Sale Price: The discounted or promotional price of the product.
-
Global Stock: Handled via a combination of the
sellOnGoogleQuantityattribute and anavailableattribute.
Offer identifier for Google Shopping
When importing offers, use the Offer ID as the offer_sku value to uniquely identify each offer on Google Shopping.
Catalog mapping and price/stock in Activation
When configuring your Google Shopping channel mapping in Akeneo Activation using the Catalog for Apps tool, the mapping interface displays several attributes related to price and stock.
Manage price and stock exclusively through the Offers workflow described above—do not map these attributes in the catalog mapping screen. While price and stock-related attributes are visible in the mapping interface, they are not handled by the dedicated Offer API. If you map them manually, the offer export job does not override those values. Use the Offer Import and Offer Export jobs to manage price and stock data correctly.