Ahead of the holiday shopping season in October 2016, Google enabled integrations between Google Merchant Center and three e-commerce platforms.
They include BigCommerce, Magento and PrestaShop.
Through the integrations, merchants using the three platforms could directly connect their product catalogs to Google Merchant Center. But here, Google decided to end that integration, effective as of March 20th, 2018, according to a report by Sales & Orders.
Google has been sending emails to merchants that use one of the three services, alerting them to the termination of support of direct imports.
Below is a copy of one of the emails received by Sales & Orders:
It says that Google is ending the partnerships so it can "better focus on solutions that will make the Shopping ads onboarding a more seamless experience. We’re continuing to work with eCommerce platforms to explore more frictionless integration opportunities."
The three e-commerce are working to ensure that the transition is smooth for all merchants impacted by Google's decision to retire its Google Shopping app.
And also because the integration ends, merchants using the Google solution should use other methods. They "need to refer to their platform’s apps or third-party providers for additional assistance. or apps that supported their platform for additional assistance," said Sales & Orders.
BigCommerce store owners can take advantage of ‘Google Shopping by Sales & Orders’. The app is built specifically for helping merchants get onto Google Shopping through feed creation and management.