How to Connect Square to Google Shopping

Three ways to connect Square to Google Shopping

1. Square's built-in sales channels

Square offers a Google free product listings sales channel in the Square Dashboard that connects your Square Online store to Google Merchant Center. It covers Google only, and some sellers outside the US report it's harder to set up.

2. Export a file yourself

Square can export your item library to a spreadsheet from the Square Dashboard, but it's Square's own template: no product page links, no image links, and columns named for Square, not for Google Shopping. Turning it into a feed means adding those by hand, every time your stock or prices change. If you go this way, start from our free Google Catalog TSV Template Generator so at least the columns are right.

3. A store catalog connector

A connector reads your Square item library through Square's API once you approve read-only access on Square's own page, and builds the Google Shopping feed for you. Square notifies connected apps when items or stock change, so updates arrive within moments. One catch: Square's API doesn't include each product's page address, so a good connector matches your items to their pages on your Square Online site - and lets you fill in any it can't match. The connector hosts the feed at a URL that Google Shopping reads on a schedule, and one connection can usually feed several platforms at once.

What Google Shopping needs

• A Google Merchant Center account with your website verified and claimed, plus shipping and return policies.
• Seven fields per product: id, title, description, link, image_link, availability (in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder, or backorder), and price.
• Product identifiers: brand for new products, and gtin where one exists - or identifier_exists set to no for handmade items.
• A product source - a file Google fetches daily, weekly, or monthly from a URL, among other options.

How your Square fields map to Google Shopping

The table above shows where each Google Shopping field comes from in your Square item library. A few Square details need extra care:

• Product page links: Square's API doesn't include an item's page address, so links come from your Square Online site. Items that aren't published to your online store have no page and can't be listed.
• Variations: an item with several variations (Red / M, Red / L...) should become one listing per variation, each with its own price, stock, and SKU, grouped under the item with a shared item_group_id. Name your options Color and Size so they're read as color and size.
• Descriptions: items created at the point of sale often have no description, and Google Shopping requires one. Add descriptions in Square, or use a tool that falls back to the item name.
• Product type: map your Square categories to Google product categories. Skip groupings like "Sale" or "Featured" and map the ones that say what the product is.
• Brand and clothing details: Square has no brand, gender, or age group fields. Use a "Brand" custom attribute or a default brand, and set gender and age group for clothing by product name if your tool supports it.

Step by step

1. Get your Google Shopping account ready - see "What Google Shopping needs" above.
2. Approve read-only access in Square. A connector sends you to Square's own authorization page; sign in and approve access to your items, inventory, and business profile. Nothing to copy or paste, and read-only is all a catalog feed needs.
3. Check your product page links. Every listing needs the product's page on your Square Online site. Most can be matched from your site's sitemap by item name; add the rest, or set a "Product page URL" custom attribute on those items in Square.
4. Map your product types to Google product categories. Google Shopping needs to know what each product is. Map each of your Square categories to one category from the Google product category list once, and every product with that value is categorized from then on.
5. Add the product source in Merchant Center. Go to Settings > Data sources, add a product source from a file, choose to fetch it from a URL, add the login under Add authentication information, and schedule a daily fetch.
6. Check the first import. Review the errors Google Shopping reports and fix them in Square, not in the feed - your store stays the single source of truth.

Common Square to Google Shopping problems

• Items not on your Square Online site. Items you only sell in person have no product page, so Google Shopping can't list them. Publish them to your online store first.
• Services, events, and donations. Only physical (and food) items belong in a shopping catalog - leave the rest out.
• Price or availability mismatch. Google compares your feed with your product page. A sale, a tax setting, or a cached page that shows a different price will get items disapproved.
• Missing identifiers. Products with barcodes need a gtin; handmade products should set identifier_exists to no. See How to Set Up a Google Merchant Center Feed for a Small Store.

Related guides

For more on Google Shopping itself, see Google Product Category: How to Pick the Right One. On a different store platform? WooCommerce to Google Shopping, PrestaShop to Google Shopping, Wix to Google Shopping, Squarespace to Google Shopping, BigCommerce to Google Shopping, and Webflow to Google Shopping cover the same setup for those stores.