Merchant Information


Google is looking for a few good catalogs. Actually, it’s looking for many good catalogs and wants to partner with vendors to host their catalogs for free. The requirements for submitting a catalog include the following:

  • The catalog must be from a U.S.-based company.

  • The prices for each item must be printed in the catalog.

  • The catalog must be designed to assist people with making immediate purchases.

  • Items for sale must be legal in all 50 states.

When selecting catalogs to scan, Google may reject catalogs that are of an unusual size. This includes oversized catalogs or small, pocket-sized catalogs. Because of Google’s viewing interface, the catalog must also be oriented in portrait view, not the landscape view often used in automobile catalogs.

For now, at least, Google is not accepting catalogs in the following categories:

  • Non-U.S. catalogs

  • Travel brochures

  • Travel guides

  • Course catalogs from schools or private educational organizations

  • Manufacturing data sheets (single-page, sometimes printed both sides, informational sheet)

Before you can send Google your catalogs to be scanned, you must first sign up at services.google.com/catalogs/application and be approved as a vendor. Signing up is easy and consists largely of typing your company’s contact information and agreeing to the terms and conditions. Once your entry is accepted, you are sent by e-mail a specific address to which you should send your catalogs to be scanned.

If you are already a merchant with a catalog in Google Catalogs you may want to manage which catalog people see. To update your catalog with Google, simply send the new catalog to the special address Google provided when you became a vendor. If you’ve lost this address, you can always contact Google’s catalog services team at the e-mail address catalogs-merchants@google.com. You can also write to catalog services at this e-mail address if you want to remove your catalog or change the description displayed with your catalog.

For more information, go to the Google Catalog Help page at http://catalogs.google.com/intl/en/googlecatalogs/help.html.

You may be wondering what Google gets out of hosting other people’s catalogs for free if it doesn’t take a percentage of the sale. Google, with its catalog-hosting service, forms relationships with vendors that will eventually use Google’s other merchant services such as Google AdWords and all the other services discussed in Part V of this book.



Google Power Tools Bible
Google Power Tools Bible
ISBN: 0470097124
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 353

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