Shipping and tax in the feed
Shipping and tax feel like settings rather than product data, which is why they get approximated. They are shown to buyers before the click and checked against your checkout after it.
Where they are set
Both can be configured at account level in Merchant Center, and both can be overridden per item in the feed. Account level is right for most catalogues. Per-item overrides are for products whose shipping genuinely differs: oversized items, restricted goods, anything with a surcharge.
Why accuracy matters more than it looks
- It is shown before the click. Shopping surfaces display shipping cost, so an understatement buys a click that bounces at checkout and an overstatement loses the click entirely.
- It is checked after it. A shipping cost in the feed that does not match checkout is a mismatch, and mismatches disapprove items.
- It affects ranking. Free or low shipping is a competitive signal on a results page where the products are identical.
Free shipping thresholds are the usual trap. A rule that says "free over 50 euro" cannot be expressed as a flat per-item cost, and approximating it in either direction produces mismatches on one side of the threshold.
VAT in Europe
European Shopping expects prices to include VAT at the destination rate. That is straightforward for a single market and a real problem for cross-border catalogues, where the same product carries a different gross price per country. A single VAT-inclusive price across markets will mismatch in most of them.
The structure that works is a price per target country, generated from the net price and the destination rate, rather than a single gross price adjusted by hand.
A quick audit
- Pick three products at different price points and three destination countries.
- Compare the feed price, the landing page price and the checkout total, including shipping and tax.
- Repeat above and below any free-shipping threshold.
- Any disagreement is a disapproval that has not happened yet.