Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
When switching your Merchant Center to a multi-client account like Shoparize CSS, some issues may occur with your feed file name. These issues may prevent you from completing the switch. We have created this how-to article to prevent these issues from happening and to help you resolve any feed file name issues you have now.
What is a feed?
A feed is a file that lists the products you wish to advertise through the Merchant Center. Your feed can be used multiple times across multiple Merchant Center features. Once a feed is created and registered, you can update the existing feed without needing to register it again.
The Merchant Center uses multiple types of feeds. The primary feed is the main data source the Merchant Center uses to access and display your product data. Read about how to set up a primary feed here.
Switching CSS
When you switch to Shoparize CSS or any other CSS, you have the option to migrate your account as a stand-alone account or as a sub-account of the CSS’s multi-client account. We advise you to migrate your account as a sub-account of the CSS’s multi-client account to ensure that your products will always be accurately presented on the CSS websites.
Feed file name
When you have migrated your Merchant Center account as a sub-account of the CSS, it is essential that you provide a unique feed file name. If your feed file name is not unique, you will receive the following error message:
“Feed file name in this account is not unique. Feed file names need to be unique within a multi-client account.” Because of this error, the switch cannot be completed. When you receive this error message, you can change the feed file name in your Merchant Center account by following these steps:
- Navigate to Feeds under Products in the Merchant Center.
- Click on the feed name where the error occurred.
- Navigate to Settings.
- Scroll down to Name, create a unique feed name, and press Save.
If you have not yet created a primary feed, there is no feed file name for you to change and the steps above do not apply to you. When you create your feed, simply make sure you enter a descriptive name that is likely to be unique and that helps you identify the primary feed.
In either case, the feed name does not need to match the name of the file you are submitting. The feed file name is not linked to anything and can therefore be changed without consequences for your feed.
This is not the case for the file name. The file name of the file you are submitting should exactly match the name of the file you have created. The file name should also include a valid extension, like .gz, .txt, .xml, .zip, or .bz2.
We hope this article has been helpful. If you have any questions about this topic or would like our help with changing your feed file name, please contact us at css@shoparize.com. If you experience any issues with your product feed regarding policy violations or account suspension, read our article on this topic to help you solve them.
