# Merchant Feed Ready

Merchant Feed provides your merchant inventory. Google attempts to match this
inventory with Google Maps locations.

To complete the Merchant Feed Ready milestone task, you need to successfully
build and [upload](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/reservations/e2e/integration-steps/feeds#upload-feeds)
your Merchant Feed to the SFTP dropboxes. The SFTP dropbox is configured when
you provide your [SSH key in Setup](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/reservations/e2e/integration-steps/setup/public-ssh-key).
There is a Merchant SFTP dropbox for both Production and Sandbox environments.

## Merchant Feed task requirements

- Minimum of one Feed [upload per day](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/reservations/e2e/integration-steps/feeds#upload-feeds) for seven days.
- Include a minimum of 25 merchants from your total merchants.
- Set `processing_instruction` to `PROCESS_AS_COMPLETE`.
- Fix all errors and warnings.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Don't use testing data to complete milestones. If you don't have a minimum of 25 merchants to build against, [contact support](https://actionscenter.google.com/support/cases) for next steps.

## Merchant basics

Your Merchants Feed is an array of merchant definitions. Each merchant
definition requires the following data:

1. A unique ID
2. A name
3. GeoCoordinates or an address

### Merchant matching and bookability

When a new merchant is added to your feed uploads, it can take time to process
and propagate to the frontend.

To verify that merchants are quickly matched and propagated, your
partners must have up-to-date Google Business Profiles for their venues, and the
data you use to define merchants is in alignment with their profiles.

Here, you can find the full
[definition](https://developers.google.com/actions-center/verticals/reservations/e2e/integration-steps/feeds/merchants-feed/samples-definitions#definitions)
and accompanying sample along with optional attributes that can assist with
automatic matching.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** New merchants to the system can take up to two weeks to process and propagate to the frontend.

### Merchant IDs

IDs must be unique within your organization. If you define a merchant and later
change the ID, that means you have created two merchant definitions in the
system. A new merchant with the new ID, and a deleted merchant with the previous
ID. This can cause venues to become unmatched until the automatic matcher can
process the change.

### Merchant names

Merchant names and GeoCoordinates must reflect the actual name and address of
the venue. If your merchants don't have Google Business Profiles, work with
them to verify that the data you have is up-to-date. Merchant names must not
include pricing, menu items, or any other information other than the name of the
venue.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Though the system accepts both structured and unstructured addresses, it's best practice to use the structured format.