Migrate products management

You can use the Merchant API to upload and manage your products programmatically. The accounts.products resource lets you create an online store catalog, that is a list of products and offers. For more information about uploading and managing your products using Merchant API, see Overview of Merchant Products API.

Resource changes

The products and productstatuses resources of Content API are replaced by productInputs and products resources.

You can use the productInputs resource of Merchant API to upload your product information. The product resource of Merchant API can be used to retrieve your processed products including statuses and can only be retrieved a few minutes after productInputs is inserted.

Note: All standard methods, such as, insert, update, delete are only available for the productInputs and read methods only for product.

Data source requirement

In Merchant API, you must specify the target data source when uploading products. This can either be a primary data source or a supplemental data source. You can retrieve your existing data sources using dataSources.list or create a new data source using dataSources.create.

Alternatively, you can use the Merchant Center UI to manage your data sources.

For more information about data sources and how to create and manage them, see Overview of Merchant Data sources API.

Identifier changes

Merchant API uses name to identify the product. The name of the product will follow the accounts/{account}/products/{product} format, where {product} has the channel~language~feedLabel~offerId format.

Content API resources used : instead of ~ between each value in the ID: channel:language:feedLabel:offerId.

All Merchant API calls return the new format with ~ between the values of the ID. We recommend storing the new name field from the response and using it in your future calls.

Methods

Here's a comparison of the products methods in the Content API for Shopping and the Merchant Products API:

Content API for Shopping	Merchant Products API
products.custombatch	Not available, use a batch request instead.
products.insert	productInputs.insert
products.update	productInputs.patch
products.delete	productInputs.delete
products.get	products.get
products.list	products.list
productstatuses.custombatch	Not available, use a batch request instead.
productstatuses.get	products.get
productstatuses.list	products.list

Note: All create, update, delete methods are only performed on the productInput resource. Additionally, productstatuses methods are included in the product resource now.

Requests

Content API Method	URL in Content API for Shopping	URL in Merchant Products API
products.insert	POST https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{MERCHANT_ID}/products	POST https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/products/v1beta/{PARENT}/productsInputs:insert?dataSource=accounts/{MERCHANT_ID}/dataSources/{DATASOURCE_ID}
products.update	PATCH https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{MERCHANT_ID}/products/{PRODUCT_ID}	PATCH https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/products/v1beta/{productInput.name=accounts/*/productInputs/*}
products.delete	DELETE https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{MERCHANT_ID}/products/{PRODUCT_ID}	DELETE https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/products/v1beta/{NAME}?dataSource=accounts/{MERCHANT_ID}/dataSources/{DATASOURCE_ID}
products.get	GET https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{MERCHANT_ID}/products/{PRODUCT_ID}	GET https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/products/v1beta/{NAME}
products.list	GET https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{MERCHANT_ID}/products	GET https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/products/v1beta/{PARENT}/products
productstatuses.get	GET https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{MERCHANT_ID}/productstatuses/{PRODUCT_ID}	GET https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/products/v1beta/{NAME}
productstatuses.list	GET https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{MERCHANT_ID}/productstatuses	GET https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/products/v1beta/{PARENT}/products

Identifiers

Methods	Identifier in Content API	Identifier in Merchant Products API
products.insert	MERCHANT_ID	accounts/{ACCOUNT_ID}
products.delete	MERCHANT_ID, PRODUCT_ID	accounts/{ACCOUNT_ID}/productInputs/{PRODUCT_ID_WITH_TILDES}
products.get	MERCHANT_ID, PRODUCT_ID	accounts/{ACCOUNT_ID}/products/{PRODUCT_ID_WITH_TILDES}
products.list	MERCHANT_ID	accounts/{ACCOUNT_ID}