Google Feed puts out only one variant

[kwikstand]

I just realized that my Google feed is only putting out results for one color.

Clothing items have a size and color. My Google feed is only putting out all sizes of the first color available. All other colors are omitted.

For example the Brawny pants come in many sizes and several colors: Khaki, Navy, Moss and Black. My feed only includes all sizes in Khaki, but no other colors.

Why does the feed work this way?

[Katie]

To begin with, you need to make sure that you are meeting Google's requirements -

As per Google Feed Specifications, variants are a group of identical products that only differ by the options ‘color’, ‘material’, ‘pattern’, or ‘size’. Variant-level information is required only for products in the "Apparel & Accessories" category, and all related subcategories. By submitting variant products, you will help shoppers find what they are looking for more easily by either enabling them to navigate between the different product variations on a details page or helping them discover additional colors, sizes, patterns etc. for a given product.

To submit variants for your "Apparel & Accessories" products in Google feed:

- Set the product's Google category to "Apparel & Accessories" or a subcategory.
- Mark the product to publish it as variants by checking the checkbox "Publish Feed as Variants" at product edit page.
- Create options with names "Color", "Size", "Material" or "Pattern" to match the respective Google attributes as required.
- Google feed requires you to submit specific images corresponding to each of variant that differ in ‘color’, ‘pattern’, or ‘material’. You can specify image url's from manage variants page.
- You can also specify other details like availability, price, weight, inventory details and GTIN for each variant from manage variants page.

Please check the Google Feed Specifications for more details.
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/188494

Do you have an image specified for each variant?

[kwikstand]

Yes, I know all that. I am not talking about Google not processing my feed correctly. I am saying that the feed that Able Commerce spits out only contains ONLY one of the color variants out of several. This being the case, it is obvious that my products DO have "Publish as Variants" checked and ARE in the Google category "Apparel & Accessories", and DO have a color category.

The feed that Able creates, seems to go to the first color and then skips the rest. It does work for sizes, but not all colors. So, you can see, that "Publish as Variants" is in fact checked, which only works for the "Apparel & Accessories" category.

If the product was NOT in the "Apparel & Accessories" category, then "Publish Feed as Variants" can not be checked, and if it wasn't, then the feed would not have any variants listed at all, would it?

Take a look at the Brawny pants: http://www. contractors-solutions.net/brawny-work-pants.aspx The feed that Able puts out lists these pants in every size and in Khaki. That's it. It does not list anything for Navy, Black or Moss.

Once again, I don't have a problem with Google processing the feed, that works just fine. The feed is not generating completely and properly.

[Naveed]

I visited your mentioned product page and noticed a number of choices (about 36) for the 2nd size option. So, i created product having about 40 choices in the 2nd option and I can reproduce the issue in the testing environment. This seems a bug with the google feed generation and I have reported it and once fixed I will get back to you with some workaround.

Thanks for pointing out the issue.

[kwikstand]

Thank you

[Naveed]

I tested the google feed in details, the issue I was having is that I was not specifying unique images for each variant. Google feed requires to specify a unique image for each variant, except for variants which only differ by "Size".

- Google feed requires you to submit specific images corresponding to each of variant that differ in ‘color’, ‘pattern’, or ‘material’. You can specify image url's from manage variants page.

Do you have an image specified for each variant?

Please confirm that you have a unique image for each variant.

[kwikstand]

Yes, I do. If you look at that Brawny pants page, for example, you will see that when you select a color, there is an image for each color.

[Katie]

Images can be specified for each option choice, and they can be specified for the variant. Please go to the Admin and confirm that you have images specified on the Manage Variants page ( Admin/Products/Variants/Variants.aspx)

[kwikstand]

That did it. I had no idea I needed to specify the picture for the color any where else, other than right there in the option choices. Why does the image have to be designated again in so many places? This is going to take a long time to fix.

[Katie]

AbleCommerce uses images that are assigned to option choices. This has been a feature for many years. When we added support for Google Feed with Variants, then we had to add the image fields to the variants page. You can use the Data Import tools to add image references to variants.

[kwikstand]

Well, I went and updated a whole lot of product variants with a separate image url for each and every variant. At first I copied the url's from the color option. Then I realized they are all relative references and the Google feed needs absolute URL's. So I went back and pasted in the wwww.mysite.net before each one. One of my products, the 874 Pants, has over 1000 variants! Now today, I see that the images don't appear when a user clicks on the color swatch after the size has been selected. It is interesting to note, that if the size is not selected, the image for color selection does appear. So I guess I have to go back and change then to relative url's, even though they won't work for the Google feed.

[kwikstand]

OK, I'm back to this issue again. I though it was working fine until today I noticed that some of my products still have only the first color option listed in the feed, even though the other colors DO have their own image. Here is an example:

http://www.contractors-solutions.net/Sh ... Shirt.aspx

You can check the color selections and see the image change, so you know there are separate images for each color. The feed only list black.