Enquiry of integrating Google Shopping as a Saas features in our multi sales channel

[Oops Tang]

Hi,

I would like to have some clarifications for the Content API for Google Shopping.

We are a company that offers client to integrate their identical marketplace channel into our Saas (Software as a service) system and manage the product listings in a single central point.

We have decided to integrate Google Shopping into our existing platform but we are doubt how can we authenticate the Google Shopping behalf of our Google Shopping client and use the provided permissions to pull the products listing.

Below are our current testing approach:

1. We have setup an account at Google Merchant Center and enable OAuth authentication.

2. Create some dummy products in Google Merchant Center Product Page.

We encounter few challenges such as how we authenticate our merchant on behalf them to access the product listing (as we used our testing account, we noticed that we need to specify client secret and client id in order to get the access token and refresh token) but how can we let the clients to authenticate once, then, we can reuse the refresh token and access token to interact with the content API to process or request anything we want from the Google Shopping.

Besides that, we also noticed 1 ambiguous variable which called "accountId" and found in most of the API calls such as accounts API. May we know how can we retrieve this "accountId"?

Aside from that, we have another issue to determine whether the website is claimable or not by requesting to content API (We failed to test the claimwebsite API (https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/claimwebsite?hl=en) as we don't able to locate "accountId")

We appreciate your feedback and clarifications.

[Shopping API Forum Advisor]

Hi,

The Merchant should give access to their Merchant Center.  You might want to take the service account approach:
 https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/guides/quickstart/setting-up-a-client-library

The account id is sub-account id in case of an MCA and Merchant Center id for regular Merchant Center account. When you do accounts.authinfo call, the API response will include account id and MCA id/ Merchant Center id details that you have access to. 
https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/authinfo

Thanks,

Lakshmi Prathipati Content API for Shopping Team

 

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[Oops Tang]

Hi

1. If we go for MCA (multi client account), will it suitable for us as we are Saas multi sales channel integration provider and our merchant have their own storefront website with their own top-level domain (TLD) ?

2. How can we make "merchant" account to be our sub-account and if the merchant decide to stop linked their "merchant" to our account, how can we revoke the establish relationship?

3. How can we check the status of the website claim on behalf of the "merchant" once they authorised to be our sub-account of our main account.

4. Once merchant is successfully assigned as our sub-account, how can we pull out their product listings via the Content for Shopping API? (Because we saw the Google API Client SDK requires every authentication to provided client secret and client id, in this case, which client secret and client should we fulfill and how we gain access to the "authorised merchant account" via this SDK?)

Thanks.

[Shopping API Forum Advisor]

Hello,

 

I’m James, a colleague of Lakshmi. Thank you for your response. Allow me to assist you further.

 

See my answers to your queries below:

 

1. If we go for MCA (multi client account), will it suitable for us as we are Saas multi sales channel integration provider and our merchant have their own storefront website with their own top-level domain (TLD) ?

• Yes it is possible as per this merchant center guide, a Merchant Center advanced account setup or Multi-client account allows a single person or company to manage data for more than one account by submitting data feeds for multiple website domains. (Each sub-account can have a distinct store name and a unique website URL.)
• However, take note that you should Avoid having multiple websites that contain similar content, as that could lead to account disapproval. Learn more about our policies on duplicate content

 

2. How can we make "merchant" account to be our sub-account and if the merchant decide to stop linked their "merchant" to our account, how can we revoke the establish relationship?

• Is this guide about account linking is what you are looking for? If yes, from the Content API’s perspective, the accounts.link method allows a Google Shopping partner to programmatically flag a relationship between your Multi-client account and those of other merchants.
• Please refer to the following links below for more information.
  • Request link - https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/guides/flagging/request
  • Approve link - https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/guides/flagging/approve
  • Remover link - https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/guides/flagging/remove

 

3. How can we check the status of the website claim on behalf of the "merchant" once they authorised to be our sub-account of our main account.

• To check the status of the website claim of your sub-accounts, then you need to execute accountstatuses.get method that allows an MCA account to get account status information for a single sub-account, or a standalone account to get its own account status information, or accountstatuses.list method that call returns information on all sub-accounts.
• Refer here for more information.

 

4. Once merchant is successfully assigned as our sub-account, how can we pull out their product listings via the Content for Shopping API? (Because we saw the Google API Client SDK requires every authentication to provided client secret and client id, in this case, which client secret and client should we fulfill and how we gain access to the "authorised merchant account" via this SDK?)

• Are you looking to retrieve the list of individual products uploaded within a specific sub-accounts or are you just looking for the summary products(active, pending, disapproved & expiring)?
• If retrieving the list of individual products - you may use the products.list method and specify its ID in the merchantId field.
• However, if you’re just looking for the summary of products (active, pending, disapproved & expiring), then you can use either accountstatuses.get or accountstatuses.list methods. 
• Moreover, you can use the login user account that has access to the MCA to authenticate and make API requests for products.list method as login user accounts in the higher hierarchy could access the accounts under it.

 

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Regards,

James Howell Abarsoza

Content API for Shopping Team

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