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Fix Google & YouTube shipping sync when you use custom shipping profiles

Goal

Shopify's Google & YouTube app can only import rates from your General shipping profile. If your products use custom profiles (heavy items, made-to-order, free-delivery lines), the automatic import syncs the wrong rates and causes errors. Google says the cost you send must match what you charge, so the fix is to switch the app to manual shipping and rebuild your real rates in Merchant Center, using shipping labels for each group of products.

Prompt to copy

Help me move my Google Merchant Center shipping set-up from Shopify's automatic import to manual, without disapprovals. I'll paste:
A) My Shopify shipping profiles: profile name | products or collections in it | zones (UK, Northern Ireland, Ireland, EU countries) | each rate name, condition (weight or price band), cost in GBP or EUR, and transit time.
B) My Merchant Center delivery or shipping policies today, if any (name, countries, products they apply to, cost, times).
Using ONLY these facts:
1) Propose one shipping label per group of products that needs different rates (lower case, ASCII, e.g. 'oversized', 'made-to-order'). Products in the General profile need no label.
2) For each country I sell to on Google, write out the Merchant Center policies to create: name | applies to All products or Specific products (label) | cost table | handling and transit time.
3) Compare every Merchant Center rate with the matching Shopify checkout rate and flag any that would be LOWER than checkout. Google says that if you can't match exactly, you should overestimate.
4) Point out where one product could fall under two labels. Google shows the lowest rate when labels overlap.
5) List the products I should test at checkout (the heaviest and the most expensive to ship in each label).
Don't invent rates, carriers or delivery times. Mark anything missing as 'needs owner input'.

Steps

1. Export or write down your Shopify shipping profiles (Settings › Shipping and delivery).
2. Run the prompt and agree the labels and policies before you change anything.
3. Get the label onto your products in Merchant Center. The supported way is the shipping_label attribute; Merchant Center attribute rules on your Shopify data source can set it from existing product data. Google says the label must already be on your products before 'Specific products' policies can use it.
4. In Merchant Center, create the 'All products' policy first, then one 'Specific products' policy per label.
5. Only then, in Shopify go to Sales channels › Google & YouTube › Overview › Settings, click Select beside Shipping settings and choose 'Manually set up shipping settings in Google Merchant Center'. We suggest doing this last so you are never left without delivery settings in Merchant Center while you build them.
6. Do one test checkout per label and compare it with what Merchant Center shows. Recheck Diagnostics over the next few days.

What to check

• The app's shipping setting is Manual. Google warns that updates through the API, including from Shopify, can overwrite manual changes made in Merchant Center.
• No Merchant Center rate is lower than what checkout charges.
• Every country you target has a policy that covers all products.
• Northern Ireland and Ireland rates match what your checkout actually charges for those addresses.
• You've noted that after this, rate changes in Shopify no longer reach Google automatically, so update both together.

Sources

Facts on this page were checked against these official pages on 4 November 2026. Rules change, so check the source before you rely on it.

• Shopify Help: Google & YouTube channel requirements (only the General shipping profile syncs)
• Google Merchant Center Help: Set up delivery (for Shopify users)
• Google Merchant Center Help: Delivery label [shipping_label]
• Google Merchant Center Help: Set up delivery settings for an entire account
• Google Merchant Center Help: Set up your attribute rules

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