The shipping attribute is a field in a product feed that tells Google Merchant Center how much it costs to deliver a particular item, and optionally how long delivery takes. Google uses it to show the delivery cost beside the price in Shopping ads and free listings, and it overrides the general delivery settings in your account for that product.
How the shipping attribute works
There are two places to give Google your delivery costs. Most UK shops set them once in the Merchant Center account settings: for example, standard delivery £3.95, free over £50, next-day £6.99. That covers every product. The shipping attribute is for exceptions, where one item costs more to send than the rest, such as a sofa in a homeware shop that otherwise sells cushions and lamps.
The attribute carries several sub-values: the country, an optional region or postcode group, the service name, the price, and optional handling and transit times. In a simple text feed a line might read GB::Standard:4.95 GBP, meaning delivery anywhere in the UK by the standard service costs £4.95. Related attributes include shipping weight and dimensions, which feed rate tables, and shipping label, which groups products so you can give them their own rates in account settings without a value on every item.
The US version of this specification pairs shipping with a tax attribute. That one applies only to US listings. In the UK, consumer prices must include VAT, so the price you submit already contains it and only shipping needs setting. For more on that rule, see VAT-inclusive pricing.
Why it matters
Delivery cost is part of the price in a shopper’s mind. Two listings for the same garden bench at £249 look identical until one shows free delivery and the other shows £39.99, and Google displays that difference where people compare. Accurate delivery data also lets Google show labels such as free delivery or an estimated arrival date, which can make a listing stand out.
Getting it wrong has consequences. Google checks the delivery cost in your data against what its crawler finds on your site and in checkout. If they disagree, the product can be disapproved as an item-level issue, and repeated mismatches can lead to account-level warnings. At the time of writing (October 2026), Google expects shipping costs for products shown in the UK, given either in account settings or in the feed.
Common mistakes
- Setting a free delivery threshold in Merchant Center that does not match the one in your checkout after a promotion ends.
- Leaving heavy or bulky items on the standard rate, so the ad promises £3.95 and checkout asks for £30.
- Adding a tax attribute to UK products, or submitting prices without VAT and expecting Google to add it.
- Using the shipping attribute on every product when an account-level rate plus a few shipping labels would do the same job with far less maintenance.
- Forgetting Northern Ireland, the Highlands and islands, or other surcharged areas that your courier treats differently.
How to act on it
Write down your real delivery rules first, exactly as the checkout applies them: services, prices, thresholds, surcharged postcodes and cut-off times. Set the common rules in Merchant Center account settings. Use shipping labels for groups of products with their own rate, and keep the shipping attribute for true one-offs. If your shop platform feeds Google directly, check that the feed app is not sending conflicting values.
After any change to your delivery prices, update Google the same day and check the diagnostics in Google Merchant Center a few days later. Delivery settings are one of the first things I check when an online shop asks me to fix its Performance Max and Shopping campaigns, because a disapproved product cannot be advertised however good the bids are.