Shipping policy requirements for Google Merchant Center
By Terry Ecom · Last reviewed 2026-09-25 · Source: Google Merchant Center Help
The audit asks for an explicit shipping policy link. The editorial requirements ask that a customer can actually use what is on it. Most stores satisfy the first and fail the second.
What Google published
The website audit for Misrepresentation and “Website needs improvement” lists explicit links to shipping, refund and privacy policies. The fully-functional-store article names shipping information as a page a site must contain.
Editorial requirements treat incomplete or hard-to-understand business information — including shipping — as a problem in its own right, not just a missing link.
The facts the page has to state
Scout reads the shipping policy for the operational values a shopper needs before they commit:
- Shipping cost — a rate, a threshold for free shipping, or a stated method of calculation.
- Delivery timeframe — processing time plus transit, not just “fast dispatch”.
- Countries you ship to.
- Order cutoff time, where same-day or next-day dispatch is advertised.
A vague policy and an actionable one
The first version below is common. The second answers cost, countries and timing before the shopper reaches checkout, and still lets checkout calculate the exact rate. The rates and times are illustrations.
Vague
We ship worldwide! Shipping is calculated at checkout. Orders usually arrive quickly.
Actionable
We ship to the UK, Ireland and the EU. UK standard delivery is £3.95, free on orders over £50; EU delivery is £9.95. Orders placed before 2pm UK time, Monday to Friday, are dispatched the same day. Delivery takes 1–3 business days in the UK and 3–7 to the EU. The exact rate for your basket is shown at checkout.
Keep the site and Merchant Center in step
Merchant Center has its own shipping settings, and Google’s article on them says the costs you submit should be as close as possible to what is on your website — and to overestimate if you cannot match them closely. Its delivery-speed fields are the same pieces a shopper needs on the policy page: an order cutoff with a time zone, handling days and transit days.
Two Shopify details in that article cause most of the drift. Shipping updates pushed by the platform can overwrite manual edits you made in Merchant Center. And if a third-party app calculates your Shopify shipping rates, those rates are not imported into Merchant Center automatically — you have to set them up there by hand. That is the setup where the policy page, checkout and Merchant Center most often disagree.
Then check the storefront against itself: a “Free shipping on all orders” announcement bar above a policy with a £50 threshold, or a product-page “arrives in 2 days” badge above a policy that says 3–5, is an inconsistency a reviewer can see in one visit.
The “calculated at checkout” problem
Real rates genuinely do depend on the basket and the destination, so a live calculator is not a violation by itself. The gap is when the calculator is the only answer that exists anywhere — no range, no free-shipping threshold, no indication of cost until the shopper has filled in an address.
Give a range or a threshold on the policy page and let checkout compute the exact figure. That satisfies “a customer can act on this” without pretending to a single flat rate you do not have.
What GMC Scout flags
Missing shipping policy, then missing shipping cost, missing delivery timeframe, missing shipping countries and missing order cutoff as separate checks. Each one is a distinct finding, so a policy page that exists but states no terms fails on several lines rather than passing on one.
Scout reads the published storefront. It does not price a basket, does not run a test order, and cannot verify that the rates shown at checkout match the policy page. It also cannot see your Merchant Center shipping settings.
Checklist before you request review
- The shipping policy is linked from the footer on every page and opens without logging in.
- It lists the countries you ship to.
- It states cost as a flat rate, a free-shipping threshold or a range — not only “calculated at checkout”.
- It gives processing (handling) time and delivery (transit) time separately.
- If you promise same-day or next-day dispatch, it states the order cutoff and its time zone.
- Announcement bars and product-page delivery badges match the policy.
- Merchant Center shipping settings are as close as possible to the site’s rates.
- If a Shopify app calculates your rates, you have entered them in Merchant Center by hand.
If Merchant Center has already flagged your store
FAQ
Is “calculated at checkout” a policy violation?
Google does not publish that phrase as a violation, and we will not claim it is one. What the editorial requirements ask is that shipping information be usable. A range or a free-shipping threshold on the page, with checkout computing the exact rate, meets that.
Do I need per-country rates on the page?
No published rule requires a full rate table. It does need to be clear which countries you ship to and roughly what shipping costs — a blank on both is the gap.
I offer free shipping everywhere. Am I done?
Say so explicitly on the shipping policy, and still state a delivery timeframe. Free shipping with no stated dispatch or transit time is a timeframe gap, not a cost gap.
My Shopify shipping rates come from an app. Does that matter?
Yes. Google’s shipping-settings article says rates generated by a third-party app in Shopify are not imported into Merchant Center automatically, so you need to set them up in Merchant Center yourself and keep them close to what checkout charges.
Sources
Related guides
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