How to create a Product Feed for ProfitMetrics

How to Create and Debug a Product Feed in Google Sheets

Section 1: Product Feed Specification

Section 2: Troubleshooting

Section 1: Product Feed Specification

The ProfitMetrics product feed is based on RSS and is largely compatible with the Google Shopping XML feed, with some additional elements. Key specifications include:

• Encoding: The product feed should be encoded as UTF-8.
• Item Elements: The item elements should include specific information such as
  • link
  • title
  • g:id (unique product ID)
  • g:image_link (link to product image)
  • g:price (retail price), and more.
• Currency Format: Various currency-related elements can be included, such as pm:price_currency and pm:price_buy_currency.

Things to Note:

• Even though some fields are optional, it is strongly recommended to include as much information as possible for enhanced functionality.
• Each product variant should have its own item, and each item is considered a real sellable product with a unique ID.
• Products must only appear once in the feed; duplicates (field g:id) will result in importing failures.
• Extra fields are ignored, maintaining backward compatibility with Google Shopping feeds.

Example Product Feed

<!-- Example Product Feed -->
<rss pm-type="gs-1.0" xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0" xmlns:pm="https://my.profitmetrics.io/ns/1.0">
  <channel>
    <item>
      <!-- Product Details -->
    </item>
    <!-- Additional Items -->
  </channel>
</rss>

Section 2: Troubleshooting

To ensure a successful product feed, please consider the following troubleshooting tips:

• Check that the overall group is called <channel>.
• Ensure products are labelled <item> and not <products> or <items>.
• Match the ID in the feed with the ID received with orders (usually the internal product variant ID from the e-commerce platform).
• Use pm:price_buy and pm:price_buy_currency for cost prices.
• Required Fields:
  1. Create "id" and fill it with product IDs.
  2. Create "title" and fill it with product titles.
  3. Create "price" and fill it with product prices incl. VAT/Tax.
• Recommended Fields:
  1. Create "pm:price_buy" and fill it with product costs (costs of goods sold) ex. VAT/Tax.

     1. Alternatively, this field can be named several other things:

        pm:price_buy
        g:cost_of_goods_sold
        pm:price_buy
        g:cost_of_goods_sold
        price_buy
        g:price_buy
        cost_of_goods_sold
        pm:cost_of_goods_sold
        cost_price 

  2. Create "pm:price_buy_currency

Confirm that the feed does not contain illegal characters (such as &, <, >).

Full Specs: