How to add Google Product Category in Shopify for Facebook Sync January 19, 2022 16:30

Have you logged into your Shopify account and had the following error on your home screen before? 

Shopify - 2 products didn't publish to Facebook - Google Product Category

And when you view the product issues it says that it is because the product doesn't have a "Google Product Category"?

You then look on the product's page to see where to input that information, and you can't find it?

Well, here is how you fix the issue. 

I thought originally that the "Product Type" in the listing was what I needed to update, but once I updated that, it didn't fix my issue. 

Shopify - Product Type - Gift Tags

I finally searched just the right thing and found this article in the Shopify Help Center.

Essentially it tells us that in order for products to sync to your Facebook store and in turn to sell on Instagram all products must have a Google Product Category (GPC). When you first sync this is auto-filled for your products to help you get started. But when creating new products, this isn't always the case.

To edit this, you have to go into your Facebook sales channel. 

Shopify - Facebook Sales Channel

Click on 'View all products' on the top left.

Shopify - Facebook Channel - View all Products

This will take you to the Bulk editor where you'll see a list of all your products. For each product you can see any errors, you can check if you want it available on Facebook (and Instagram), you can choose the Google Product Category, and you can note its condition. 

Shopify - Facebook - Google Product Category

You can either use the drop down menu to select a category or it will let you type in the search field to find one.

Once you've found the appropriate category and hit save (which takes a bit of time), you should be all set. When I fixed this issue for our gift tags, I was able to find them on Instagram to tag in a post within 5 minutes, so it syncs pretty fast.