Trusted Status
Trusted Status is a feature to bypass specific checks and enable onboarding merchants at scale.
A Local Feed Partnership Provider can be considered "Trusted" for:
- GHLSF (Google Hosted Local Store Front)
- MHLSF basic (Merchant Hosted Local Store Front)
- MHLSF Full
- Pick Up Today
- Pick Up Later
GHLSF (Google Hosted Local Store Front)
Merchants without an online presence can have their offers displayed on a Google Hosted Local Store front when users visit the "See what's in store" module for a business or upon clicking on an offer.
Google requires a merchant to pass in-store inventory checks for this type of treatment. Retailers are asked to verify the price and availability of up to 100 items (max 3 stores per merchant). Photos are requested for approx 20% of listed items.
Google will then verify that data matches the one provided in the inventory feed.
Upon passing 5 consecutive in-store inventory checks for 5 merchants, an LFP provider will be considered "Trusted" for this experience and no further checks will be required. Additional merchants will be automatically approved.
Verification Steps
- Review Data Quality Report After requesting inventory verification, Google shares a Data Quality Report. Review the report and make any required modifications.
- Agree to which stores are checked If required, Google enables the store managers to validate actual in-store inventory against the data provided in the feeds using a web form.
- Provide a time window and loop in local store manager A Google team works with you to schedule time-appropriate verifications. Provide complete contact information for each store manager and communicate checks upfront helps both the Google team and the store teams.
Tech Guidance
Once you are ready for verification, you can either do it from the Merchant Center Front End UI, or do it from the API by calling liasettings.requestinventoryverification
This API call takes three parameters:
merchantId
: the MCA Aggregator IDaccountId
: the account ID of the sub account or external client account.country
: the country of where the inventory checks take place.