The Content API enables you to specify tax and shipping that will apply to all products within an account through the shippingsettings and accounttax services. If you want to be more precise you can specify tax and shipping on an item-level through the products service.
For information on Google policies and the full range of options for specifying tax and shipping see the following Help Center articles:
Note that the tax attribute, and therefore use of the accounttax service, is only applicable to products targeting the US.
The accounttax and shippingsettings Content API services mirror the functionality of the Merchant Center UI.
Simple example
For shipping fees of 8 euros in France, and based on carrier rates in US, where each shipping service takes 3-7 days to deliver:
PUT /content/v2.1/<merchant_id>/shippingsettings/<account_id>
{
"accountId": <account_id>,
"services": [
{
"name": "Livraison Prioritaire",
"deliveryCountry": "FR",
"currency": "EUR",
"rateGroups": [
{
"singleValue": {
"flatRate": { "currency": "EUR", "value": "8" }
}
}
],
"active": true,
"deliveryTime": { "minTransitTimeInDays": 3, "maxTransitTimeInDays": 7 }
},
{
"name": "UPS in US",
"deliveryCountry": "US",
"currency": "USD"
"rateGroups": [
{
"singleValue": { "carrierRateName": "ups" },
"carrierRates": [
{
"name": "ups",
"carrierName": "UPS",
"carrierService": "Ground",
"originPostalCode": "10011"
}
]
}
],
"active": true,
"deliveryTime": { "minTransitTimeInDays": 3, "maxTransitTimeInDays": 7 },
}
]
}To retrieve the available carrier names and services, use the getsupportedcarriers method.
Complex example
To create a free-shipping promotion in the states around New York (by not charging shipping), use UPS for the rest of the US, and to apply a different tax for each of the US states, use requests to the accounttax and shippingsettings services of Content API as follows. First configure shipping settings:
PUT /content/v2.1/<merchant_id>/shippingsettings/<account_id>
{
"accountId": <account_id>,
"services": [
{
"name": "Eligible for free shipping",
"deliveryCountry": "US",
"rateGroups": [
{
"mainTable": {
"rowHeaders": {
"locations": [
{ "locationIds": ["21167"] }, // NY
{ "locationIds": ["21164", "21139"] } // NJ, CT
]
},
"rows": [
{
"cells": [
{
"flatRate": { "currency": "USD", "value": "0" }
}
]
},
{
"cells": [
{
"flatRate": { "currency": "USD", "value": "0" }
}
]
}
]
}
}
],
"active": true,
"deliveryTime": { "minTransitTimeInDays": 3, "maxTransitTimeInDays": 7 },
"currency": "USD"
},
{
"name": "UPS in US",
"deliveryCountry": "US",
"rateGroups": [
{
"singleValue": { "carrierRateName": "UPS mainland" },
"carrierRates": [
{
"name": "UPS mainland",
"carrierName": "UPS",
"carrierService": "Ground",
"originPostalCode": "10011", // currently only US, AU, and DE postal codes
"percentageAdjustment": "1.05",
"flatAdjustment": { "currency": "USD", "value": "0.75" }
}
]
}
],
"active": true,
"deliveryTime": { "minTransitTimeInDays": 3, "maxTransitTimeInDays": 7 },
"currency": "USD"
}
],
"postalCodeGroups": [
{
"name": "More cities", // An alternative using postal codes
"country": "US",
"postalCodeRanges": [
{ "postalCodeRangeBegin": "94041" },
{ "postalCodeRangeBegin": "94042" },
{ "postalCodeRangeBegin": "94043", "postalCodeRangeEnd": "94045" },
{ "postalCodeRangeBegin": "9405*" },
{ "postalCodeRangeBegin": "9406*", "postalCodeRangeEnd": "9408*" }
]
}
]
}Note location IDs can be used to represent administrative areas.
Next configure tax charges:
PUT /content/v2.1/<merchant_id>/accounttax/<account_id>
{
"accountId": <account_id>,
"rules": [
{
"country": "US", // currently only US is supported, may be omitted
"locationId": 21167,
"useGlobalRate": true,
"shippingTaxed": false
},
{
"locationId": 21137,
"useGlobalRate": false,
"shippingTaxed": true,
"ratePercent": "2.15"
}
// ...
]
}Note: carrier rates are only available in US, DE, and AU. Location groups are currently supported in US and AU.
Complex shipping rules: two-dimensional tables and subtables
To define a shipping promotion of $7 in the US, $3 or $5 for orders weighing more than 10 pounds in NYC, depending on the price of the order, and free below that weight use the following:
PUT /content/v2.1/<merchant_id>/shippingsettings/<account_id> { "accountId": <account_id>, "services": [ { "name": "Custom shipping rules", "deliveryCountry": "US", "rateGroups": [ { "mainTable": { "rowHeaders": { "postalCodeGroupNames": [ "NYC", "all other locations" ] }, "columnHeaders": { "weights": [ { "unit": "lb", "value": "10" }, { "unit": "lb", "value": "infinity" } ] }, "rows": [ { "cells": [ { "flatRate": { "value": "0", "currency": "USD" } }, { "subtableName": "NYC large packages" } ] }, { "cells": [ { "flatRate": { "value": "7", "currency": "USD" } }, { "flatRate": { "value": "7", "currency": "USD" } } ] } ] }, "subtables": [ { "name": "NYC large packages", "rowHeaders": { "prices": [ {"value": "100", "currency": "USD"}, {"value": "infinity", "currency": "USD"}] }, "rows": [ { "cells": [ { "flatRate": { "value": "3", "currency": "USD" } } ] }, { "cells": [ { "flatRate": { "value": "5", "currency": "USD" } } ] } ] } ] } ], "active": true, "currency": "USD", "deliveryTime": { "minTransitTimeInDays": 3, "maxTransitTimeInDays": 7 } } ], "postalCodeGroups": [ { "name": "NYC", // Approximation of NYC using postal codes "country": "US", "postalCodeRanges": [ { "postalCodeRangeBegin": "10000", postalCodeRangeEnd: "11999" } ] } ] }
Complex shipping rules: splitting shipping labels over services
In shippingsettings, each shipping service can only contain a maximum of 20 shipping rate groups. Since shipping rate groups are used to distinguish shipping rates via shipping labels, this may seem to suggest that only 20 unique shipping rates can be enforced via shipping labels. However, you can have up to 20 shipping services per country. By splitting rates distinguished by shipping labels over multiple services for the same country, you can distinguish up to 400 unique shipping rates via shipping labels.
Note: If you have multiple services, then each product for a given country is checked against all shipping services for that country to calculate possible shipping rates. If multiple services return different rates for the same product, the lowest rate will be used.
The below example splits 40 shipping labels using unique rates across two different services. This example hides the other details of the shipping resource, such as the actual rates, behind ellipses.
PUT /content/v2.1/<merchant_id>/shippingsettings/<account_id>
{
"accountId": <account_id>,
"services": [
{
"name": "labels_0_19",
"deliveryCountry": "US",
"active": true,
"currency": "USD",
"deliveryTime": { "minTransitTimeInDays": 3, "maxTransitTimeInDays": 7 }
"rateGroups": [
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_0"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_1"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_2"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_3"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_4"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_5"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_6"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_7"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_8"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_9"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_10"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_11"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_12"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_13"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_14"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_15"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_16"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_17"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_18"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_19"], ... }
]
},
{
"name": "labels_20_39",
"deliveryCountry": "US",
"active": true,
"currency": "USD",
"deliveryTime": { "minTransitTimeInDays": 3, "maxTransitTimeInDays": 7 }
"rateGroups": [
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_20"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_21"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_22"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_23"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_24"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_25"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_26"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_27"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_28"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_29"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_30"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_31"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_32"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_33"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_34"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_35"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_36"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_37"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_38"], ... }
{ "applicableShippingLabels": ["shipping_label_39"], ... }
]
}
],
"postalCodeGroups": [ ... ]
}
This splitting of shipping labels across rate groups may also be needed
even if the shipping labels share the same shipping rate, since each rate
group can only have 30 shipping labels within the
applicableShippingLabels field. So as an extreme example,
if all shipping labels share the same rate structure,
shippingsettings can handle up to
12000 shipping labels for a single country: 30 shipping labels per rate
group, 20 rate groups per shipping service, and 20 shipping services per
country.
For more information see the reference documentation for accounttax and shippingsettings.