Gray Jay review for Google & YouTube

May 18, 2021

*Updated* After a week of screwing with it I gave up NOT FOR BEGINNERS. Requires an understanding of metafields on Shopify and potentially some HTML and CSS and Google, frankly, isn't worth it. Most of the issues I had were with Google, not this app specifically, but there were still some frustrating bugs. 1. You need an understanding of meta fields, what they are and how to edit them, which is somewhat hidden in Shopify and even then they seem to be buggy (the dropdown menus don't populate) . Google also makes it extra difficult by requiring A TON OF THEM and putting the only comprehensive list of product categories in a csv that you have to download, and making some of the values for the metafields dropdown lists that don't populate. It would've made a lot more sense if I had read this post first: https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Apps/Populating-Fields-for-the-Google-Shopping-App/td-p/338281 2. Google is not very clear about where they want contact information visible on the site and their support staff and docs are inconsistent about what is acceptable. Going back and forth with them half a dozen times I got half a dozen different answers. Ultimately, I had to learn how customize the contact.liquid template to add the contact info google wanted in HTML without having it above the contact form I would prefer people use. 3. Google is both incredibly slow and opaque when it comes to approving products and not suspending the merchant account. From the merchant account. I finally gave up when they told me I needed to verify my phone number and the instructions they sent me to do that took me to a page showing that my phone number has been verified for almost a month. Having done content creation for another store for a few years, I never once saw google shopping make a single sale, while Ebay and Etsy sold $20-$40k/month. If it were a quick and easy setup process, maybe it would be worth it. In my case I have a lot of unique and one-off items so it's absolutely not worth the time.