Google Merchant Center readiness for Bulgarian stores

Google Shopping is expected to open to Bulgarian merchants around October 2026. Stores that have a clean feed on day one will get the cheap early clicks; stores that spend the first month fixing disapprovals will not. The good news is that the failures are predictable.

1. Identifiers

Every product needs a GTIN, or a brand plus an MPN, or an explicit identifier_exists: no. The trap is the invented GTIN: a number that looks right but fails the check digit. Merchant Center disapproves the product outright — worse than having no GTIN at all. NextAI-SEM validates the check digit on every GTIN you enter, including through MCP, and its feed-readiness audit lists the invalid ones before Google does.

2. Category mapping

Google wants its own product taxonomy on every item. Mapping it per product is a chore; NextAI-SEM maps it per category, so one setting lifts every product in it. The readiness dashboard shows how much of the catalogue is covered.

3. Images

From 2027, Google enforces a minimum of 500 × 500 pixels and recommends 1500 × 1500. Product photos are rarely square. The platform generates a square feed image for each product — padded to white or cropped interactively — without touching the image on your product page.

4. Price and availability that match the landing page

Merchant Center compares the feed with the page. NextAI-SEM builds both from the same database: the feed takes price, sale price and availability from real inventory, and the product page carries the same facts in structured data, including shipping and return details.

5. Shipping and returns

Google wants to know what delivery costs and how returns work, and it checks that the page agrees. The store's shipping rules and return window feed both the product page's structured data and your Merchant Center settings, so there is one source of truth.

How to prepare now

Run the readiness check, fix identifiers and category mappings first — they affect the most products per hour of work — then images. Do it in September; a feed that is already approved when Shopping opens in Bulgaria is the whole advantage.

We run the readiness check on your catalogue during a demo. Book one.