Short answer. Merchant Center raises “Missing shipping costs” at account level when there is no shipping policy for a country your feed targets. Fix it under Shipping and returns → Shipping policies → Add shipping policy → Shipping for online products, enter the costs, and allow 24 to 72 hours for the products to be re-processed.
| Shown in Merchant Center as | Missing shipping costs |
|---|---|
| Effect | Account-level risk |
| Where to find it | Products → Needs attention, then filter by this issue |
| Free check | Not something a feed file shows; see below for what the check can tell you instead |
What Merchant Center means by “Missing shipping costs”
Google’s help page for the issue gives the fix as a settings path: Shipping and returns, then the Shipping policies tab, Add shipping policy, Shipping for online products, and the costs. It is an account-level issue: rather than a list of products, Merchant Center is saying the account lacks a shipping policy for a country your feed targets, and every product for that country is affected until one exists.
The companion rule is that the costs you enter must match what your checkout charges; a difference is its own issue, covered by Google’s page on inaccurate shipping costs.
Why it happens
- A new target country added to a feed before a policy existed for it.
- A deleted or expired policy, or one edited to apply to a label no product carries.
- A platform sync that stopped, leaving the account with the rates it had at the last sync and none for a new zone.
How to fix it
In Shopify
If the Google & YouTube channel manages shipping, open its settings and confirm the sync includes the country in question; if it does not, add the policy directly in Merchant Center as below.
In WooCommerce
Add the policy in Merchant Center following Google’s steps, mirroring the WooCommerce shipping zone for that country: flat rate, free above a threshold, or a range. Keep the two in step when you change zones.
In a CSV or XML feed
Shipping and returns → Shipping policies → Add shipping policy → Shipping for online products; pick the country and enter the rates as checkout charges them. Repeat per target country. Then wait the 24–72 hours Google states before judging the result.
How long until Merchant Center clears it
24–72 hours after the policy is saved, per Google’s help page. The item-level “Missing value [shipping]” entries clear with it.
What FeedRobin does about it
An account setting, not a feed property, so the free feed check cannot see it. What the check does report from the file is the price of every product and the currency, which need to match the country the shipping policy is for.
Questions merchants ask
How is this different from “Missing value [shipping]” on a product?
Same cause, different level. The item-level issue lists the products affected; this one is the account telling you the policy itself is missing for a country. Adding the policy clears both.
Do the costs in Merchant Center have to match my checkout?
Yes. Google compares them, and a difference is its own account issue, “Inaccurate shipping costs”. Enter what checkout charges, including any free-shipping threshold.
I set the policy, so why are the products still disapproved?
Google’s page says 24 to 72 hours. If it is longer, check that the policy’s country matches the feed’s target country and that it applies to all products rather than to a label no product carries.
Sources
- How to fix: Missing shipping costs — Google Merchant Center Help
- How to fix: Inaccurate shipping costs (feed vs checkout pages) — Google Merchant Center Help
- Shipping [shipping] — Google Merchant Center Help