If you sell physical products from a local business, Google gives you three different ways to showcase them: Google Business Profile (GBP) products, in-store products, and Merchant Center free listings. They overlap enough to be confusing and differ enough that picking the wrong one wastes the time you spend setting it up. Here’s how to tell which one actually fits your business.
Why any of this is worth doing at all: a listing that shows what’s actually in stock moves a browser noticeably closer to a purchase than one that just confirms your address exists. And with agentic AI shopping tools starting to act on people’s behalf, businesses that expose structured product data now are the ones those agents will be able to find later.
Option 1: Google Business Profile Products
GBP products are individual inventory items you add directly to your Business Profile, appearing in a “Products” section with images, descriptions, and pricing. They’re free, and they’re specifically useful if your inventory doesn’t have barcodes — think handmade goods, artisan items, or anything without a manufacturer UPC.
They matter because they make a listing transactional rather than purely informational. Google Maps is increasingly pulling this kind of content directly into the main business view on mobile, giving product photos prime visual space that a plain listing doesn’t get. If nearby competitors aren’t using this feature, it’s a real point of differentiation.
To set one up: open the New Merchant Experience dashboard, go to Edit Products, and fill in a name, optional category, price, a description (up to 1,000 characters), your product landing page URL, and a photo. US-based merchants also get access to Product Studio, Google’s generative AI tool for cleaning up backgrounds and generating a consistent product scene. Publish, and the item appears in a product carousel on your listing, with related items surfacing automatically if you’ve used categories.
Best fit: local stores without barcoded inventory — no website checkout, no barcodes, or stock levels that change too often to track automatically.
Option 2: In-Store Products
In-store products (the feature formerly known as Pointy, now fully Google-owned) is built for barcoded inventory. It syncs your point-of-sale system — Square, Clover, Lightspeed, and others — directly to Google, or pulls availability from delivery partners like Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats if you work with those.
Products show up on your Business Profile and Google Maps listing, and clicking one takes the shopper to a Google Shopping result with a link to visit your site, call, or get directions. Shoppers searching Google Shopping directly for your store or a specific item can also surface your in-store inventory through the “Browse products” section.
Eligibility is stricter here: you need a physical storefront, a verified GBP you’re signed into, UPC/EAN-barcoded products, and a business based in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, or Australia. Restricted categories like weapons or tobacco can still participate, but only non-restricted items from those stores will display.
Best fit: retailers with proper barcodes on their inventory who want that inventory visible across Maps, Search, and Shopping without manual entry.
Option 3: Google Merchant Center Free Listings
Merchant Center is the broadest option by far, and the only one built for ecommerce as well as local retail. Free listings can appear across Google Search, Google Maps, Google Images, Google Lens, YouTube, Gemini, the Shopping tab, and the products module on your Business Profile — far more surfaces than either GBP products or in-store products cover on their own.
There’s a local-specific variant too: free local listings, which power features like “See what’s in store” so customers searching for a product can see whether a specific location has it in stock. If you already run paid campaigns or local inventory data through Merchant Center, activating free local listings is a matter of connecting a CSS provider to the same account.
To add products, you either upload a data feed (a file or spreadsheet, ideal for larger catalogs, with support for automatic syncing from Shopify, WooCommerce, or Wix) or add items one at a time if your inventory is small. Either way, you’ll need a returns policy displayed next to each product and shipping costs configured before Google approves you.
Merchant Center listings are also the most heavily policed of the three: prohibited content, prohibited practices, restricted content, and site requirements policies all apply, covering everything from counterfeit goods to misleading URLs to how your return policy is displayed. It’s worth reading Google’s full policy documentation before investing time in a large catalog upload.
Best fit: ecommerce brands, hybrid online/offline retailers, or any business wanting maximum visibility across every Google surface rather than just Maps and Search.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Where to manage | Where it appears | Key requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| GBP products | New Merchant Experience dashboard | Product carousel on Business Profile | No barcodes needed; great for handmade or unique inventory |
| In-store products | Local Inventory app or delivery partner sync | Business Profile, Google Maps, Shopping | Requires UPC/EAN barcodes; US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia only |
| Merchant Center free listings | Merchant Center account, Products section | Search, Maps, Images, Lens, YouTube, Gemini, Shopping, Business Profile | Broadest reach; works for ecommerce and local; strictest policy requirements |
Which One Should You Actually Use?
- Sell handmade or non-barcoded goods, or don’t have an online checkout? Start with GBP products — it’s free and takes minutes to set up.
- Run a storefront with properly barcoded inventory and a compatible POS system? In-store products gets your stock visible across Maps and Shopping with no manual re-entry.
- Sell online, run a hybrid model, or want visibility beyond Maps and Search alone? Merchant Center free listings is the only option that reaches Gemini, YouTube, Lens, and Images too.
None of these are mutually exclusive — a hybrid retailer can run in-store products for barcoded stock and GBP products for a handmade or seasonal line at the same time. The real mistake isn’t picking the “wrong” one; it’s picking none of them and leaving Google’s product surfaces blank while AI-driven shopping tools get better at surfacing whoever did fill them in.