Google Merchant Center Apparel Attributes

Clothing products in Google Merchant Center need a handful of extra attributes on top of the basics: size, gender, age group, color and an item group ID, plus the optional size system and size type. Getting these right keeps your products eligible for free listings and Shopping ads, and it keeps variants grouped correctly.

This guide is for store owners and developers who build product feeds. If you run a custom or WooCommerce store, it sits alongside the wider guide to virtual try-on for WooCommerce, because the same size data feeds both your feed and your product pages. Google's rules below were checked in November 2026 on the linked Merchant Center Help pages. They change, so confirm on the source before you ship a feed.

Which apparel attributes does Google require?

Google treats clothing and shoes more strictly than most categories. The main attributes are below. The statuses for size, gender, age group, size system and size type come from Google's pages; for color and item group ID, follow Google's own pages.

Attribute	What it holds	Status
size	The size of the variant, such as M or 12	Required for clothing and shoes
gender	male, female or unisex	Required for apparel
age_group	newborn, infant, toddler, kids or adult	Required for apparel
color	The color of the variant	See Google's color page
item_group_id	Shared ID for all variants of one product	Use it for every variant
size_system	The country sizing system, such as US or UK	Optional
size_type	The cut, such as petite or maternity	Optional

The exact conditions are on Google's help pages for size, gender, age group and size system. Check the table against them for the country you target.

When is size required?

Google's size page says the attribute is required for free listings of clothing and shoes. It is also required for Shopping ads in those categories when you target Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom or the United States, per the size attribute page.

The same page gives these formatting rules:

• A size can be 1 to 100 characters long.
• Don't list several sizes with commas. Use a slash, such as "small/medium/large", if one value must cover a range.
• Send each variant as its own product, linked by the same item group ID.
• Send only one size value per product. If you send several, Google applies only the first.

What do gender and age group need?

Both are required for apparel. Google's gender page lists the accepted values as male, female and unisex, and says they must be submitted in English. The age group page lists newborn, infant, toddler, kids and adult.

Both pages say the attributes are required for free listings of Apparel & Accessories products. They are required for Shopping ads in the same categories when you target the countries listed above. A few sub-categories, such as keychains and lanyards, are optional.

If a product comes in a men's and a women's version, submit them as separate variants with different gender values and the same item group ID.

What are size system and size type for?

Size system tells Google which country's sizing a product uses. The size system page lists these accepted values: AU, BR, CN, DE, EU, FR, IT, JP, MEX, UK and US.

The page says it is optional, but that if you submit a size, you should also submit the size system. It recommends sending it for all apparel products. If you leave it out, Google uses the standard system for your target country. The sizing side of this is covered in detail in size systems in Google Shopping feeds.

Size type describes the cut of the garment. Google's size page names petite, oversize and maternity as examples, and its own examples use oversize and regular. It doesn't present a complete list on that page, so don't invent values.

How do you set up variants with an item group ID?

Each size and color combination is a separate row in your feed. The item group ID ties the rows together so Google shows them as one product.

1. Give each parent product one item group ID, such as a style code.
2. Create one row per variant, each with its own unique id.
3. Repeat the same item group ID on every row for that style.
4. Fill size and color differently on each row.
5. Keep gender and age group the same across a style, unless the variants really differ.

If your variants live in a store that doesn't handle this well, the guide to BigCommerce product options for apparel shows one way to structure them.

How do feed attributes connect to what shoppers see?

A feed row is only as good as the size data behind it. If your size labels in the feed don't match your product page, shoppers get confused. They click a US 8 listing and land on a page that talks about UK sizes.

Keep one source of truth for your size chart, and map it to the feed. Then the same chart can drive a size recommendation on the page. ZeDaq.ai stores your own size chart for each garment type and recommends your labels from a 30-second body scan, which helps shoppers land on the right row. For Google's own move into try-on, see what Google's virtual try-on means for stores.

For developers, the try-on and sizing features are available through a REST API, so you can read recommendations into your own storefront.

FAQs

Are size system and size type required?

No. Google's pages mark size system as optional, and size type is only needed when a product fits a specific group such as petite or maternity. Google still recommends size system for all apparel.

Do I need item group IDs for single-size products?

The ID is for variants. Google's size page says to send each variant as a separate product with the same item group ID.

Can I put several sizes in one size value?

Only with a slash, as in "small/medium/large". Google says not to use commas. Where possible, send one product per size.

Where do I check the current rules?

Use Google's Merchant Center Help pages linked above, which were checked in November 2026. Product data requirements change, so recheck before large feed changes.