If you’ve spent any time managing Local Inventory Ads (LIAs), you know the “inventory hurdle.” For a long time, if you wanted to show a local shopper that a product was available nearby, you needed a near-perfect, real-time feed of what was sitting on every shelf in every store. For many retailers, that technical barrier was enough to keep them out of the local game entirely.

Google’s Pickup Later features change the math. They shift local pickup from “is it there this very second?” to “can it be there soon?” which can help ease the omnichannel burden of perfect data.

What is Pickup Later?

In the past, the only option was Local Inventory Ads, which unfortunately required a full local inventory feed for each location - no fun. This new iteration allows you to use your existing primary product feed (your standard online shopping data) to indicate that an item can be shipped to a specific store for pickup, even if it’s not currently in stock there. Of course there’s a way to go more in detail and leverage your local feeds if available, but if not, there’s a smooth entry point via Pickup later with product data.

Essentially, you’re telling Google: “We don’t have this in the back room at the Philly store, but if someone buys it, we can get it there in three days.” Google then adds a “Pick up by [Date]” badge to your Shopping ads. It’s ship-to-store, optimized for the modern SERP/SGE.

The strategic value (why it’s worth your time)

I talk a lot about reducing friction in the buyer’s journey. You can harken back to my 10+ year old presentation outlining my own purchase process for pants. Buying online is complex, and often local is the better option even if a product can’t be there right this instant. This feature hits three major pain points:

1. Expanding local reach: You’re no longer limited by what’s physically in the building. You can now show up in local searches for your entire catalog, effectively turning every retail location into a micro-fulfillment center.
2. Converting the researching shopper: A huge chunk of “near me” searches are people who want to touch and feel a product before they commit. By giving them a guaranteed pickup date, you give them the confidence to click “buy” on your site rather than wandering into a competitor’s store to feel the merchandise.
3. More conversions! Google’s documentation suggests that “Pickup Later” ads see a 14% lift in omni-conversion rates compared to standard Shopping ads. We’ll take that with a grain of salt, but more paths to purchase and less friction will always yield some uplift. When you give people more ways to get their hands on a product, they tend to take you up on it.

The (very) light technical lift

The great thing about this feature is that it doesn’t require a total infrastructure overhaul thank goodness. You aren’t building a new feed from scratch, you’re just enhancing what you already have and using it in a new way. A few things you need to pay attention to:

• Merchant Center Setup: You’ll need to have the Local Inventory Ads program enabled. If you’re already doing LIAs, you’re halfway there.
• “SLA” Attributes: This is the core of the feature. You add a pickup_SLA attribute to your feed (e.g., 3-day or multi-week). This tells Google exactly what to show on the badge.
• Landing Page Coherence: Your product landing page needs to clearly show the pickup option and the timeline. Transparency is key here. If the ad says Friday and the checkout says Monday, your conversion rate (and Google) will punish you. Making sure the experience is cohesive from ad to landing page is crucial both for user experience and for performance.

Starting September 1, 2024, Google made the pickup_method attribute optional, which further lowers the barrier to entry. You can find the full technical documentation here for Pickup Later using Product Data (outlined above) and here for Pickup Later Using Store Inventory Data.

The bottom line

Our job as strategists is to provide better data and better options to the user, especially with an ever-growing amount of AI-driven automation. “Pickup Later” is a low-friction way to make your ads more relevant to people who shop via a mix of digital research and tactile gratification.

If you have physical stores but haven’t been able to maintain a complex local inventory feed, Pickup Later can be your entry point. It’s a low-risk, high-reward way to claim more real estate on the SERP and drive more foot traffic without too big a technical headache.

Not an Optmyzr customer yet? Now’s the best time to sign up for a full functionality trial.

FAQs

What is Google Pickup Later?

Google Pickup Later is a feature within Local Inventory Ads that allows retailers to show pickup availability for products that are not currently in stock at a store but can be delivered there for pickup within a defined timeframe. The pickup timing shown in ads is based on the service-level agreement (SLA) provided in the product data.

Do I need a local inventory feed to use Pickup Later?

No. The “Pickup later with product data” setup works using your primary product feed and does not require a full local inventory feed. A well-optimized primary product feed is the baseline requirement. Local inventory feeds can be used if you want to provide store-specific availability and more granular control.

What is the pickup_SLA attribute?

The pickup_SLA attribute specifies the maximum time it takes for a product to be available for pickup at a store. You add it to your product feed with Google’s supported values, like same_day 2-day, multi-week, etc. This value is used by Google to display pickup availability messaging in Shopping ads.

Does Pickup Later work with Performance Max campaigns?

Pickup Later is configured at the Merchant Center and feed level. Campaign types that use Merchant Center product data including Performance Max for retail can surface pickup availability messaging where relevant across Google’s inventory.

What happens if the pickup timing in the ad doesn’t match the website?

Google requires that landing page information matches the data provided in your product feed. If the pickup timing shown on your website differs from the SLA submitted in your feed, it may lead to disapprovals, limited performance, or a poor user experience. Ensure that your product pages reflect the same pickup timelines as your feed data.