Overview
TL;DR
- Microsoft Merchant Center (sometimes called Bing Merchant Center) is Microsoft’s official product feed platform for listing items across Bing, Microsoft Start, and Microsoft Advertising.
- shopvibes lets you maintain product data once and export a fully compliant Excel/TSV/XML feed for Microsoft/Bing Merchant Center.
- Perfect for SMEs: simple Excel workflow, clean PIM/DAM setup, automated feed structure, fewer product rejections.
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Microsoft/Bing Merchant Center (BMC) is Microsoft’s product data hub that powers Shopping Ads and free product listings across Bing, Microsoft Start, and Microsoft Edge.
With a global search share of ~3-4% and significantly higher desktop usage, Microsoft channels are often an undervalued growth source - especially for SMEs looking for incremental traffic at lower CPCs.
Additionally, Bing is the starting point for many web searches of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Co. So if you want to appear in their respective shopping features, you definitely want your product properly tracked properly by Bing Browser.
Fees & commissions
Product Listing on Microsoft Merchant Center is free.
How to start selling on Bing Merchant Center
Sellers must create a Merchant Center store, upload a compliant product feed, and connect it to Microsoft Ads for both free listings and paid Shopping campaigns.
This step-by-step guide follows Microsoft’s official workflow and adds shopvibes-specific enhancements.
How do you set up a Bing Merchant Center store?
Before uploading products, you must create a store inside Microsoft Ads.
Steps:
- Create or sign into your Microsoft Ads account:
- https://ads.microsoft.com
- Go to Tools → Merchant Center → Create Store.
- Add your store details:
- Store name
- Website URL
- Business verification
- Verify your domain ownership (DNS, meta tag, or UET tag).
- Approve Microsoft’s store policies.
How do you create a product feed for Bing Merchant Center?
Bing accepts product feeds via:
- API
- Scheduled fetch
- Manual upload (XML/TSV)
- Excel-based feed upload (ideal for SMEs and perfectly supported by shopvibes)
Key attributes include:
- id, title, description
- link, image_link, price
- availability, brand, gtin/mpn
- product_type & google_product_category
shopvibes can populate all these automatically.
How do you upload your product feed to Bing Merchant Center?
- Navigate to Merchant Center → Feeds → Add Feed.
- Choose feed type: Products.
- Select upload method → Manual upload (file) or Scheduled fetch.
- Upload your shopvibes-generated Excel template.
- Run feed diagnostics to check for errors.
- Once approved, products become eligible for free listings and Shopping Ads.
How do you activate free listings and Shopping Ads on Bing?
Free listings activate automatically once products are approved.
To run ads:
- Go to Campaigns → Create Campaign → Sell products from your catalog.
- Select your merchant store.
- Define budget, targets, bidding.
- Launch your Shopping Ads across Bing Search & Microsoft Start.
How shopvibes helps
Why use shopvibes for your Microsoft Merchant Center feed?
shopvibes simplifies the entire workflow by acting as your single product data source.
Key benefits
- One-time product data maintenance → export everywhere.
- Excel-based feed generation → ideal for SMEs without API complexity.
- Automatic feed mapping aligned with Microsoft’s attribute specifications.
- Quality checks to reduce feed disapprovals.
- Integrated DAM ensuring stable image URLs.
- Scalable for multichannel distribution (Google Shopping, Bing, retail partners, marketplaces).
What problems does shopvibes solve for Bing sellers?
| Without shopvibes | With shopvibes |
|---|---|
| Manual spreadsheet chaos | Automated, validated feed export |
| Missing required fields | Field-level quality checks |
| Missing required fields | Centralized PIM governance |
| Inconsistent titles/descriptions | Centralized PIM governance |
| Image hosting issues | Integrated DAM with stable URLs |
| Hard-to-scale retail outreach | "One feed -> all retailers" export model |
