Brand
A brand is the name a product is sold under and that shoppers search for, which is not always the name of the company that made it.
- Brand name
What it means
The brand is the name on the product and its packaging, and the one shoppers type into a search box. Channels want it in a field of its own: OpenAI’s product feed for ChatGPT requires a brand for every item, “as shown on the product page”.1
Write one brand per product, the same way every time. A company name with LTD on the end is rarely how the brand appears, so LOWMERE BATHS LTD becomes Lowmere. Placeholders are not brands either: Google says not to submit values such as ‘N/A’, ‘Generic’ or ‘No brand’, and to leave the field empty when a product truly has none.2
For a part made to fit another company’s product, the brand is the part maker’s. Google asks for the brand “from the manufacturer who actually built the compatible product”.3
Think of it like this
The brand is the name on the front of the packet. Turn it over and the small print may name a different company that actually made it. That company is the manufacturer.
For example
A compatible fridge water filter made by Hollinsby for a Samsung fridge arrives with Samsung in its Brand column. Its brand is Hollinsby, the company that made it. Samsung can still appear in the title, as the fridge it fits, but not at the start of it.4
Why it matters
Not to be confused with
Brand and manufacturer are different things. The manufacturer made the product; the brand is the name it is sold under. For own-brand goods they are different companies.
Sources
- OpenAI Developers. Agentic Commerce product feed specification: Products.
- Google Merchant Center Help. Product data specification.
- Google Merchant Center Help. Brand [brand].
- Google Merchant Center Help. About compatible or refurbished third-party products.
- eBay UK Seller Centre. Product identifiers.