Google adds member pricing beta type to Merchant listing pricing structured data

Google has updated its Merchant listing structured data guidelines to add a new beta for member pricing priceType, aka validForMemberTier property. Google also clarified the active prices, sale prices, strikethrough prices with more examples and instructions.

What Google said. Google added examples and instructions for using the priceType property and new beta validForMemberTier property to encode active prices, sale prices, strikethrough prices, and member prices in JSON-LD to the Merchant listing structured data guidelines, the search company announced.

They did this to “make it easier for merchants to specify complex pricing through structured data and bring parity with price features in Merchant Center,” Google said.

Member pricing. The member price is the price at which the product is offered to a member of a particular loyalty program.

These prices are encoded using price specifications under the Offer object (with the exception of the active price, which can also be encoded at the offer level). The respective price specifications are identified by the price specification properties priceType and validForMemberTier, which must not be used together:

• Active prices have neither a priceType nor a validForMemberTier property.
• Strikethrough prices set the priceType property to StrikethroughPrice (for a transition period, ListPrice is also allowed) and cannot have a validForMemberTier property.
• Member prices are marked with a validForMemberTier property and cannot have a priceType property.

Active price. The active price is the price at which the product is currently offered.

Strikethrough price. The strikethrough price is the the price during a sale, the higher regular price at which the product is normally offered. It may be displayed as a struck-through price to draw attention to a lowered active price.

Why we care. If you offer member loyalty pricing, then this beta is something you may want to give a try. If you want to better understand the various pricing types offered in this structured data, you should review the Merchant listing structured data guidelines again.