“I Don’t Have a Physical Store”: Your Google Merchant Center Business Address and Contact Details

You run your store from a spare room or a laptop, and the Merchant Center business address field won’t go away. You don’t have a shop, you’d rather keep your home address private, and the forum advice contradicts itself. Google’s fix page for missing contact details asks for two things: To resolve this issue and get your ads and listings up and running, add the missing contact information on your website and provide a verified phone number and business address in Merchant Center. (Google: How to fix: Missing contact information on your online store).

So the address is required. A shop front isn’t. Below: what Google asks for, what it says about your website, and what its pages leave open.

Do I need a physical store for Google Merchant Center?

Not for products you sell online, in our reading. Google’s physical-store rules belong to its in-store programs. The issue “No physical stores in countries where you sell products” is about local inventory ads and free local listings, and Google’s fix page says You must be physically located in the country for which your in-store products are targeted. (Google: How to fix: No physical stores in countries where you sell products). The fix it describes is linking the right Google Business Profile stores.

If you sell online only and see this message, our reading is: don’t invent a store. Check whether an in-store program such as local inventory ads or free local listings is switched on in your account, and whether a Business Profile was linked by mistake.

What does Google ask for in your Merchant Center business address and contact details?

Google’s business information page sets out the fields (Google: Add your business information):

1. In Merchant Center, open Settings → Business info and select Edit business details.
2. Enter your business name.
3. Fill in the business address. Google’s instruction: Add where your business is registered according to their respective text fields.
4. Fill in customer service: a working page on your website that shows your contact details, an email address and a phone number. For the email, Include your domain name in the “Email” field. For the phone, Use your valid business contact number in the “Phone number” field.
5. Verify your phone number when Merchant Center asks. It’s a step on Google’s contact information fix page.

Google doesn’t define “registered”. Our reading: it’s the address on your business registration or the documents you’d use for identity verification. For a sole trader with no company, that is often a home address. If verification is on your list too, our post on why Merchant Center verification keeps failing explains why names and addresses have to match your documents word for word.

Is my home address shown publicly?

Google doesn’t give a straight answer. Its business information page says Google uses the business information you submit to display to users who view your products online. It adds: Your customers can also use this information to contact you to request support for order status, updates, and other issues.

It doesn’t say which fields are shown, or whether a street address appears anywhere a shopper can see it. Our reading: treat everything in business info as something a shopper might see.

If that isn’t acceptable for you, the answer is not a made-up address. Google’s Misrepresentation policy says you can’t Present a false identity, business name, or contact information (Google: Misrepresentation). A real address you can be reached at, which matches your documents, is the safer choice.

Does my business address have to be on my website?

Google’s pages set two separate bars, one for your website and one for Merchant Center.

For the website, when we wrote this, Google’s page for Shopify merchants said customers need to be able to find out how to contact you on your website “in at least one way”. Its examples were a contact form, a social media business profile, an email address or a phone number (Google: Fixing Merchant Center warnings and account suspensions for policy violations).

For Merchant Center, the address is required. Google’s editorial requirements list “Insufficient contact information”, and give a Merchant Center account missing a physical business address or a verified phone number as an example (Google: Editorial and professional requirements).

Our reading at the time of writing: an email, phone number or contact form on your store meets the “at least one way” wording, and the address goes into Merchant Center. Whatever you show has to agree with Merchant Center.

Why do my name, address and phone have to match everywhere?

Because Google checks them side by side. On the same Shopify page, Google tells you to check the details across your store and account before a review: Check the accuracy and consistency of your product details, business information, policies, and contact information.

Places that often disagree, in our experience of merchants’ posts:

• The business name in Merchant Center, in your footer and in your policy pages (a trading name in one place, a legal name in another).
• The address in Merchant Center, on your contact page and in your refund policy’s return address.
• An old phone number left in the footer after you changed it in Merchant Center.
• The address on your identity documents or payments profile against the one in Merchant Center.

To line them up:

1. Pick one legal name and one address, the ones on your registration or ID.
2. Put them in Merchant Center business info.
3. Use the same name, phone and email on your contact page, footer and policies. If you show an address, show the same one.
4. If returns go to a different address, say so in your return policy rather than leaving two unexplained addresses.
5. Check the live store as a shopper would: private window, phone, every page in the footer.

Our guide to a business information mismatch has the fix steps in order.

What about PO boxes, virtual offices and registered agent addresses?

The Merchant Center pages we read (business information, missing contact information, editorial requirements and Misrepresentation) don’t mention PO boxes, virtual offices or registered agents. Google doesn’t say whether it accepts them.

What Google does say elsewhere: Google Business Profile, a separate product used for Maps and local listings, doesn’t allow PO boxes. Merchants that set their business address at a P.O. Box will have their profile suspended. (Google Business Profile policies). That rule is written for Business Profile, not Merchant Center.

Our reading for Merchant Center:

• PO box. Google asks for a registered address and names a missing physical business address as a problem. A PO box on its own is a weak answer to that.
• Virtual office or mail forwarding. Google doesn’t say. What we’d avoid is any address that suggests you’re based somewhere you aren’t.
• Registered agent. If your company is registered at an agent’s address, that may be “where your business is registered”. Google doesn’t say how it treats it, so keep it identical to your documents and make sure shoppers can still reach you.

On Shopify, WooCommerce and other platforms

Business info is entered in Merchant Center on every platform. What differs is where your store keeps the details shoppers see.

Shopify

Your store address and contact details are under Settings → General in Shopify admin, and your legal business name is set separately (Shopify Help: Adding business settings for your store). In our reading, the address you enter there can appear on your store’s policy pages, so check them as a visitor before you decide which address to use. Then make Merchant Center, the footer and the contact page say the same.

Update, 28 October 2026: Shopify’s help page now says it directly: Store contact information is public. It also says of the store address: Customers can view this address on your store and policy pages.

WooCommerce

The store address in WooCommerce → Settings → General is your address as a seller, and WooCommerce uses it for tax and shipping rates (WooCommerce: General settings). Whether it shows on your site depends on your theme, footer and contact page. Our reading: check those three by hand, and keep them the same as Merchant Center.

Other platforms

On Wix, Squarespace, BigCommerce or a custom site, check the footer, contact page and policies. Same rule: the same name, phone and email everywhere, and the same address wherever you show one.

What we see in real cases

Paraphrased from merchants’ posts in Shopify’s and Google’s communities before this post:

• A merchant swapped a PO box for a street address and rewrote the policy pages, then still got a generic rejection. The address was one fix among several.
• A store had the postcode and city swapped in its address. Correcting that was the change that finally worked.
• A merchant running several near-identical brand sites from one address suspected the shared address was behind a Misrepresentation strike. In another thread, a helper raised the same pattern.
• Several merchants aligned the business name and address across the website and Merchant Center, added contact and About pages, and kept asking what else could be wrong. Matching details is necessary, not always enough.
• One merchant fixed the address, phone and About page and had Merchant Center lifted, but a linked Google Ads account stayed suspended.

Update, 28 October 2026: Since this post was published, the same questions keep coming in Google’s community: a home-based seller asking whether the business address is shown publicly, online-only stores seeing “No physical stores” messages, a sole trader whose business and registered addresses differ, a review stuck because the payments profile address didn’t match, and a store where a supplier’s warehouse address had been used as the business address.

Our free store check reads your homepage and contact page the way a visitor sees them and reports whether a shopper can find a way to contact you. Our missing contact information guide covers what to add.

What Google’s pages say now

Update, 29 October 2026: Google has rewritten several of the pages above since this post was published, and they now go further on addresses:

• The contact information fix page still opens with Show at least a business address, phone number, email, contact form, or social media business profile on your online store. But it now also says Ensure your business name, address, and phone number are identical in your website footer, contact page, and Merchant Center settings.
• The Shopify page no longer has the “at least one way” line. It now says To meet requirements, ensure your legal business name, physical address, phone number, and email address are clearly listed and match your Merchant Center settings.
• The Misrepresentation policy now lists this example: Displaying a false or virtual physical address as your headquarters while operating entirely from an undisclosed region

Our reading: Google’s current pages lean toward showing your address on your store, matching Merchant Center. For a home business that’s a real decision, and Google still doesn’t say whether it shows your street address to shoppers. Our post on the Misrepresentation suspension covers the rest of that policy.

FAQ

Do I need a physical store to use Google Merchant Center?

Not for products you sell online, in our reading. Google’s physical-store rule is about in-store products: “You must be physically located in the country for which your in-store products are targeted.” The “No physical stores” message belongs to local inventory ads and free local listings.

Will Google show my home address to shoppers?

Google doesn’t say which fields it shows. Its business information page says “Google uses the business information you submit to display to users who view your products online,” so treat anything you enter there as something a shopper might see.

Can I use a PO box or a virtual office as my Merchant Center business address?

Google’s Merchant Center pages we read don’t mention either. They ask for the address where your business is registered and don’t allow false contact information, so in our reading a PO box alone is a weak answer, and any address you enter must be real and match your documents.

Does my business address have to be on my website?

When this post was written, Google’s Shopify page asked for at least one way to contact you on your website, and the address had to be in Merchant Center. Since then, Google’s pages ask for the same business name, address and phone number in your footer, contact page and Merchant Center.