Missing brand

What is this issue?

A new product has no brand.

Why Google Merchant Center rejects this

Google requires a brand for new products, except books, music and films. Without it, products can be limited or disapproved.

Fix in StriveFormats

StriveFormats flags every row where this required field is blank, so you can find and fill them quickly.

Fix in Excel

1. 1In Excel, click the header letter of the brand column to select it.
2. 2Press Ctrl+G (Go To), then choose Special → Blanks → OK. Excel selects all empty cells in that column.
3. 3Type the required value and press Ctrl+Enter to fill all selected blank cells at once.
4. 4If different rows need different values: use Data > Filter on the column, filter for '(Blanks)', and fill each row manually.
5. 5Save as Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt).

Fix in Google Sheets

1. 1In Google Sheets, click the header of the brand column.
2. 2Go to Data > Create a filter.
3. 3Click the filter icon on the column header, clear all checkboxes, then check '(Blanks)'. This shows only empty rows.
4. 4Fill in the required value for each blank cell shown.
5. 5Remove the filter: Data > Remove filter.
6. 6Go to File > Download > Tab Separated Values (.tsv), then rename the file to end in .txt.

Prevent it next time

1. ✓Start from the official platform template so you know which fields are required from the start.
2. ✓Before exporting, run a quick filter on each required column and check for blanks.
3. ✓Test with a small 5-row sample CSV before uploading your full catalog.
4. ✓If a field is only required for certain product types, still include the column and leave the other rows blank.

How StriveFormats detects this

StriveFormats scans every row for blank or whitespace-only cells in the brand column. Rows where this field is empty are flagged because Google Merchant Center requires a value on every row.