Condition, submitted as <g:condition> in Google Merchant Center feeds and condition in Meta Catalog, states the physical state of the item being sold, accepting exactly one of three values on Google: new, refurbished, or used. Meta Catalog uses the same three core values, and both platforms display this information directly to shoppers, so it has to accurately reflect the actual product being shipped.

Why It Matters

Misrepresenting condition, most commonly listing a used or refurbished item as new to make it look more attractive, is a policy violation on both platforms and can lead to item disapproval or account suspension if it happens at scale, since it directly affects a shopper's purchase decision and their subsequent return rate. Correctly tagging condition also affects visibility: some ad formats and Merchant Center programs restrict eligibility for used goods, so miscategorizing them doesn't just risk penalties, it can also route the listing into surfaces where it performs worse. For retailers who sell both new and refurbished stock of the same brand under different SKUs, condition is frequently the field that keeps those two versions from being deduplicated or confused with each other downstream.

How It Works

Google accepts only the lowercase values new, refurbished, and used, with no softer synonyms permitted directly in the attribute -- nuances like light cosmetic wear belong in the description field instead. If condition is omitted, Google's default handling varies by category and enforcement period, so relying on the default is riskier than simply always submitting an explicit value. Refurbished and used items typically also require or benefit from clearer image and description data, since Google and Meta both apply more scrutiny to secondhand listings during policy review. Meta Catalog accepts the same three values and additionally supports condition-based filtering in catalog-driven ad sets, letting merchants exclude used inventory from certain campaigns entirely by filtering on this attribute at the ad-set level rather than needing a separate feed. Consistent, accurate condition tagging is also part of what platforms weigh when scoring overall listing quality, since misclassified condition tends to correlate with sloppy data elsewhere in the same feed.

Example

<item>
  <g:id>SKU-51203</g:id>
  <title>Refurbished DSLR Camera Body</title>
  <link>https://example-shop.com/products/dslr-camera-refurbished</link>
  <g:price>389.00 USD</g:price>
  <g:condition>refurbished</g:condition>
  <g:brand>Optixa</g:brand>
  <g:availability>in stock</g:availability>
</item>

Related Concepts

Condition should be read alongside brand, since the same brand's new and refurbished units are typically split into separate listings that both need accurate condition tags to avoid shopper confusion, and it directly informs availability handling since discontinued or used one-off items often follow different restocking logic than new inventory. Feed audits that check condition accuracy tend to double as a broader listing quality check, since a feed sloppy enough to mislabel condition rarely gets other merchandising fields right either.