Apparel feed attributes: size, color, gender and age group done right

By Kai · Updated Oct 19, 2026 · 2 min read

The four attributes

• Gender: use male, female or unisex.
• Age group: use newborn, infant, toddler, kids or adult.
• Size: use a consistent format, combine multi-part sizes into one value (for example “16/34 Tall”) and use one-size terms like OSFA for one-size items. Size can be left out if it is already in the product variants.
• Color: use a recognizable color name, separate multiple colors with slashes (for example Red/Pink/Blue) and avoid non-color values like “multicolor”. Color can be left out if it is already in the variants.

Where these errors come from

On WooCommerce and Shopify stores the values usually come from product attributes or variants. The errors appear when attributes are free text, when a variant option is named “Choose an option”, or when the feed plugin reads a different field from the one you filled in. Fix the attribute on the product or in the plugin mapping, not only in the exported file.

A quick audit

1. Export the apparel products that show a missing attribute.
2. Check that every variant has a size and a color value in the format above.
3. Map gender and age group once at category level instead of product by product.
4. Re-run the feed and check Needs attention.

Apparel also has the larger minimum image size, 250 x 250 pixels, so check images at the same time.

Sources

• Google Merchant Center Help: product data quality violations

Questions people ask

Keep reading

• Image too small, placeholder image or promotional overlay: how to fix
• Missing GTIN, brand or identifier errors: how to fix them
• Case study: GenzOutfit, 9 product-page defects and 1,471 catalog keywords sorted