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Format date and time

This article explains how to format dates and times when submitting your product data. You’ll submit dates and times for attributes such as availability date [availability_date], sale price effective date [sale_price_effective_date], and expiration date [expiration_date].

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How it works

Use the ISO 8601 standard, which this article explains in more detail. Depending on the attribute, you’ll submit a date or date range, and you can include a specific time.


Format a date

Include the date in the following format:

  • YYYY-MM-DD

For example, to submit May 11, 2017, use:

  • 2017-05-11

Include a time

To add a specific time to your date:

  1. Follow the date with the letter T
  2. Add the time of day in 24-hour format: hh:mm:ss. For example: 13:00:14
  3. After the time, add the time zone. For example, for UTC-8, use: -0800

For example, to submit May 11, 2017 at 12:01:59 AM for the UTC-8 time zone, use:

  • 2017-05-11T00:01:59-0800

If you don’t include a time, we’ll use the end of the day: 23:59:59

If you don’t include a time zone, we’ll use a default time zone:

  • Text and XML feeds will use the default time zone for your target country.
  • The API will use UTC.
Country Default time zone for Text and XML feeds
Australia +1000
Brazil -0300
Canada -0500
Central European countries +0100
Japan +0900
Mexico -0600
New Zealand +1200
Russia +0400
Singapore +0800
United Kingdom Z or +00:00
United States -0800

Format date ranges

Some attributes accept date ranges that include a start and end date. A date range is a start date and end date separated with a slash ( / ): start/end

For example:

  • 2017-05-11T00:01:59-0800/2017-06-21T22:13:59-0800 for PST
  • 2017-02-24T11:07:31+0100 for Central European Time

If you don’t include a time, the start date will use 00:00:00, and the end date will use 23:59:59.


Examples

Variants

An example of ads without placeholder images
Product data for Android T-shirt - Green - Small
Attribute Product Data
Title [title] Android T-Shirt - Green - Small
Price [price] 10.99 USD
Sale price [sale_price] 9.99 USD
Sale price effective date [sale_price_effective_date] 2016-02-24T13:00-0800/2016-02-29T15:30-0800
Color [color] green
Size [size] s
ID [id] 9876-S-GRN
Item group ID [item_group_id] 9876

 

Product data for Android T-shirt - Blue - Small
Attribute Product Data
Title [title] Android T-Shirt - Blue - Small
Price [price] 8.99 USD
Sale price [sale_price] 5.99 USD
Sale price effective date [sale_price_effective_date] 2016-06-23T13:00-0800/2016-02-29T15:30-0800
Color [color] blue
Size [size] s
ID [id] 9876-S-BLU
Item group ID [item_group_id] 9876

 

Product data for Android T-shirt - Red - Small
Attribute Product Data
Title [title] Android T-Shirt - Red - Small
Price [price] 10.50 USD
Sale price [sale_price] 8.99 USD
Sale price effective date [sale_price_effective_date] 2016-05-11T13:00-0800/2016-02-29T15:30-0800
Color [color] red
Size [size] s
ID [id] 9876-S-RED
Item group ID [item_group_id] 9876

Product is available for preorders with a specific release date

Product data for Android Squishable
Attribute Product Data
Availability [availability] preorder
Availability date [availability_date] 2016-12-25T13:00-0800

Expiration date

An example ad showing how you can select different sizes for a product
Product data for Lederhosen
Attribute Product Data
Title [title] Lederhosen - brown - L
Expiration date [expiration_date] 2016-12-25

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