availability_date [availability_date]: Definition

When to use

Optional for each product

Format

Follow these formatting guidelines to make sure that we understand the data that you're submitting. 

To format your data for Content API, have a look at the Content API for Shopping.

Guidelines

Follow these guidelines to make sure that you submit high-quality data for your products.

Minimum requirements

These are the requirements that you'll need to meet to show your product. If you don't follow these requirements, we'll disapprove your product and let you know on the Diagnostics page of your Merchant Center account.

• Ensure that you only use this attribute if you are sure that your product doesn't have any assigned unique product identifiers. 
• Products for which the identifier_exists [identifier_exists] attribute is incorrectly set to no [no] or false [false], and for which there is evidence that a unique product identifier exists, will be disapproved.

Best practices

These best practices can help you go beyond the basic requirements to optimise your product data for performance.

• Only submit the availability_date [availability_date] attribute for products with availability [availability] set to preorder [pre-order]. 
• Specify a time in addition to the date. If you don't, the default time is 12 a.m., midnight, in the time zone of your target country. 
• Don’t include an estimated date or a date range. We recommend that you provide a release date only when it's specific to help set the best expectations for users. The attribute is optional, not required and you don't need to include a date that's potentially confusing.

Examples