Notification

This help center shows articles applicable to Merchant Center Next. Learn more about the upgrade and get answers to frequently asked questions.

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].

On this page


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

Was this helpful?

How can we improve it?
Search
Clear search
Close search
Google apps
Main menu
8433108627872954789
true
Search Help Center
true
true
true