Format date and time

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If you’re looking for information about setting up date and time settings in Merchant Center Next, click here.

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].

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:

Follow the date with the letter T
Add the time of day in 24-hour format: hh:mm:ss. For example: 13:00:14
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

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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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