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].

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

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?