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:
- 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:
2017-05-11T00:01:59-0800/2017-06-21T22:13:59-0800for PST2017-02-24T11:07:31+0100for 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.
