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.