How do I set a time window for a sale price in Merchant Center?

Definition: As of 17 October 2026, Google's sale_price_effective_date attribute sets the period for a product's sale price in Merchant Center. Its value contains a start and end date, separated by a slash, with optional times and timezones.

Key facts

• Google's sale price documentation defines sale_price as the amount charged during a sale and requires it to be lower than the regular price.
• The product data specification makes the scheduling attribute optional for each product and accepts a date range using ISO 8601, a date and time notation standard.
• Google's date and time guide places the letter T between the date and time and uses a 24-hour clock.

Which price fields accompany the schedule?

Google's sale price requirements call for the regular product price to remain in price when sale_price is submitted. The sale amount must match the landing page and checkout. The landing page displays both regular and sale prices; checkout displays the sale price alone.

The same documentation says that submitting a sale price without an effective date makes that price apply immediately. The amount and its schedule therefore occupy separate attributes: sale_price supplies the amount, and sale_price_effective_date supplies the period.

How is the date range formatted?

Google's date formatting guide uses YYYY-MM-DD for the date. After T, the time can include seconds in hh:mm:ss form. A timezone offset follows the time: the guide uses -0800 for UTC-8, meaning eight hours behind Coordinated Universal Time. It describes a range as start/end.

The attribute's format table accepts timestamps in these forms:

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm[±hhmm]
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmZ

Its text data source example is:

2016-02-24T13:00-0800/2016-02-29T15:30-0800

Here, the start is 24 February 2016 at 13:00 and the end is 29 February 2016 at 15:30, both with the same offset. These are Google's example dates. Google's product data specification limits the value to 51 characters and requires the start date to precede the end date.

What happens if the time or timezone is omitted?

The attribute-specific best practices recommend including times and timezones at both ends. Without times, the documented window starts at midnight on the start date and ends at 11:59 PM on the end date. Without a timezone, that page specifies UTC.

Related terms

• Google Merchant Center
• Product feed freshness
• How do I submit both regular and sale prices to Merchant Center?
• What happens when a product feed price differs from the page?

FAQ

Do I remove the regular price while a sale runs?

Google's sale price documentation requires you to keep submitting the full regular price through price alongside sale_price.

Can I include seconds in the timestamps?

Yes. Google's date and time guide shows hh:mm:ss and gives 2017-05-11T00:01:59-0800 as an example timestamp.

Sources

1. Google Merchant Center Help, "Sale price [sale_price]", undated
2. Google Merchant Center Help, "Sale price effective date [sale_price_effective_date]", undated
3. Google Merchant Center Help, "Format date and time", undated
4. Google Merchant Center Help, "Product data specification", undated

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