Determining Availability
Topics
•
Availability Values (p. 131)
•
Checking for an Offer Listing ID (p. 132)
•
Using the ItemSearch Availability Parameter (p. 133)
Only items that are available can be put into the active area of a remote shopping cart. Unavailable items
can be put in the SaveForLater area of the cart.
Amazon defines available items as those that are:
• Currently for sale
• Pre-release orders, such as buying a Harry Potter book before it is released
• Special orders
• e-mail me when the items become available
The availability of an item can change without notice. Putting an item in a cart does not reserve it. Items
in carts can become unavailable and their prices can change as soon as the item goes into the cart.
Determining if an item is available is determined differently for merchants and sellers.
Availability of Merchant Items
Check the Availability element value returned by the Offers or OfferFull response groups.
1
Make sure the item has an offer listing ID.
2
Use the Availability request parameter along with the Condition parameter in an
ItemSearch
request. Items might be available, for example, in one condition but not another.
3
With Merchants, you use one of the Offer response groups to determining item availability.
Availability Values
The Offer Summary Report lists the availability of an item using the Availability element. The value of the
element indicates if the item can be purchased and how soon it will be shipped, as shown.
<Availability>Usually ships in 24 hours</Availability>
This response, which is returned by the Offers and OfferFull response groups, confirms that an item is
available to buy.
The value returned by the Availability element may not match the one on the Amazon retail web site's
product detail page because typically there is a short and long version of an availability message:. Product
Advertising API returns the short version. The more verbose availability message is used on the retail
web site.
For non-Amazon products in JP, FR, DE, and CA; the value returned by the Availability element is “1-2
business days,” or the localized equivalent, regardless of the actual availability.
The following table describes the possible Availability element values.
API Version 2011-08-01
131
Product Advertising API Developer Guide
Determining Availability
