Availability date, submitted as <g:availability_date> in Google Merchant Center feeds, is the date and time an item scheduled as preorder becomes available to ship, formatted in ISO 8601 as either a plain date like 2026-09-15 or a full timestamp with timezone offset like 2026-09-15T08:00-04:00. It's required whenever the availability attribute is set to preorder, and it's the field both platforms rely on to know when to switch a listing's status automatically.

Why It Matters

Without an accurate availability_date, a preorder listing has no defined end point, which leaves Google or Meta unable to automatically transition the item to in_stock once it actually ships, forcing merchants to catch and correct stale preorder tags manually. Retailers running preorder campaigns around product launches depend on this field lining up with real fulfillment timelines, since a shopper who preorders expecting delivery by the stated date and then waits weeks past it generates support tickets and refund requests that have nothing to do with ad targeting and everything to do with a feed date being wrong. Because it works on a fixed date rather than a manually toggled status, availability_date is also a natural input for demand forecasting, letting merchandising teams see exactly which SKUs are about to convert from preorder to active stock and plan inventory or bid changes ahead of that shift.

How It Works

Google requires availability_date only when availability is set to preorder; it's not used with backorder or in_stock, and submitting it alongside those other statuses is simply ignored rather than flagged as an error. The date must be in the future relative to when Google processes the feed -- a past or same-day availability_date on a preorder item is treated as invalid, since the item should logically already be in stock at that point. Google recommends including a time and timezone offset for precision when a product launches at a specific hour, though a bare date is accepted for less time-sensitive launches. Meta Catalog supports the same preorder concept with its own comparable field, expecting a similarly formatted future date, though Meta's rollout of granular preorder handling has historically lagged Google's, so retailers should verify current field support in Commerce Manager rather than assuming full parity.

Example

<item>
  <g:id>SKU-71920</g:id>
  <title>Next-Gen Wireless Earbuds - Graphite</title>
  <link>https://example-shop.com/products/wireless-earbuds-graphite</link>
  <g:price>179.00 USD</g:price>
  <g:availability>preorder</g:availability>
  <g:availability_date>2026-09-15T08:00-04:00</g:availability_date>
</item>

Related Concepts

Availability date only has meaning in the context of availability, since it's the timestamp that resolves a preorder status into an actual in-stock item, and it's frequently launched alongside a sale price promotion timed to coincide with the release. Merchandising teams that plug availability_date values into demand forecasting models get an early, low-effort signal for when to shift budget toward a newly available SKU instead of waiting for post-launch sales data to catch up.