Inaccurate Availabilities - Amazon Product Advertising API Developer's Manual

Product Advertising API Developer Guide
http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?
Service=AWSECommerceService&
AWSAccessKeyId=[AWS Access Key
Operation=ItemSearch&
Condition=All&
Availability=Available&
SearchIndex=Apparel&
Keywords=Shirt
&Timestamp=[YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ]
&Signature=[Request Signature]
"Available" is the only valid value for the parameter. Setting it to any other value returns an error message.
By default, the value is not set.
Items that are "available" are classified on Amazon's retail web site as:
• Currently for sale
• Pre-orders
• Special orders
• New releases
• E-mail me when items become available
• Items available for in-store pickup
• Items for sale by third parties
The availability of an item can change rapidly. There is typically a discrepancy between an item's availability
as reported by ItemSearch and the item's true availability, as reported by Amazon's web site. For this
reason, the availability of items reported by ItemSearch and by Amazon's web site can be slightly
different. These differences are most evident for items, such as software, whose availability changes
often.
Note
Do not confuse the Availability parameter with the return element, Availability. The latter is an
element in a response that describes how soon an item can be shipped, such as, "Ships in 48
hours." While this is a helpful value to display, it does not guarantee that an item is truly available
to be purchased. For that determination, test for an OfferListingId, which is provided by the Offers,
OfferFull, and Large response groups.

Inaccurate Availabilities

The Availability parameter does a good job of filtering out of the response items that are unavailable. The
parameter, however, is not foolproof. It is possible for an item to be unavailable for purchase even if:
• The item is returned in a response
• The response has been filtered using the Availability parameter
• The Availability element in the response says the item can be shipped in twenty-four hours
For example, some items, including
for purchase because they do not represent real items; they are abstractions. These parent items, however,
are often returned as being available. The following request returns a Collection parent item even though
the Availability parameter is used.
Common ItemSearch Parameters
ID]&
Variations (p. 40) parents and
API Version 2011-08-01
89
Collections parents, are never available