Explanation of the asinprices XML data feed

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<asinprices> 
<item> 
	<asin>0573605467</asin> 
	<store>amazon.com</store> 
	<LowNew_Amount>748</LowNew_Amount> 
	<LowNew_Currency>USD</LowNew_Currency> 
	<LowNew_Price>$7.48</LowNew_Price> 
	<LowUsed_Amount>302</LowUsed_Amount> 
	<LowUsed_Currency>USD</LowUsed_Currency> 
	<LowUsed_Price>$3.02</LowUsed_Price> 
	<Offer_Amount>750</Offer_Amount> 
	<Offer_Currency>USD</Offer_Currency> 
	<Offer_Price>$7.50</Offer_Price> 
	<now>1296438061</now> 
</item> 
</asinprices>

Here is a version of the same record, but with an explanation in place of the field data:

<asinprices> 
<item> 
	<asin>the unique ISBN/ASIN for this book</asin> 
	<store>the store where this price is valid</store> 
	<LowNew_Amount>an integer representing the lowest new-book price available from any Amazon affiliate</LowNew_Amount> 
	<LowNew_Currency>a 3 character currency code for the lowest new-book price available from any Amazon affiliate</LowNew_Currency> 
	<LowNew_Price>a human readable, formatted number representing the lowest new-book price available from any Amazon affiliate</LowNew_Price> 
	<LowUsed_Amount>an integer representing the lowest used-book price available from any Amazon affiliate</LowUsed_Amount> 
	<LowUsed_Currency>a 3 character currency code for the lowest used-book price available from any Amazon affiliate</LowUsed_Currency> 
	<LowUsed_Price>a human readable, formatted number representing the lowest used-book price available from any Amazon affiliate</LowUsed_Price> 
	<Offer_Amount>an integer representing the price that Amazon itself sells this book for</Offer_Amount> 
	<Offer_Currency>a 3 character currency code the price that Amazon itself sells this book for</Offer_Currency> 
	<Offer_Price>a human readable, formatted number representing the price that Amazon itself sells this book for</Offer_Price> 
	<now>the date/time when this price was last updated, in seconds-since-1970 format</now> 
</item> 
</asinprices>

1) not every book has prices : only if it is on a wishlist or was viewed. However, there are millions of books in our database that do have prices.
2) more importantly: "best price" is a relative concept, based on "best price for you", as there are prices for America, Canada, Germany, France and the UK. You'll need to decide which country's you want to use.
3) there are 3 kinds of prices: best used price, best new NOT from amazon, and Amazon's best price for a new book.

For most uses, if you want the "best price", you'll want to use the best used price not from amazon, listed at the amazon.com store. However, sometimes booksellers do funny things, and the best price will actually be a new copy, so you may want to actually check to see which price is the lowest and not assume that the used book is the least expensive.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the prices in these tables do not include postage. A $0.01 book is actually $3.99 in postage + $0.01. In general, it's safe to add $4 to every price to get a realistic "real world" price.

Data for all these fields is provided by Amazon's partnership program, which requires you to attribute the source of the data if you use it in your own publicly-viewable application.