datawebotMercado Libre product data: listings, variations and catalog IDs
How Mercado Libre listings, seller offers, variations and catalog products fit together, and how to compare them by market and currency.
Updated · datawebot team
Why listings and catalog products are not interchangeable
Treat a Mercado Libre listing as a seller's marketplace offer. A linked catalog product can help with product matching, but it does not replace the listing, its seller, selected variation, price or local market. Keep each identity in its own field.
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| Record layer | What to preserve | What it identifies |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace site | Country storefront and currency | The local marketplace and its currency; Mercado Libre runs separate local sites, such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. |
| Listing / offer | Listing identifier, seller and category | A concrete marketplace listing and the seller responsible for that offer. Do not deduplicate offers by title alone. |
| Selected variation | The selected option combination | The specific option combination, such as a size or color, when the listing has variations. |
| Catalog relation | Linked catalog product when present | A product-matching relationship. It does not identify the seller's price or replace the related listing and variation. |
| Price observation | Price, currency, source URL and observation time | A time-bound offer value. Keep it attached to the site, listing, seller and selected variation it describes. |
Choose a matching rule that preserves the offer
A product comparison often needs two grains: one row per seller offer and a separate product-level match. Use the catalog relation as a candidate link, then preserve the fields that let someone reproduce the comparison.
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| Comparison | Match or group by | Keep distinct |
|---|---|---|
| Same catalog product, different sellers | Use the linked catalog product as a product-level match when present; validate distinguishing attributes. | Keep each listing, seller, price, currency and observation time as a separate offer. |
| One listing with several options | Use the listing plus its selected option combination for an option-level observation. | Do not assume every variation has the same price, identifiers or catalog relation. |
| Same product on different country sites | Group only after a verified product match across local sites. | Retain the site, currency and each local listing and seller offer; a listing identifier is not a global product key. |
Check access rules before planning a workflow
Public visibility of a listing does not by itself establish permission to collect or reuse its content. Check the current terms that apply to the specific country site and intended use, and keep the crawler rules separate from any reuse question.
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| Question | Where to look | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Which country site applies? | The country storefront in the item URL | Terms, currency and listings differ by local site; do not generalize one site's rules to another. |
| What do crawler rules say? | The site's robots.txt for that country domain | Robots directives describe crawl routing; they are not a content-reuse license. |
| Is the planned use permitted? | The current terms for the site and the intended use | This page is a source summary, not legal advice. |
Content reviewed 2026-10-24.