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SearchBins Response Group

The SearchBins response group groups the items returned by ItemSearch into bins. A set of bins, for example, can be a set of price ranges for a product. In the case of women’s shoes, for example, you might have a bin that returns ASINs for shoes that cost between $0 and $50, a second bin for shoes that cost $50 to $100, and a third bin for shoes that cost more than $100. The basis on which the items are split into bins is specified by the NarrowBy attribute in the SearchBinSet tag. To refine the search, you make repeated requests using the NarrowBy values.

ItemSearch returns the first twenty-five bins of results.

NarrowBy

The basis on which the items are split into bins is specified by the NarrowBy attribute in the SearchBinSet tag. In the following example, the NarrowBy attribute shows that the bins are based on price range: 

<SearchBinSet NarrowBy="PriceRange">

For another product category, the NarrowBy attribute might be different, for example: 

<SearchBinSet NarrowBy="BrandName">

You cannot specify NarrowBy values nor can you specify the values they encompass. When SearchBins is included as a Response Group in a request, ItemSearch automatically divides the ItemSearch results into bins.

NarrowBy Values

NarrowBy values include:

All Search Indices return the Subject bin. Most return all of the bins.

The following list shows which NarrowBy values are returned by each Search Index:

Element Tags in a Bin

The element tags in a bin vary according to the bin. For example, in bins based on price, the elements and Name values are: 

<BinName>
 <BinItemCount>
 <BinParameter>
    <Name>MinimumPrice</Name>
  <Value>
 <BinParameter>
  <Name>MaximumPrice</Name>
  <Value>

The elements show the minimum and maximum price for items in that bin, and the number of items in that bin.

Other NarrowBy values use other element tags in their bins. For example, when NarrowBy is “Brand,” the element tags and Name values are: 

<Bin>
 <BinName> 
 <BinItemCount> 
 <BinParameter>
  <Name>Brand</Name> 
  <Value>

You cannot specify the element tags returned in a bin.

You can take the values in a bin and add them to the ItemSearch query to filter out of the response items that are outside of that bin. To narrow the search results to shirts that cost between $0 and $25, for example, you would add the following Name and its corresponding value as additional parameters in the original ItemSearch request: 

&MinimumPrice=0
&MaximumPrice=2499

You could narrow the search results even further by adding an additional parameter to the query. For example, you could specify 

&Brand=Levi’s

The response would then only include shirts by Levi’s that cost under $25. You could continue to drill down by adding additional parameters to the request.

Notice that in each case the results were narrowed down by adding the value tagged with Name and its corresponding value to the original ItemSearch request.

Relevant Operations

Operations that can use this response group include:

Response Elements

The following table describes the elements returned by SearchBins. The elements on the left side of a slash mark are the parents of the elements on the right side of the slash mark.

Response ElementAncestryDefinition
BinItemCount SearchBinSets/SearchBinSet/Bin/BinItemCount Number of items in a bin.
BinName SearchBinSets/SearchBinSet/Bin/BinName Name of the bin.
Name SearchBinSets/SearchBinSet/Bin/BinParameter/Name Name of item in bin.
SearchBinSets SearchBinSetsParent element for SearchBins element.
Value SearchBinSets/SearchBinSet/Bin/BinParameter/Value Value for item in bin

SearchBins also returns the elements that all response groups return, which is described in Elements Common to All Response Groups.

Parent Response Group

The following response groups are parent response groups of SearchBins.

Child Response Group

The following response groups are child response groups of SearchBins.

Sample REST Use Case

The folllowing request was used to illustrate the XML response elements returned by SearchBins.

http://ecs.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?
Service=AWSECommerceService&
AWSAccessKeyId=[Your Access Key ID Here]&
Operation=ItemSearch&
MerchantId=A363XKZVKSMVXW&
Condition=All&
SearchIndex=SportingGoods&
Keywords=Glove&
ResponseGroup=SearchBins

The following response snippet shows the elements returned by SearchBins. 

<Item>
  <ASIN>B00005R2GR</ASIN> 
</Item>
<Item>
  <ASIN>B00076ZDV8</ASIN> 
</Item>
<Item>
  <ASIN>B00092FEEG</ASIN> 
</Item>
<Item>
  <ASIN>B000ADTP1W</ASIN> 
</Item>
<SearchBinSets>
  <SearchBinSet NarrowBy="PriceRange">
    <Bin>
        <BinName>$25-$49</BinName> 
        <BinItemCount>316</BinItemCount> 
    <BinParameter>
        <Name>MinimumPrice</Name> 
        <Value>2500</Value> 
     </BinParameter>
    <BinParameter>
        <Name>MaximumPrice</Name> 
        <Value>4999</Value> 
      </BinParameter>
    </Bin>
  </SearchBinSet>
    <Bin>
      <BinName>$0-$24</BinName> 
      <BinItemCount>280</BinItemCount> 
    <BinParameter>
      <Name>MinimumPrice</Name> 
      <Value>0</Value> 
      </BinParameter>
    <BinParameter>
      <Name>MaximumPrice</Name> 
      <Value>2499</Value> 
      </BinParameter>
      </Bin>
 </SearchBinSet>
        
<SearchBinSet NarrowBy="BrandName">
  <Bin>
    <BinName>Rawlings</BinName> 
    <BinItemCount>71</BinItemCount> 
  <BinParameter>
    <Name>Brand</Name> 
    <Value>Rawlings</Value> 
    </BinParameter>
    </Bin>
  <Bin>
    <BinName>Body Glove</BinName> 
    <BinItemCount>53</BinItemCount> 
  <BinParameter>
    <Name>Brand</Name> 
    <Value>Body Glove</Value> 
    </BinParameter>
    </Bin>
</SearchBinSet>
    
<SearchBinSet NarrowBy="Merchant">
  <Bin>
    <BinName>Sports"R"Us</BinName> 
    <BinItemCount>860</BinItemCount> 
  <BinParameter>
    <Name>MerchantId</Name> 
    <Value>A363XKZVKSMVXW</Value> 
    </BinParameter>
    </Bin>
  <Bin>
    <BinName>Target</BinName> 
    <BinItemCount>8</BinItemCount> 
  <BinParameter>
    <Name>MerchantId</Name> 
    <Value>A1VC38T7YXB528</Value> 
    </BinParameter>
    </Bin>
</SearchBinSet>
  
<SearchBinSet NarrowBy="Subject">
  <Bin>
    <BinName>Categories</BinName> 
    <BinItemCount>860</BinItemCount> 
  <BinParameter>
    <Name>BrowseNode</Name> 
    <Value>3375301</Value> 
    </BinParameter>
    </Bin>
  <Bin>
    <BinName>Baseball</BinName> 
    <BinItemCount>311</BinItemCount> 
  <BinParameter>
    <Name>BrowseNode</Name> 
    <Value>3395731</Value> 
    </BinParameter>
    </Bin>
</SearchBinSet>

Notice that the NarrowBy value is PriceRange.

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