Q: What is data preview?

A: The Data Preview feature offers a glimpse of your query results by displaying up to 500 records, regardless of the actual outcome. It provides a quick snapshot but may not reflect the entire results of your query.

If you need a more extensive dataset, we recommend using the Download or Deliver options, as outlined in this reference table. For comprehensive country-period datasets, such as Germany’s March 2021 data, we encourage you to use the Bulk File option. This option has no record limitations and provides the complete dataset.

We also suggest breaking down your request into smaller queries for other scenarios, ideally categorized by specific periods. This approach helps optimize the extraction algorithms and ensures you effectively obtain the data you need.

Q: When using the Data Preview button/API, I received this message “Error: Rate limit is exceeded. Try again in 1 second.“. What should I do?

A: This error indicates we are encountering a substantial volume of Data Preview requests. We recommend registering a free account with UN Comtrade, signing in, and re-submitting your query.