Skip to main content

Program news

We hope everyone is well. We want to take this time to share with you some updates that have occurred within the eBay Developers Program over the last quarter (July - September 2023). 

eBay Connect 2023

The eBay Connect 2023 virtual conference took place on July 25, 2023. Topics covered in the conference included the following:

  • Promoted Listings updates
  • Sneakers Authenticity Guarantee updates
  • Condition Grading for single trading cards
  • eBay International Shipping updates
  • New regulatory features
  • Buy API updates

For those who did not join the live Webinar, or for those that just want to review the content again, all recordings and all slide decks are available here: https://developer.ebay.com/grow/events/ebay-connect-2023

On September 26, 2023, eBay proudly hosted yet another successful eBay Connect event in Shenzhen, China. This well-organized, full-day, in-person event attracted participation from eBay developers and esteemed partners who joined from across the Greater China region.

Revamped Trading API User Guide published

A revamped Trading API User Guide has been published! The look and feel of the guide has been modernized, and uses the same styles, navigation, and search as other guides on the portal. All topics from the old guide will redirect to the landing page of the new guide.

Upcoming Condition Grading mandates

Beginning on October 23rd, 2023, the item condition for any new trading card listings in the affected categories must be either Graded (Condition ID 2750) or Ungraded (Condition ID 4000), and no other item conditions will be accepted. If not provided after this date, the following operations will fail: 

As a reminder, for trading card listings in Non-Sport Trading Card Singles (183050), Collectible Card Games Individual Cards (183454), and Sports Trading Card Singles (261328) categories, the item condition must be set to Graded (Condition ID 2750) or Ungraded (Condition ID 4000). If either of these condition IDs are used, the seller is required to use the ConditionDescriptors container in the Trading API or the conditionDescriptors array in the Inventory API to provide one or more applicable condition descriptor name-value pairs. The getItemConditionPolicies method of the Metadata API must be used to retrieve the numeric identifiers used to provide condition descriptor name-value pairs.

Beginning on January 22, 2024, the item condition for all active trading card listings in the affected categories must be changed to either Graded (Condition ID 2750) or Ungraded (Condition ID 4000). If the affected listings are not revised by the January 22, 2024 deadline, those listings may be at risk of being administratively ended, and the following operations will fail if the item conditions are not updated to Graded or Ungraded: 

API updates

The following updates have been made to our APIs over the last few months.

Promoted Listing updates in Sell Marketing API

Several Promoted Listing updates were made to the Sell Marketing API, including the following:

  • Promoted Listings Advanced (PLA) Quick Setup campaigns now supported. Two new methods, setupQuickCampaign and launchCampaign, were made available to support Quick Setup campaigns. With Quick Setup campaigns, the seller only provides the daily budget and the listings to promote, and eBay will automatically create the ad groups and keywords for the campaign. A successful setupQuickCampaign call will create a PLA campaign in draft mode, and the getCampaign URL for the campaign will be returned in the Location response header. The seller will review this PLA campaign in draft mode using getCampaign, and if everything looks good, the seller will use the launchCampaign method to activate/launch the PLA campaign.
  • On the Germany marketplace, Promoted Listings Standard campaigns can now be applied to auction listings.
  • Listing format column added to Promoted Listing Reports to distinguish performance of PL campaigns between different listing formats. The new listing format column is now available in the following report types: Campaign Performance report, Inventory Performance report, Listing Performance report, and Transaction report.

eBay Store Email Campaign methods added to Sell Marketing API

8 new methods to support eBay Store Email Campaigns have been added under the email_campaign resource in the Sell Marketing API. There are methods to create, retrieve, update, and delete Store Email Campaigns. Campaign types include Welcome campaigns, New products & collections, Coded Coupons, Sale events & markdowns, Order discounts, and Volume pricing.

Each campaign is directed at one or more audiences/buyer groups. Default audiences include most recent buyers (bought in the last 30 days), recent buyers (bought in the last 31 - 365 days), Store followers (saved you as a seller), and subscribers to social media accounts (if accounts linked to Store). Store sellers can also set up customized buyer groups, although there is currently no API support to create buyer groups.

In addition to the methods to create and manage email campaigns, there are also the following new methods:

  • getAudiences: this method retrieves all audiences available to the seller for email campaigns.
  • getEmailPreview: this method allows the seller to get a preview of the email before it is sent out.
  • getEmailReport: this method retrieves performance metrics for a campaign.

Split-Payout functionality rolled out to China-based sellers

Previously, China-based sellers could only receive payout funds to a Payoneer account, but now they can receive payout funds through a bank account. Sellers can choose to split payout funds to two different accounts at desired percentage rates. For example, sellers could send 50 percent of payout funds to a Payoneer account and 50 percent to a bank account, or they could use an 80/20 split, a 60/40 split or any other split equaling 100 percent, including a 100/0, which means all payouts funds would go to one account, while the other account stays enabled for payouts should the seller want to make changes.

Two new methods were added to Account API v2 to retrieve and update payout settings. The getPayoutSettings method retrieves the seller’s accounts enabled to receive payouts and their current payout percentages. The user will also want to pay attention to the instrumentId in the response of getPayoutSettings, an identifier of the account that will be needed to update the payout percentages through the new updatePayoutPercentage method.

The getPayout, getPayouts, and getTransactions methods of the Finances API were enhanced to support split payouts. Both getPayout and getPayouts will return a new payoutPercentage field to indicate the percentage of payout funds distributed to that account. Additionally, a payoutReference field will be returned in both getPayout and getPayouts to indicate which payouts are associated with a split payout. The payoutReference value can be used as a filter in both getPayouts and getTransactions in order to get data on both sibling payouts associated with that payoutReference identifier. See the V. 1.16.0 Release Notes for more information on interface changes to support split payouts.

Numerous regulatory features live globally

The following features, initially only launched for the eBay France and eBay Germany marketplaces, are now available for use globally through the Trading API, Inventory API, and Sell Feed API:

See the reference documentation for the Trading API, Inventory API, Sell Feed API, Account API, and Metadata API for more information on how to use these features.

Expected API changes for actioned listings

As a part of our continuous work to improve our notice and action programs, eBay will enable changes to the reporting mechanisms on all eBay listings. These changes are expected to go live in the Ireland and France marketplaces on October 16, 2023, live for all other European Union sellers on October 30, 2023, and live in all marketplaces on November 6, 2023.

eBay evaluates and reviews all reports and when eBay decides to take action against a listing, the listing will be hidden. Hidden listings will be hidden from search, and any attempted purchases, offers, or bids will be blocked. Users that have a transactional relationship with the listing will have limited visibility to the hidden listing. In some circumstances, depending on the policy that was violated, eBay will give sellers the opportunity to address the violation and get listings fully reinstated, where possible. Users will be able to appeal listings actions, but there is not an API solution for that yet (planned for early next year). The appeals window default is 6 months, but will require the user to submit via the in-product webform until API solution is available.

Numerous 'GET' operations that retrieve eBay listing data will be updated with warnings and or flags to indicate when a specific listing is hidden, and some item-level data, such as item title and photo URLs will be masked. The table below summarizes the expected updates to our APIs*:

API Operation Schema and/or Behavior Change

Trading

GetItem

For visible on-hold listings

New SellingStatus.ListingOnHold boolean.

For hidden on-hold listings

New error message: "This listing has been removed for a policy violation." with the following URL in ErrorParameters https://www.ebay.com/help/account/regulatory/regulatory-hub?id=5393

GetItemTransactions

Existing Trading error code 17 used: "This item cannot be accessed because the listing has been deleted or you are not the seller."

GetOrders and 

GetOrderTransactions

Existing Trading error code 21917182 used: "OrderLineItemIDs <ORDER_ID> could not be found. Associated Items may have been deleted or removed."

GetSellerList

Transactions from hidden listing not returned. No other changes.

GetSellerEvents

Item.Title field returned as '*****************'.

GetSellerTransactions and 

GetMyeBaySelling

The Item ID value of the listing is displayed in the Item.Title field.

Inventory

getOffer and getOffers

New listing.listingOnHold boolean.

Fulfillment

getOrder and getOrders

The Item ID value of the listing is displayed in the lineItems.title field.

getPaymentDispute

New lineItems.listingOnHold boolean.

Post-Order

Get Inquiry and 

Search Inquiries

New inquiryContentOnHold boolean.

New itemDetails.listingOnHold boolean

itemDetails.itemTitle and itemDetails.itemPictureUrl masked with '*****************'.

Get Return and 

Search Returns

New returnContentOnHold boolean.

New itemDetail.listingOnHold boolean

Get Case and 

Search Cases

New caseContentOnHold boolean

Note: The initial solution for sellers to view and take action on hidden listings will be a landing page accessible through My eBay and Seller Hub.

New conditionDescriptors column added to Buy Feed Beta API

A conditionDescriptors column was added to getItemFeed and getItemSnapshotFeed. This column will provide Base64 encoded condition descriptor name-value pairs for trading card listings in the Non-Sport Trading Card Singles (183050), CCG Individual Cards (183454), and Sports Trading Card Singles (261328) categories. See the conditionDescriptors field description for more information about the syntax for the returned name-value pairs.

Order v1 API now supports payment of won auctions

Won auction listings can now be added to a checkout session with the initiateCheckoutSession method and paid for using the placeOrder method. An auction listing can only be added to a checkout session if the buyer associated with the user token is the official winning bidder of the auction.

Buy Feed v1 API behavior change

The getFeedType and getFeedTypes methods will no longer return feed types to which the user does not have access. Instead, the user will get a 403 Forbidden status code and a new "Insufficient permissions for the feed type." error.

Custom Policies no longer tied to specific eBay marketplace 

Since Product Compliance and Takeback policies are no longer tied to a specific eBay marketplace, the X-EBAY-C-MARKETPLACE-ID HTTP request header is no required or applicable in the createCustomPolicy, updateCustomPolicy, getCustomPolicy, or getCustomPolicies methods of the Account v1 API.

eBay Deprecation and Decommission updates

The following APIs/methods/fields have recently been announced as deprecated. Please see the Deprecation Status page for detailed information.

The following APIs/methods/fields were recently decommissioned:

We hope everyone had an outstanding summer, and we are looking forward to working with the community during the 2023 holiday season!