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Program news

We hope everyone is well. We want to take this time to share with you some updates that occurred within the eBay Developers Program over the last quarter (Jan - Mar 2022). 

Developer Portal revamp is live

The revamp of the Developer Portal launched in March! Here is a quick summary of enhancements in the Developer Portal:

  • Completely new and clean look-and-feel, with responsive design that drastically improves the user experience on tablets and mobile devices
  • Enhanced and simple site structure and navigation for a refreshed user experience
  • New breadcrumbs provided for all pages that further assists in navigating the portal
  • New guides created, including a Get started with eBay APIs guide and an Authorization Guide

As an introduction to the Developer Portal revamp and to assist users in navigating the portal, the new top-level navigation and their contents are summarized below:

  • Join: this menu has all of the resources needed for new developers, or for developers who are considering joining the eBay Developers Program
  • Develop: this menu has all of the resources that are needed to develop applications using the portfolio of eBay APIs. Contents under this menu include API documentation (reference and user guides), SDKs, Widgets, and Tools.
  • Grow: this menu contains resources that you can use to expand your application and your business.
  • Updates: this menu contains all relevant updates to the eBay Developers Program, including quarterly newsletters and blog posts.
  • Support: this menu contains all support resources that are available to eBay Developers Program members.

API updates

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

New feed type and new feed schema page available for Buy Feed API v1

A second feed type titled PRODUCT_FEED was added to the Buy Feed API v1. This feed type is supported on the following eBay marketplaces: US, Germany, UK, and Australia.

In addition to the new feed type, a new Feed type schema page was added to the Buy Feed API v1 reference documentation set. This page allows you toggle through the available feed types to see the actual fields (in correct order) that are returned in the downloaded feed files. 

LMS Feed API Guide now available

With the decommission of Large Merchant Services (LMS) APIs quickly approaching (April 30), an LMS Feed API Guide is now available on our portal. This guide touches on all available LMS feed types and how to use these files in the Sell Feed API, which is essentially replacing the Large Merchant Services solution. With the Sell Feed API, the same XML-based Merchant Data files are used, but the upload/download tasks (aka jobs in LMS) are set up in the createTask, createOrderTask, and createInventoryTask methods of Sell Feed API instead, files are uploaded with the uploadFile method, and reports are downloaded with the getResultFile method.

New Shipping Rate Table APIs

New Shipping Rate Table APIs are available through the new Account API v2. Domestic and international shipping rate tables allow sellers to set fixed shipping costs based on the buyer’s location and the buyer’s selected shipping service option. Additionally, sellers can also set weight and handling charges to shipping costs. These APIs include the following:

  • getRateTable: this method allows a seller to retrieve full details for a specific domestic or international shipping rate table. This method requires the rate table ID for the table. Shipping rate table identifiers are exposed to the seller in the Shipping rate tables UI of My eBay, or these identifiers can be retrieved using the getRateTables method.
  • updateShippingCost: this method allows the seller to update the shipping cost and/or weight/handling surcharges for one or more shipping rate entries in a specific domestic or international shipping rate table. This method requires the rate table ID for the table.
Note: Currently, shipping rate tables can only be created in the Shipping rate tables UI.

Refurbished condition program continues to expand

The Excellent - Refurbished (ID 2010), Very Good - Refurbished (ID 2020), and Good - Refurbished (ID 2030) item conditions continue to get expanded to more eBay categories and marketplaces. These refurbished item conditions are now supported on the following marketplaces: US, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, France, and Italy. The new categories enabled for these new conditions since March 15, 2022 include the following:

  • Smart Watches (178893) 
  • Tablets & eBook Readers (171485)
  • Laptops & Netbooks (175672)
  • Apple Laptops (111422)
  • PC Laptops & Netbooks (177)
  • Desktops & All-In-Ones (171957)
  • Apple Desktops & All-In-Ones (111418)
  • PC Desktops & All-In-Ones (179)

Be sure to bookmark and reference the Category and marketplace support for the eBay Refurbished Program page in the Selling Integration Guide to see the latest eBay marketplaces and categories that support these refurbished item conditions. The getItemConditionPolicies method of the Metadata API can also be used to see which eBay categories support these refurbished conditions. 

As Excellent - Refurbished, Very Good - Refurbished, and Good - Refurbished are enabled for a specific category, the ‘Seller Refurbished’ item condition becomes disabled for that same category. 

Sellers must be pre-qualified to use any of these new refurbished conditions and the Certified Refurbished condition. See the eBay Refurbished Program Seller Center page for detailed information about the program, including the seller requirements to list with any of the refurbished item conditions.

Sellers who are not yet eligible to list with the new refurbished conditions:

  • Must revise any active listings in affected categories with an item condition other than ‘Seller Refurbished’ 
  • Cannot use the word “refurbished” anywhere in the listing, including in the listing description or as a customized item specific
  • Cannot use item condition as a pivoting aspect in a multiple-variation listing

New fields added to Buy Feed Beta API

Through two separate releases in Q1 2022, the following Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Authenticity Guarantee fields were added to Buy Feed Beta API:

Finances API enhanced to support on-demand payouts

A new WITHDRAWAL transaction type is now supported by the getTransactions and getTransactionSummary methods. This new type tracks on-demand payout information. Instead of going by the daily or weekly payout scheduled, the seller can initiate an on-demand payout (or withdrawal) as long as there is money available in the available funds balance.

For the getTransactionSummary method, the following new fields were added:withdrawalAmount, withdrawalBookingEntry, and withdrawalCount.

Note: The WITHDRAWAL transaction type is currently only available to a limited set of sellers.

In addition to the new WITHDRAWAL transaction type, the Finances API was also updated with PAYOUT_ID as a new ReferenceTypeEnum value.

Browse API updates

There have been three separate releases of Browse API in early 2022. The changes that rolled out with these releases are summarized below:

GetItem call in Trading API now retrieves EPR-related fields

The Extended Producer Responsibilities (EPR) fields that were enabled for the AddItem family of calls in Trading API are now returned in the ExtendedProducerResponsibility container of GetItem (when defined for the listing). 

Note: If you are using GetItem to retrieve a multiple-variation listing, the EcoParticipationFee is returned at the variation level of the GetItem response.

At this time, sellers are only required to provide EPR information for the French marketplace in a limited number of categories. The getExtendedProducerResponsibilityPolicies method of the Metadata API can be used to see which French categories require one or more EPR fields. If and when EPR information becomes required on other eBay marketplaces, this method will return that information as well.

MIP updated to support EPR and Custom Policies

Added support for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Custom Policies through listing creation and orders. See the What’s new page in the MIP User Guide for more information about the files and samples that have been updated with EPR and Custom Policies information.

Note: At this time, sellers are only required to provide EPR information for the French marketplace in a limited number of categories. The getExtendedProducerResponsibilityPolicies method of the Metadata API can be used to see which French categories require one or more EPR fields. If and when EPR information becomes required on other eBay marketplaces, this method will return that information as well.

Order API v2 enabled with import charges data

The importCharges container was added to the guest_checkout_session resource of the Order API v2. This container will be returned for any international order being sent through the Global Shipping Program, and will show the import/customs charges that are applicable for the order.

Deprecation and Decommission updates

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

We hope everyone had a great start to 2022, and we are looking forward to working with the community for the rest of 2022!