eBay API info January 2017
We'd like to share some exciting news about the new APIs that eBay recently released, and also inform you about important changes that may affect your existing eBay integrations:
- New Retail Standard Selling APIs
- New Buy APIs (Beta) for Guest Checkout
- Category Name Length Increase in 2017
- Schedule Changes for Required Product Identifiers
- Bidder Privacy Changes in GetAllBidders and GetBidderList
- Quantity Item Specifics Mandate for Tires Category in 2017
- Search Result Page Filters and Item Specifics for US Motors Parts & Accessories
- Item Condition Updates for Sporting Goods
- Apple iOS security requirements—Is your domain compliant?
New Retail Standard Selling APIsWhether you integrate directly or use a third party solution, eBay's new APIs—built on our latest catalog-centric technology platform and the latest API standards—make selling easier than ever.
APIs available now:
- Account - Manage account level information and settings including business policies, program subscriptions, inventory locations, and tax details
- Inventory - Create and manage inventory across sites
- Fulfillment - Retrieve and fulfill sales orders, manage tracking/shipping status
- Marketing - Manage marketing campaigns like promotions and eBay search ads (promoted listings)
- Analytics - Analyze business performance with reports on key traffic operational metrics and seller performance
Learn more about the new eBay Sell APIs.
New Buy APIs (Beta) for Guest CheckouteBay's new Buy APIs enable social sites, merchants, marketplaces or any developer to virtually increase the inventory they offer to their customers. The Buy APIs allow developers to integrate searching, finding and buying eBay inventory into websites and apps, providing a new opportunity for eBay affiliates to bring eBay purchases off of eBay to their site—and earn commissions from eBay.
APIs available for guest checkout now:
- Traffic: Application drives eBay transactions (not traffic)
- Payments: Buyer pays seller as guest (credit card)
- Shipping & Logistics: As supported by seller on eBay.com
- Financial Risk: Application sends risk data to PayPal
- CRM: Application manages messaging between buyers and eBay sellers via eBay's Messaging API (in the Trading APIs)
Learn more about the new eBay Buy APIs.
Category Name Length Increase in 2017Individual category names will increase from 30 characters to 50 characters, to reduce the need for abbreviations like "Heavy Equipment Parts & Accs" and improve translations between languages.
To give you time to test whether this will affect your applications, eBay is targeting this timeline:
- Sandbox release: January 2017
- Production release: March 2017
If your database schema only allows for 30 characters, we recommend that you increase the size to at least 50 characters as soon as possible.
Schedule Changes for Required Product identifiersWe're changing the release schedule for Required Product Identifiers. We are now targeting Q2 of 2017 for the API schema changes and data changes for the next phase of the Product Identifiers mandate for listings.
When the API schema and the new product data become available, we strongly recommend that you start testing your application's ability to support these changes, before the mandate changes go into effect.
The API documentation will be updated soon with this change of dates. Please keep an eye on the API release notes for schema updates, and these resources for additional details:
https://go.developer.ebay.com/dev-program-blogBidder Privacy Changes in GetAllBidders and GetBidderListeBay will soon make changes to GetAllBidders and GetBidderList in the Trading API, to add more support for bidder privacy, while still supporting the primary intent of these API calls.
For GetAllBidders:
- There should be no impact for any seller who is retrieving info about bidders for the seller's own listings.
- However, for eBay members who are trying to view information about bidders for another seller's listings, eBay will no longer return identifying information, such as the bidder/buyer's email, feedback privacy, registration date, registration site, user ID and related user ID metadata.
For GetBidderList, eBay members can only see their own bidding and purchase history going forward. If the user ID does not match the request token, the response payload will be returned as if no data was found matching the request. (Only the Timestamp, Version, Build, and Ack will be returned.)
Also see the similar changes previously announced for GetFeedback in the Trading API Release Notes, and GetUserProfile in the Shopping API Release Notes.
As a reminder, applications should only read data for:
- eBay members who have granted your application consent (via eBay's Auth token or OAuth token process) to access and store their data.
- eBay members who are parties to bids/orders with eBay members whose Auth or OAuth tokens you manage (and such data should only be retained for as long as it is relevant to the listing or order, per the eBay API License Agreement, eBay User Agreement, and local laws as applicable).
Quantity Item Specifics Mandate for Tires Category in 2017eBay will be mandating the already existing 'Quantity' Item Specific in the Tires category in the Spring of 2017, for the US, CA, and CAFR sites. When this goes in to effect, sellers will need to include the Quantity Item Specific (e.g., in the ItemSpecifics node in AddItemand related calls) when listing new items, and when making revisions to existing items.
The mandate will not be triggered when good 'til cancelled (GTC) listings are auto-relisted. However, when the seller revises an existing GTC listing, the Quantity Item Specific will be mandated.
We suggest that you help your sellers by making the Quantity Item Specific mandatory in your listing tools as soon as possible, whenever the US, CA, or CAFR Tires category is chosen; or at a minimum, provide a message to inform your users that this mandate will begin in early 2017.
Use GetCategorySpecifics for the latest Item Specifics recommendations: http://developer.ebay.com/devzone/xml/docs/reference/ebay/GetCategorySpecifics.html
Search Result Page Filters and Item Specifics for US Motors Parts & AccessoriesWe're creating more robust Item Specifics that are unique to each category in US Parts & Accessories.
For example, we recently published Item Specifics in these categories:
- Suspension & Steering
- Lighting & Lamps
eBay's Search Results Page will offer these Item specifics as left-hand navigation filters for buyers. This means a seller's listings will be excluded from search results entirely if a buyer uses those filters and the seller doesn't have the matching Item Specifics included in their listings.
Using Item Specifics also gives sellers a chance to create unique value in their Parts & Accessories listings with Item Specifics like Brand, Warranty, etc.
If you are not already doing so, we recommend that you start suggesting Item Specifics for Parts & Accessories, to help out your sellers.
Use GetCategorySpecifics for the latest Item Specifics recommendations: http://developer.ebay.com/devzone/xml/docs/reference/ebay/GetCategorySpecifics.html Item Condition Updates for Sporting GoodsWe recently added more granular item conditions within a few of eBay's US Sporting Goods categories. These are existing condition values that are already used in other categories, such as Electronics. For example, some Sporting Goods categories now support values like Manufacturer Refurbished and Seller Refurbished, in addition to New with tags, New without tags, New with defects, and Pre-owned.
Use GetCategoryFeatures for the latest list of item conditions that each category supports: http://developer.ebay.com/devzone/xml/docs/reference/ebay/getcategoryfeatures.html#Response.Category.ConditionValueshttp://developer.ebay.com/DevZone/guides/ebayfeatures/Development/Desc-ItemCondition.htmlOr see the Item Condition Look-Up Table for the eBay US site: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/sellingresources/itemconditionlookup.html
Apple iOS Security Requirements—Is Your Domain Compliant?We'd like to remind all developers that Apple now provides a security feature called App Transport Security (ATS) to all iOS apps and app extensions. Apple enables ATS by default and ensures all HTTPS connections use industry recommended standards.
If you have customized item descriptions or other content that includes images, links, and other URLs hosted on domains that are not ATS-compliant, these images and links may not work as expected on devices and applications (including eBay's apps on iOS devices) that meet the ATS standard, after Apple starts enforcing this standard.
On eBay, less than 1% of all eBay listing descriptions contain links to domains that are not ATS-compliant. As a courtesy, eBay recently performed a one-time scan of active listing descriptions, and we've notified the sellers and developers whose domains were not compliant at the time of that scan. However, we encourage all developers to double-check and make sure the domains you include in your listings from now on are compliant.
As a best practice, it is a good idea to keep your servers updated to the latest security protocols that are required by browsers and devices you intend to support, including Apple iOS.
To learn more about how ATS might affect your eBay listings, see our Knowledge Base article: https://ebaydts.com/eBayKBDetails?KBid=5079