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.
eBay Marketplace Account Deletion notifications are now available
eBay provides their users a way to request that their personal data be deleted from eBay's systems, and eBay informs eBay partners who store/display their personal data, including third-party developers integrated with eBay APIs via the eBay Developers Program, when it receives a deletion request.
To communicate user deletion requests to third-party developers, eBay has created a push notification system that will notify all eBay Developers Program applications when an eBay user has requested that their personal data be deleted and their account closed. Developers must subscribe their applications to these Marketplace Account Deletion notifications in the Alerts & Notifications page inside their developer accounts. To subscribe, they provide a contact email address and an endpoint that will receive these notifications.
For full details on the marketplace account deletion workflow and to discover what third-party developers will need to do to receive, respond to, and validate these eBay marketplace account deletion notifications, see the Marketplace Account Deletion page.
eBay has also launched a new Notification API and associated Event Notification SDKs (Node.js and Java) to help process these notifications. See the Release of the Notification API and Event Notification SDKs section below to learn more about the new Notification API and SDKs that have been designed to accommodate the marketplace account deletion notifications requirements.
eBay managed payments is expanding to new marketplaces
eBay managed payments has recently rolled out to the following eBay marketplaces:
- France
- Italy
- Spain
Additionally, more managed payments sellers are now seeing listing-related fees deducted from their seller payouts instead of these fees being charged to the seller on a monthly invoice.
For full details on support of eBay managed payments through eBay APIs, including all marketplaces now supported, see the Managed Payments page. Refer to the API updates section below to understand how eBay APIs are impacted by the managed payments geographical expansion.
Changes to VAT regulations for the UK and EU in 2021
In 2021, there are significant changes to the collection of VAT on items imported into the UK and EU, as well as certain shipments within the EU and UK.
Changes took effect in the UK on January 1, 2021, and in the EU, these changes will take effect on July 1, 2021.
Under these rules, eBay will be responsible for collecting VAT on goods sold to private customers where:
- The goods have a value of up to GBP135 imported into the UK, or up to EUR150 imported into the EU
- The goods are shipped from within the EU by non-EU sellers or within UK by non-UK sellers
There are also significant changes to cross-border supplies within the EU by EU sellers.
See this Seller Centre article for more information on the 2021 changes to VAT regulations.
We recommend that sellers get familiar with the upcoming changes, so that they can prepare their business well in advance. The eBay help pages have additional information, and sellers should contact their tax advisor to discuss next steps.
eBay takes VAT compliance seriously. If eBay determines, or receives official information, that you are not meeting your VAT obligations, or if you provide incorrect information which does not permit eBay to collect VAT correctly in cases where eBay is obliged to collect VAT, your account may be blocked from selling, and your active listings removed. You will need to contact eBay before we can remove any selling restriction.
For more information on VAT in general, see the VAT Obligations in the EU help article.
eBay announces global rollout of Certified Refurbished program
In February, the Certified Refurbished program rolled out to the remainder of eBay marketplaces. Prior to this rollout, this feature was restricted to just the US and AU. With the global rollout, the Manufacturer Refurbished item condition is no longer applicable to any eBay marketplace.
Certified Refurbished items are defined as being in "a pristine, like-new condition and are inspected, cleaned and refurbished by the manufacturer or a manufacturer-approved vendor," as opposed to Seller Refurbished items, which are defined as "items that are inspected, cleaned, and repaired to full working order by an eBay seller or third party.” To list Certified Refurbished items, sellers must be vetted and opted into the program by eBay. For more details about the categories that support Certified Refurbished items and the application process for sellers, see this Certified refurbished program article in Seller Center.
You can also visit the Certified Refurbished Program hub for full details on the Certified Refurbished program, including what buyers can expect from Certified Refurbished items and a set of FAQs.
API updates
The following updates have been made to public APIs over the last few months.
Release of the Notification API and Event Notification SDKs
A brand new Notification API and two open-sourced Event Notification SDKs (Node.js and Java versions) were launched in March. This API and these SDKs allow third-party developers and applications to process eBay notifications and verify the integrity of the message payload.
The SDKs have the following features:
- A ready-to-use, deployable application that is generic across topics
- Verifies integrity of the incoming messages using Elliptic Curve Cryptography
- Incorporates LRU cache-enabled integration with Notification APIs to retrieve Public Keys
- Custom Message Processors for plugging in topic-specific processing logic
- Declarative OpenAPI powered schema definitions and code generation
Inventory API updates
Auction listings are now supported by the Inventory API. When auction listing offers are published, the allocated quantity will be reserved for the specified listing duration. If the offer ends without a qualifying/winning bid, the allocated quantity for the SKU will be released and available for any of the seller's fixed-price offers with that SKU.
Fulfillment API updates
A new enumeration value was added to the ActivityEnum type for the PaymentDisputeActivity type used by the getActivities method. The new enumeration value, DISPUTE_REOPENED, indicates that a previously closed third-party payment dispute was reopened.
Finances API updates
An ADJUSTMENT transaction type was added to the Finances API. This new transaction type provides information on transactions that contain adjustments (credit or debit) to the seller’s account.
Both the getTransactions and getTransactionSummary methods have been updated to return information on ADJUSTMENT transactions.
Additionally, the following five values have been added to ReferenceTypeEnum to provide identifiers related to a money movement transaction such as a refund:
CANCELLATION_ID: unique ID of a cancellation.CASE_ID: unique ID of a case.PAYMENTS_DISPUTE_ID: unique ID of a third-party payment dispute.REFUND_ID: unique ID of a refund.RETURN_ID: unique ID of a return request.
In addition to these updates, the Finances API has now become applicable to and supported for sellers on the new eBay marketplaces where eBay managed payments has been launched, including France, Italy, and Spain.
Account API updates
A new PARTNER_MOTORS_DEALER enum was added so sellers can be opted into and out of the Partner Motors Program via the optInToProgram and optOutOfProgram methods. The Partner Motors Program is currently only available to UK motors dealers that are registered to use the eBay Motors Pro tool.
Order API updates
The getPurchaseOrder and getGuestPurchaseOrder methods no longer return the appliedCoupons container or promotion date.
Browse API updates
The Browse API has now been enabled in the following eBay marketplaces:
Ireland (EBAY_IE)Netherlands (EBAY_NL)Poland (EBAY_PL)
To view a full list of eBay sites supported by the Browse API, see Buy API Support by Marketplace.
Buy Feed API updates
The Buy Feed API has now been enabled in the following eBay marketplaces:
- Ireland (EBAY_IE)
- Netherlands (EBAY_NL)
- Poland (EBAY_PL)
To view a full list of eBay sites supported by the Buy Feed API, see Buy API Support by Marketplace.
Additionally, the following item condition filters are now supported by the getItemFeed, getItemGroupFeed, and getItemSnapshotFeed methods.
- 1500: New (other)
- 2000; Certified Refurbished
- 2500: Seller Refurbished
Sell Metadata API updates
The getItemConditionPolicies method has been enhanced to retrieve the Certified Refurbished item condition (Condition ID 2000). For this item condition to be returned by the applicable categories, the seller must be eligible to list with the Certified Refurbished item condition, they must use a an OAuth token created with the authorization code grant flow and https://api.ebay.com/oauth/api_scope/sell.inventory scope. See the getItemConditionPolicies reference document for more information.
Deprecations and Decommission updates
The following APIs/methods have recently been announced as deprecated. Please see the Deprecation Status page for detailed information.
- All Selling Manager methods in Trading API. These calls will be decommissioned on June 1, 2021
- Business Policies Management API. This API will be decommissioned on January 31, 2022
- The IncludeRecommendations request boolean field and the ListingRecommendations container returned in the responses of Add/Revise/Relist/Verify Trading API methods are deprecated, and will no longer be supported/returned after June 1, 2021.
- The three Promotional Sale methods in Trading API are deprecated, but their decommission date has been extended to May 17, 2021. eBay recommends that sellers use the Sell Marketing API instead, which provides all Promotions Manager and Promoted Listing capabilities.
The following APIs/methods have recently been decommissioned:
- Taxonomy Beta API. Sellers should migrate to the GA version of the Taxonomy API.
- ReviseSellingManagerSaleRecord call of the Trading API. The CompleteSale Trading API method can be used as an alternative to mark orders as paid, mark orders as shipped, and provide shipment tracking details.
- SoldReport call of the Merchant Data API. eBay recommends that large sellers and developers migrate to the Sell Feed API order_task methods.
We hope everyone had a great start to their year, and we are looking forward to working with the community throughout the rest of 2021!