eBay Developers Program Q3 2022 Newsletter

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 (July - September 2022). 

Update on Digital Signature requirement

To be compliant with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulatory requirements for our EU/UK sellers, eBay will start requiring developers to add digital signatures through HTTP headers for some API calls made on behalf of EU/UK sellers. The affected APIs include the following:

• All methods in Finances API
• issueRefund method in Fulfillment API
• GetAccount call in Trading API
• The following methods in Post-Order API
• Issue Inquiry Refund
• Issue case refund
• Issue return refund
• Process Return Request
• Create Cancellation Request
• Approve Cancellation Request

For more information, please see the Digital Signatures for APIs guide.

New GO SDK added for Event Notifications

Another Event Notification SDK is now available in the GO language. This new SDK can be cloned from the following public GitHub repository: https://github.com/eBay/event-notification-golang-sdk

This GoLang SDK is designed to simplify processing eBay notifications. For more information about the available event notifications, see Notification API Overview page.

API updates

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

Sell Marketing API enhanced with Promoted Listings Advanced Functionality

The Sell Marketing API was enhanced with Promoted Listings Advanced functionality. Previously, this API only supported Promoted Listings Standard functionality. The funding model used for Promoted Listings Advanced is “cost-per-click”, while the funding model used for Promoted Listings Standard is “cost-per-sale”.

See the Version 1.11.0 Release Notes to get a summary of all new resources and methods that were added to support Promoted Listings Advanced campaigns. Not all sellers will be eligible to use Promoted Listings Advanced campaigns, but the new getAdvertisingEligibility method of the Account API can be used to see if the seller is eligible for either of the Promoted Listings campaign types (Standard or Advanced).

In addition to numerous Promoted Listings Advanced resources and methods being added to the API, we have also created and published a Promoted Listings Playbook that gives all the necessary details to create and manage both Promoted Listings Standard and Promoted Listings Advanced campaigns using the Sell Marketing API.

New methods added to Account API

The following two methods were added to the Account API:

• getAdvertisingEligibility: this method is called to see if a seller’s account is eligible to use Promoted Listings Standard and Promoted Listings Advanced campaigns. If a seller’s account is not eligible for either of these campaign types, a reason will be provided in the response.
• getSubscription: this method retrieves details on a seller’s eBay Store subscription, including the subscription level and the terms.

Browse API Enhancements

The following enhancements were made to the getItem, getItemByLegacyId, and getItemsByItemGroup methods:

• A new categoryIdPath field is returned in the response, and this field shows the full category ID path to the leaf category, starting with the L1 category. Each category level is separated by a pipe (|) symbol. Example: 11700|159907|69197|115947
• A new fulfilledThrough field is returned if an international order is being shipped through the Global Shipping Program or through eBay International Shipping. eBay International Shipping will replace the Global Shipping Program in the US by March 2023, but the Global Shipping Program will still be available to UK sellers beyond this timeframe.

The following category metadata enhancements were made to the search and searchByImage methods:

• The leaf categories that an item belongs to are now returned in the leafCategoryIds array. If the item is listed in only one (primary) category, only one category ID will be returned in this array. However, if the item is listed in two different categories, both the primary and secondary leaf category IDs will be shown.
• The categoryName field was added to the categories array. Previously, only the categoryId value was shown.

eBay International Shipping goes live

eBay International Shipping is now available to some sellers on the US marketplace. By March 31, 2023, eBay International Shipping will fully replace the Global Shipping Program for all US sellers. US Sellers opted in to the Global Shipping Program will automatically be opted into eBay International Shipping once it becomes available to them.

As long as a US seller's account is opted in to eBay International Shipping, this shipping option will be automatically enabled for all listings where that seller has made international shipping available. The AddItem call will not require any special fields to be set to enable eBay International Shipping. Similarly, a seller’s Fulfillment Business Policy will also require no further action to enable eBay International Shipping.

To support eBay International Shipping, the following enhancements were made to the getOrder and getOrders methods of the Fulfillment API:

• An ebayInternationalShipping field is returned if this shipping option is available for shipping the item internationally.
• Existing fields used by the Global Shipping Program have now been enabled to return eBay International Shipping information.

In the Trading API, the GetOrders, GetSellerTransactions, GetItemTransactions, and GetOrderTransactions calls were also updated to support eBay International Shipping. Similar to the Fulfillment API, existing fields used by Global Shipping Program have now also been enabled to return eBay International Shipping information, such as the SellerShipmentToLogisticsProvider.ShipToAddress container. Please note that the reference ID needed for Global Shipping Program orders is returned in the ShipToAddress.ReferenceID field, but the reference ID, or eBay Virtual Tracking number (eVTN), needed for eBay International Shipping  is returned in the ShipToAddress.Street2 field. 

Expansion of Refurbished Condition program in Europe

Seventy new categories on the UK, Germany, Italy, and France marketplaces were enabled for the Certified Refurbished program. Newly supported categories include numerous Small Kitchen Appliance categories, Coffee, Tea, and Espresso Machine categories, Vacuum Cleaner categories, Cameras and Photo categories, and Outdoor Power Equipment categories.

The full list of leaf categories that support the Certified Refurbished program can be found in the Selling Integration Guide. The Certified Refurbished program is supported on the US, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada (English and French), France, and Italy marketplaces.

Deprecation and Decommission updates

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

• The BuyerRequirementDetails container, used by the AddItem family of calls in the Trading API, will be decommissioned on October 7, 2022. Listing-level buyer requirements will no longer be supported, so any seller-initiated Buyer Requirements can only be set at the account level. See the API Deprecation Status page for more details.
• All charitable organizations registered on eBay’s platform have two unique identifiers - a PayPal Giving Fund (PPGF) ID and an eBay-generated ID. The PPGF ID will stop being supported in all eBay APIs beginning on January 15, 2023. For the AddItem family of calls in the Trading API, this means that the CharityNumber field can no longer be used to identify a charitable organization to receive sale proceeds, but the CharityID field should be used instead. See the API Deprecation Status page for full details on the affected APIs and fields.
• All Trading API dispute calls (AddDispute, AddDisputeResponse, DisableUnpaidItemAssistance, GetDispute, GetUserDisputes, SellerReverseDispute) will be decommissioned on January 31, 2023.
• GetApiAccessRules call will be decommissioned on March 10, 2023; Developer Analytics API is the alternative and is already returning Trading API call usage data.
• The Store.SubscriptionLevel field returned in GetStore will be decommissioned on March 31, 2023. The getSubscription method of the Account API can be used instead to get a seller’s eBay Store subscription level.
• The following two deprecations were announced for the Sell Marketing API, and the decommission date will be April 3, 2023:
• Only one funding model may be used when setting up a report through the createReportTask method. This means that only one value may be specified through the fundingModels array.
• Several metric keys supported for Transaction Reports will be decommissioned. See the API Deprecation Status page for the full list.

The following APIs/methods/fields were recently decommissioned:

• The following six eBay Store calls were decommissioned on 9/30/22: SetStoreCustomPage, GetStoreCustomPage, SetStore, GetStoreOptions, SetStorePreferences, and GetStorePreferences.
• The following GetStore response containers/fields were decommissioned and will no longer be returned: CustomHeader, CustomHeaderLayout, CustomListingHeader (container), ExportListings, HeaderStyle, HomePage, ItemListLayout, ItemListSortOrder, Logo.LogoID, Logo.Name, Theme (container), and TitleWithCompatibility.

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