Make Selling Manager Applications Part of Your New Years Resolution

It’s almost a new year. What will you build in 2010?

 

We have had a very busy year working on the Selling Manager Applications program. We’ve grown to 34 available applications (with more getting ready to launch!) and enhanced the Selling Applications Directory to better market your applications!

 

Meeting Sellers' Needs

 

Selling Manager Applications are all about meeting the Seller’s needs. Helping them do and manage their business easier, faster, stronger. Sellers are regular people, trying to earn a living. Life gets in the way. Many of them do not have a technical background and are looking to Selling Manager Applications to solve problems and make it easier for them to earn money.

 

Let’s face it. Everyone wants to earn money.

 

Sellers are looking for the best cost-benefit in your applications. In a recent Seller survey, many Sellers said they don’t have a lot of money and are very price sensitive. Given the economy, this should not be a surprise to any of us. Some Sellers said they are not technical and need applications that are easy to use, configure and manage.

When you build your application, keep in mind the different technical skills of the Sellers; your customers:

• Would a Quick Reference Guide help Sellers configure your application faster or easier?
• Would a 30 second video describing the most compelling features of your Selling Manager Application help increase Seller subscriptions of your application?

 Make us part of your New Years resolution!

 

Submit your Business Readiness Review and Billing information by Jan 10th in order to go live by mid-February 2010. Based on our research, we think email management, customer management, shipping and fulfillment, bulk editing of listings, UPI process management, picture management, profitability analysis, and inventory management are all pretty good bets for new Selling Manager Applications. But that doesn't mean you can’t use your imagination and create other application types. Social networking or providing special filtering are some additional areas. Surprise us! Show us what you’ve got!

 

Read the eBay's Next Gen Platform Opportunity blog entry for an overview of the program and benefits.

• View Lead Product Manager, Selling Manager Applications project, Madhu Gupta’s presentation deck here.
• Learn more about Selling Manager Applications here.

 eBay Developers who have created Selling Manager Applications include:

• MyStoreCredit - helps Sellers provide buyers with a positive experience through follow-up e-mails that include shopping rewards, such as a 10% off coupon on their next purchase.,
• Outright – a free Web service that tracks all Seller income and expenses to get taxes done accurately and on time to help you avoid costly fines from the IRS,
• vzaar - allows Sellers to quickly and easily add video to their eBay listings for a more dynamic shopping experience.
• Read their, and other, Success Stories at: http://developer.ebay.com/programs/Success-Stories/home.html

Get started today! Review our documentation and see if this opportunity is a fit for you.

Grow with us in 2010!

Updates to Summer 2009 Release; Part 2 of 2.

Updates to Summer 2009 Release; Part 2 of 2.

On July 29, 2009, Laurel posted an announcement about the July 2009 updates. In this entry, we highlight part 2 of the features that were released since then

For the list of calls changed with each Trading API version, see the Trading API Release Notes.

Because there are many updates, the details have been split into two entries. The first part can be found here. This is the second entry and covers the following topics:

Listing Enhancements

[627] Changes to ListingFeatureDetails and Some Listing Features to Be Removed and Restricted

Selling Manager Applications

Shipping

ShippingCarrierUsed: Type Change
LeaveFeedback and Shipping API Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs)

Top-Rated Sellers

Misc

Reminder: Return Policy and Handling Time Required When You Renew GTC Listings

---

As a reminder, the first entry included: will link to part 1 entry.

• Best Match
• Editing Live Items (ELI)
• Search

If you would like the complete details on the July 2009 Update, please refer to the following links and to the API Release Notes.

• Overview
• Details
• FAQ
• eBay Motors
• Canada

Seller Resources

• Best Practices
• Seller Checklist

---

Listing Enhancements

[627] Discontinued: Bold title, border, Featured First, Featured Plus!, gift icon, highlight, Homepage Featured, and ProPack. See the Release Notes.

[627 ] Changes to ListingFeatureDetails and Some Listing Features to Be Removed and Restricted

• All features are not available to all Sellers, use the Trading call GeteBayDetails to find out which features are available for your site. As part of the seller release, some listing upgrades were removed for some sites, and some will be restricted to eBay Top-Rated Sellers or PowerSellers. The listing features include bold title, border, Featured First, Featured Plus!, gift icon, highlight, Homepage Featured, and ProPack. A new type, ListingFeatureDetails, has been added to the GeteBayDetails response that returns which listing features are available to the seller for the site. Another addition to the GeteBayDetails response, UpdateTime, reports the time of the most recent modification to any Detail.
• A type has been added to the Trading call ListingStartPriceDetailsType.MinBuyItNowPricePercent, which returns the minimum percentage difference between the start price and the Buy It Now price for a listing on the specified site. There is one exception: Use category details to find the percentage requirements for Motor Vehicles (using Site ID 100 - the eBay Motors site.)

Items with Variations

[629 ] Multi-Variation Listings: GetSellerEvents and Other Enhancements

• GetSellerEvents now returns variation details in Item.Variations, including StartPrice, Quantity, and QuantitySold, plus SKU and/or VariationSpecifics. Multiple variations are returned together in the same Variations node (similar to GetItem).
• To keep the GetSellerEvents response smaller, the variation specifics are not returned if the variation has a SKU.
• With RelistFixedPriceItem and ReviseFixedPriceItem, you can now use SKU to uniquely identify an existing variation, regardless of whether the listing has inventory tracking set to SKU.
• ReviseInventoryStatus now supports modifying variations when InventoryTrackingMethod is set to ItemID.
• For the site specified in the request, GeteBayDetails now returns variation constraints, such as maximum number of variations, in VariationDetails.
• GetUser now returns QualifiesForVariations (a boolean) to indicate whether the user is eligible to list with variations on the site specified in the request.
• In SetUserNotes, you can now set private notes for variations. These notes will be visible to the user for variations that are displayed in My eBay.
• GetMyeBayBuying and GetMyeBaySelling now return PrivateNotes for applicable variations. Depending on how the notes were set (what was specified in the SetUserNotes request), the variations may be returned within Variations or within Item

Selling Manager Applications

• Sellers may subscribe to Selling Manager Applications through My eBay.
• Developers can create Selling Manager Applications using the Selling Manager API

Shipping

• [635] Shipping Insurance option has been removed from many sites. If shipping insurance is included in AddItem, it will be dropped with a warning, but won't fail. See the Release Notes.
• [635] Using My eBay, you can create an Exclude Ship-To List of the locations to where you will not ship items. Once set up, all items that you list on eBay will, by default, use the Exclude Ship-To List to exclude the locations you specified in the list. If a buyer's primary ship-to location is a location that you have listed as an excluded ship-to location (or if the buyer does not have a primary ship-to location), they will receive an error message if they attempt to buy or place a bid on your item. Use GetUserPreferences to review the default set of excluded locations that you have set up in My eBay. Use GetUserPreferences to retrieve your global exclusion list. See the Release Notes.
• [635] Tracking for multiple package shipment for a single item. ShippingCarrierUsed and ShipmentTrackingNumber have been moved to a repeatable ShipmentTrackingDetails container. See the Release Notes.

ShippingCarrierUsed: Type Change

• [627] More shipping carriers supported. The type for ShipmentType.ShippingCarrierUsed has been changed from ShippingCarrierCodeType to string. This enables sellers to specify a shipping carrier (via CompleteSale) other than the ones noted in ShippingCarrierCodeType.
• With a request version lower than 627, the value you specify for CompleteSale's ShippingCarrierUsed must be a value found in ShippingCarrierCodeType. If the request version is 627 or higher, you can specify the shipping carrier of your choice, even if it is not in the ShippingCarrierCodeType list, and GetSellingManagerSaleRecord will return that value. See the Release Notes.

LeaveFeedback and Shipping Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs)

• [629] Local Pickup: Shipping Time DSRs ignored, Shipping and Handling Charges MAY be ignored.
• In the Trading API LeaveFeedback call, DSRs left for Shipping Time will be ignored for all Local Pickup transactions. DSRs left for Shipping and Handling Charges will be ignored for Local Pickup transactions where the seller did not add any special handling fees. See the Release Notes.
• This change affects the following eBay sites: AU, Mn-AT, BE-FR, BE-NL, CA, CA-FR, FR, DE, HK, IN, Mn-IE, IT, MY, Motors, NL, PH, PL, SG, ES, Mn-CH, UK, US

Top-Rated Sellers

• [635] Seller Status Now Returned by GetSellerDashboard. See the Release Notes.
• Avoid 1s and 2s
• Only domestic DSRs count
• [629 ] Top-Rated Seller Details Available via GetUser and Other Calls; SellerInfo.SellerLevel to Be Removed
  • When Top-Rated Seller details became available in October (see Announcement), GetUser began returning fields that identify the seller as a Top-Rated Seller and gave details about the Top-Rated Seller program. These fields are already present and documented for GetUser and other calls. They include TopRatedSeller and TopRatedSellerDetails.TopRatedProgram, which identifies the Top-Rated-Seller programs for which the seller is qualified. See the Release Notes.
  • When the Top-Rated Seller feature became active on the US, DE, and UK sites, SellerInfo.SellerLevel no longer returned results for those sites. Affected calls include GetUser, GetBidderList, GetSellerList, GetItem, and GetItemTransactions.

Misc

More categories are becoming catalog-enabled

Reminder: Return Policy and Handling Time Required When You Renew GTC Listings

When Good Till Canceled (GTC) listings are renewed, they will be checked for Return Policy and Handling Time. If these details are not included, the GTC listing renewal will fail. For more info, see this entry in the Forum.

 

Updates to Summer 2009 Release: Part 1 of 2

On July 29, 2009, Laurel posted an announcement about the July 2009 updates. In this two part entry, we highlight the features that were released since then.(For the change details with each API version, see the API Release Notes.)

Because there have been many updates, this topic will be split into two entries.

1. This first entry includes:

   Best Match

   New Feature: Gallery Plus Pictures
   Doc changes: Updated Value for SellerBusinessType Item Filter
   Reminder of what changed in Best Match
   

   Editing Live Items (ELI)
   

   [627] New TransactionID Field for GetItem Request
   Platform Notification changes and client alerts
   

   Search
   

   New: Gallery Plus Pictures
   Updated Value for SellerBusinessType Item Filter
   eBay Top-rated Seller
   Clarifications in Documentation for Unpaid Item Disputes
   Multi-Variation Listings: GetSellerEvents and Other Enhancements
   [629] Multi-Variation Listings: GetSellerEvents and Other Enhancements

2. The second entry (to be published on, or around, December 17) will include:

   Items with Variations

   • [629] Multi-Variation Listings: GetSellerEvents and Other Enhancements

   
   

   Listing Enhancements

   • [627] Changes to ListingFeatureDetails and Some Listing Features to Be Removed and Restricted

   Selling Manager Applications
   Shipping

   • ShippingCarrierUsed: Type Change
   • LeaveFeedback and Shipping API Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs)

   Top-Rated Sellers
   Misc

   • Reminder: Return Policy and Handling Time Required When You Renew GTC Listings

If you would like details on the July 2009 Update, please refer to the following links and to the API Release Notes.

• Overview
• Details
• FAQ
• eBay Motors
• Canada

Seller Resources

• Best Practices
• Seller Checklist

---

Best Match

Please see the BestMatchItemDetails API release notes for details.

[1.2.0] New Feature: Gallery Plus Pictures

[1.2.0] Doc changes: Updated Value for SellerBusinessType Item Filter

Reminder of what changed in Best Match (Details)

• New listing performance score for Fixed Price to replace recent sales
• New multi-quantity and single-quantity Fixed Price listings will be given exposure in Best Match
• Titles are more important than ever
• Seller performance continues to count
• Shipping cost continues to count
• No changes to Auction-style listings
• Optimized by category

Editing Live Items (ELI)

 [627 ] New TransactionID Field for GetItem Request

• As part of the Edit Live Items feature, a new TransactionID field was added to the GetItemRequest call. This new field will allow both Sellers and Buyers to retrieve a listing as it was at the time of a given purchase by invoking GetItem with a TransactionID in the request (even if the seller has made significant revisions to the listing, following the purchase).
• Sellers are also able to make revisions to their multi-quantity fixed price listings after a purchase has been made (currently, Sellers can not change their multi-quantity fixed price listings, after at least one item in the listing has been purchased).
• Sellers are able to view the updated listing for each transaction, but Buyers are only able to view the transactional version of a listing where they are the successful buyer. Past transactional views of an item will be available for up to 90 days from the date the transaction took place.

[635] Platform Notification changes and client alerts

• Changes to the GetItemTransaction API call may cause a change to the behavior of the following Platform Notifications: EndOfAction, AuctionCheckoutComplete, FixedPriceEndOfTransaction, CheckoutBuyerRequestTotal, FixedPriceTransaction, Checkout, FixedPriceTransactionForSeller, FixedPriceTransactionForBuyer, ItemMarkedAsShipped, and ItemMarkedAsPaid.
• The following Client Alerts may have a behavior change as a result of this project: EndOfAuction, FixedPriceEndOfTransaction, FixedPriceTransaction, ItemSold, and ItemWon. Each notification will now be based on the state of the item (a 'snapshot' of the item) at the time the transaction was created.

Search

Finding API - see the Finding API release notes for details.

[1.1.0] New: Gallery Plus Pictures

[1.1.0] Updated Value for SellerBusinessType Item Filter

[1.0.1] eBay Top-rated Seller

With the launch of the Top-rated Sellers program, buyers can find items listed by the highest quality sellers on eBay based on the feedback of other buyers. The sellerInfo node in the search results (searchResult.item.sellerInfo) for the "findItems" calls now includes the topRatedSeller field to indicate (true or false) whether the seller of an item qualifies as an eBay Top-rated Seller. Additionally, a new TopRatedSellerOnly item filter has been added to limit search results to items listed by Top-rated Sellers only.

Note the following site restrictions:

• The searchResult.SellerInfo.topRatedSeller field in the response for the finding calls is supported for the following sites only: US (EBAY-US), Motors (EBAY-MOTOR), DE (EBAY-DE), AT (EBAY-AT), and CH (EBAY-CH).
• The TopRatedSellerOnly item filter is supported for the following sites only: US (EBAY-US), Motors (EBAY-MOTOR), UK (EBAY-GB), IE (EBAY-IE), DE (EBAY-DE), AT (EBAY-AT), and CH (EBAY-CH).

Top-rated sellers consistently receive highest buyers' ratings, ship items quickly, and have earned a track record of excellent service. eBay regularly reviews the performance of these sellers to confirm they continue to meet the program's requirements. See the Top-rated Sellers page on the eBay site for more information.

Trading API - See the Trading API release notes for details.

[643] Clarifications in Documentation for Unpaid Item Disputes

• Version 639 release notes surveyed various process changes for Unpaid Item Disputes.
• Support for the old process will be removed around March 2010, so please migrate your UPI dispute code to work with the new process.
• How do you know whether the newer or older process applies to your disputes or not? It is all about the request version. If you created a UPI dispute with a request version lower than 637, the old timelines apply and the various platform notifications for messaging are still supported. But if the request version is 637 or greater, the new timelines apply.
• Further, since AddDisputeResponse can no longer be used (for 637 or greater) for buyer or seller communication, these notifications are no longer triggered: BuyerResponseDispute, SellerRespondedToDispute.
• See Newer versus Older Unpaid Item Disputes Process - a before/after table of facts.

[639] New Features for 639

• Multiple-Package Details for a Single Item
• Selling Manager Calls: No Integration with eBay.com Is Required
• Unpaid Item Disputes: Process Change

[629 ] Multi-Variation Listings: GetSellerEvents and Other Enhancements

GetSellerEvents now returns variation details in Item.Variations, including StartPrice, Quantity, and QuantitySold, plus SKU and/or VariationSpecifics. Multiple variations are returned together in the same Variations node (similar to GetItem).

Sellers can now revise live multi-quantity listings with sale

As announced, sellers can now edit almost everything in live multi-quantity fixed price listings even after a sale on the item, except for title, category, duration and format. If you need to add quantity, modify the item price, edit the description, modify shipping costs etc, you don’t need to end and recreate the listing. You can simply revise your live listings. Buyers who had previously bought the item will have an option to see the earlier version of the listing.

For developers looking for new revenue opportunities, consider building feature-rich revision tools. Sellers are searching for listing revision tools that help them identify which listings need to be revised, regardless of which tool launched the listing. For easy policy compliance updates, we recommend all listing tools offer listing revisions, including multi-quantity fixed price items with a sale, with a quick way for sellers to determine which listings need revision. Or build a new revenue stream by building a query and revise tool, for easy search and replace on any parameter (even return value = null).

Developers will want to update their code to retrieve a particular version of a listing for proper reconciliation and dispute resolution purposes.

Developer Impact:
No code change is necessary to edit these listings, but any developer blocking these types of edits should remove such a block. Revisions can be done using any existing revise API call including ReviseItem, ReviseFixedPriceItem, ReviseInventoryStatus. Be sure you are using ReviseFixedPriceItem or ReviseItem so no additional seller fees are incurred (i.e. when using RelistFixedPriceItem). Revisions on multi-quantity fixed priced listings with a sale will still be blocked if a seller tries to edit title, category, duration or format.

When retrieving listings, a new Transaction ID field was added to GetItem on release 627 and GetItemTransactions on release 635 to return a specific version of the listing. If no transaction is specified, the latest version will be returned. Changes to the GetItemTransaction API call may cause a change to the behavior of several Platform Notifications. GetSellerTransactions will return the snapshot of the item as it was at time of transaction on release 635. Read the Release notes for more information.

Resources:
Release notes
ReviseItem
ReviseInventoryStatus
ReviseFixedPriceItem
GetItem
GetItemTransactions
GetSellerTransactions

eBay Giving Works lowers minimum donation to $1, extends automatic collection date

Starting October 1, the eBay Giving Works minimum donation will be reduced from $5 to $1 per successful listing. In addition, the automatic collection date for donations will be extended from the second Monday after a listing ends to the fourth Monday after a listing ends.

The lower minimum donation will make it more affordable than ever for sellers to get the cause marketing benefits of eBay Giving Works. The extra two weeks before automatic donation collection gives sellers more time to receive their funds from PayPal and the buyer, before MissionFish collects the donation. (As always, donation minimums and collections dates do not apply to nonprofits selling on eBay to raise funds.)

If you have questions about these changes — or want to learn how to offer eBay Giving Works to your users — please contact MissionFish, eBay’s nonprofit partner. For information on how to use the API with Giving Works, see the API Docs.

Bill Me Later Coming Soon to eBay

In the coming weeks we'll be introducing Bill Me Later on eBay, as well as on other merchant sites through PayPal, beginning with a launch for a limited number of buyers and sellers in the U.S.

Qualified PayPal customers will be able to use Bill Me Later during eBay checkout. For select sellers, PayPal will automatically add Bill Me Later as a way to pay. Sellers included in the initial rollout will be notified via email by PayPal.

Developers who currently support PayPal will not need to make any code changes to support Bill Me Later. In GetItemTransactions and related calls, items that are paid for using Bill Me Later will use the existing PayPal value in the BuyerPaymentMethodCodeType.

Third-party checkout (3PXO) providers must use Express Checkout for Bill Me Later purchases. Bill Me Later is not supported by CP Cart.

Find out more at https://www.billmelater.com/help/ebay_seller_faq.xhtml.

Excluding Locations to Where You Ship Items

Starting with version 635, you will be able to use My eBay to create a list of the locations to where you will not ship items. Once set up, all items that you list on eBay will, by default, use the Ship To Exclusion List. If a buyer's primary ship to location is a location which you have listed as an excluded ship to location (or if the buyer does not have a primary ship to location), they will receive an error message if they attempt to buy or place a bid on your item.

You can override the settings in your Ship To Exclusion List using ExcludeShipToLocation fields in your item-listing calls. Use the ExcludeShipToLocation field to specify individual locations to which you will not ship. Including ExcludeShipToLocation in any AddItem family of calls overrides the default Ship To Exclusion List you might have set up in My eBay--only the sites specifically specified with ExcludeShipToLocation will be excluded. Specify NONE in ExcludeShipToLocation to open up all areas for shipping.

Specify locations to exclude using ISO Country Codes. The ExcludeShippingLocationDetails node in the GeteBayDetails response lists the valid ISO Country Code values that you can exclude for a given eBay site.

Here is an example of using the ExcludeToShipLocation field within an AddItem call:

...

  <ShippingDetails>
    <ExcludeShipToLocation>FR</ExcludeShipToLocation>
    <ExcludeShipToLocation>IT</ExcludeShipToLocation>
  </ShippingDetails>

...

With this call, bidders in France (FR) and Italy (IT) will be unable to buy the associated item; buyers in all other locations are eligible to buy the item, regardless of any settings in your global Ship To Exclusion List.

Alternately, use a value of NONE in the ExcludeToShipLocation field to disable the Ship To Exclusion List and allow buyers from all locations to bid on or buy your item:

  <ShippingDetails>
    <ExcludeShipToLocation>NONE</ExcludeShipToLocation>
  </ShippingDetails>

Use GetUserPreferences to review the default set of ExcludeShipToLocations that you've set up in My eBay, and whether or not the default Ship To Exclusion List is in effect:

  <GetUserPreferencesRequest xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents">
    <ShowSellerExcludeShipToLocationPreference> true </ShowSellerExcludeShipToLocationPreference>
  </GetUserPreferencesRequest>

Potential "appinfo" Breaking Change

The eBay API team is considering changing the case of the appinfo tags found in various wsdls—specifically, changing from upper to lowercase on the first letter only. For example, CallName could become callName, RequiredInput could become requireInput, and MaxLength could become maxLength.

Example... Before:

<xs:appinfo>
  <CallInfo>
    <CallName>AddItem</CallName>

After:

<xs:appinfo>
  <callInfo>
    <callName>AddItem</callName>

Note that schema elements such as names of calls, elements and types are not affected (e.g. AddItem). Our proposal is only about the names of tags unique to the xs:appinfo structure.

The eBay API team would like to hear from anyone who would be affected by such a change: characterize, if you would, the impact of such a change on your tools, etc.

Please contact    developer-relations@ebay.com

Thanks
John Darrow
API Tech Docs and Tools

Removal of the Shipping Insurance Option

In researching buyer satisfaction, eBay has found that the shipping insurance option in item listings causes many negative experiences for both buyers and sellers alike. Buyers are confused as to why they need to purchase shipping insurance, especially in light of PayPal's Buyer Protection service (which applies whether or not a seller uses shipping insurance).

Beginning with version 635, sellers will no longer be able to list shipping insurance as an optional service for domestic or international items. This restriction affects the following eBay sites:

• BEFR
• BEBL
• CA
• CAFR
• HK
• IE
• IN
• MY
• Motors
• NL
• PH
• PL
• SG
• UK
• US

While you do not have to update existing listings, you will be unable to add shipping insurance as a separate cost to new, revised, and renewed listings. If you attempt to add a shipping insurance option to an item listing on one of the above-mentioned sites, the item listing will succeed, however, the insurance option will be removed from the item listing and a warning will be generated.

Sellers are responsible for safely delivering an item into the hands of the buyer. Sellers may wish to work with bulk shipping insurance providers for low cost insurance that they can include in the item price. Also 3rd party developers of listing tools may find an additional revenue stream by providing bulk shipping insurance to their customers.

Reminder: Breaking Change: GTC Listings must Include Return Policy and Handling Time Starting Mid-September

Just a reminder that we rolled out the requirement to specify Return Policy and Handling Time in two phases. The first phase, where they are required for new and relisted items, was enforced in June. The second phase, where they are required for Good Til Canceled (GTC) listings, will be enforced in mid-September.

In mid-September, when GTC listings are renewed, they will be checked for Return Policy and Handling Time. If they are not included, the listing will break.

It is likely that you have some customers that will break if they do not take any action. Please make sure that your application supports Return Policy and Handling Time in the structured data, and that your sellers are specifying it. If Return Policy and Handling Time is mentioned only in the Item Description and not the structured data, it will not count toward enforcement and the listing will break.

Also, if you have a lot of listings to update, make sure that you have left enough time to make the updates by the compliance deadline of mid-September. Your bandwidth constraints may limit you in how many revisions you can do in a day, so you may need to start your revisions as early as mid-August to make sure you have enough time to do all the revisions.

Note: Return Policy and Handling Time are not required in categories like Vehicles or Parts & Accessories.

For more information on how to specify Return Policy and Handling Time, see the API Documentation on Return Policy and Handling Time.