Overview of Implementing eBay Listing Options
As described earlier in this manual, items in certain categories can have attributes whose values are well known and don't vary from listing to listing. For example, in the Movies category, buyers would expect a popular movie's title, rating, and film credits to be the same no matter who the seller is. Instead of filling in this standard information for every listing, a seller can create a listing in which this information has already been partially filled out (pre-filled). This data is called Pre-filled Item Information. Sellers who select this feature can pick and choose which pieces of content to use in their listings. Features like stock photos, descriptions, etc., can be used in place of, or in conjunction with, custom photos, detailed item descriptions, and other listing details.
You can use industry-standard identifiers such as ISBN, EAN, UPC, or Manufacturer Part Number (depending on the product type), as well as keywords like Title to pull up stock listing information on items in categories that support this feature. You can then select content, including stock photos, descriptions, and supplemental information (like song lists, film descriptions, etc.) that will be added to a listing automatically. At the time of this writing, many categories support Pre-filled Item Information, including (but not limited to) Media categories (Books, DVDs & Movies, Music, and Video Games), Video Game Systems, Consumer Electronics categories (Digital Cameras, Cell Phones, and PDAs), Golf, Event Tickets, and Coins. This documentation describes how to tell which categories support Pre-filled Item Information.
Buyers and sellers can use product information to list and find similar items more precisely and to ascertain the details of items more easily when viewing items. By using the Pre-filled Item Information feature, sellers worldwide can describe their items more fully in fewer steps and in a way that makes their listings easier to find.
Buyers who use keyword searches to find items can find items with Item Specifics and Pre-filled Item Information along with other items that do not. Buyers who use the product finders to browse for item only see listings that use Item Specifics (including listings with Pre-filled Item Information).
To learn about how and why buyers and sellers use Item Specifics and Pre-filled Item Information on the eBay Web site, see these sections in the "eBay Concepts" chapter of the eBay Web Services guide:
eBay users list in thousands of categories worldwide. Many of these categories support Item Specifics, and more categories are adding support for this feature each month. Similarly, a number of categories offer sellers the option to list with Pre-filled Item Information. As the needs of the eBay community change, the available Item Specifics and Pre-filled Item Information for any given category also undergo changes. This means it is not practical for you to hard-code this data in your application. Instead, the eBay Platform offers you a set of data-driven calls that let you import, update, and render Item Specifics and Pre-filled Item Information dynamically.
If you are new to the API and you are developing and testing your first listing application, you might start by implementing support for listing the standard way with a basic description. Then, after you have created a few different kinds of listings successfully, add support for listing with Item Specifics and Pre-filled Item Information.
Typically, end-user applications that support Item Specifics need to implement one or more of these capabilities:
- When a seller is listing an item in an attributes-enabled category, display the available characteristics for that category.
- When a user is searching for items, display the available characteristics for the selected category.
- When a seller is ready to add, revise, re-list, or verify the addition of an item, pass the selected attributes and values to eBay.
- When displaying a listed item to a user, display the attributes that have been set on the item.
Here are the basic steps you follow when working with Item Specifics and Pre-filled Item Information:
For your reference, Figure 18-1 shows the calls that the eBay SDK for Java wraps in order to support listing with Item Specifics or Pre-filled Item Information. (It does not show listing the standard way without either of these features.)
The eBay SDK for Java includes a library called the Attributes Library, which aggregates and simplifies this workflow. The Attributes Library is a wrapper layer that is built on the API Call Library. Use the Attributes Library to refresh meta-data related to Item Specifics, Pre-filled Item Information, and return policies and to help users configure items with these features. Through the interfaces and classes of the Attributes Library, you can quickly manage attribute meta-data from different data sources, render the data in an HTML-based user interface (in a Web application or a desktop application), convert the attribute data that the user selected back into standard SDK objects, and (optionally) validate attribute data before including it in a listing.
If you choose to use the Attributes Library, most of the functionality described below can be managed in just a few simple steps. However, it may be helpful to understand the workflow below if you want to provide your own implementations of the Attributes Library interfaces. Each workflow is summarized in the following sections, and the procedures for executing each of the calls is explained in subsequent chapters.
The Attributes (Item Specifics & Return Policy) API provides an overview of how to use the API to support Item Specifics in your applications. The Catalog Product (Pre-filled Item) API provides an overview of how to use the API to support Pre-filled Item Information in your applications. See Listing Items in the eBay Web Services guide for information about the basics of listing items, without the additional steps you need to take to list with Item Specifics and Pre-filled Item Information.