Specifying an Item's Condition

Item condition is one of the top factors buyers consider when deciding whether to purchase an item. When you create your listing, help your buyers understand exactly what they'll be receiving by specifying its condition. Listings that specify the item's condition provide useful information and as a result, are more likely to sell.

Many eBay sites support the ability to specify the condition of an item in a standardized, structured way (as a name/value pair). In most categories, eBay defines a list of item conditions that you can choose from.

Your choice for item condition appears at the top of your listing description. You can provide clarifications about the condition within the listing description.

When buyers search for items, they often use eBay's Refine Search options to narrow their search based on the item's condition. In these cases, your listing will appear in search results only if you specified the condition in one of eBay's standard formats.

This section describes how to specify an item's condition when you list items. Also see Searching by Item Condition.

Using Custom Item Specifics to Specify an Item's Condition

Try to use the Condition recommendation in Custom Item Specifics, if available.

Use GetCategoryFeatures and check whether the category you're listing in supports Custom Item Specifics. Specificallly, check whether ItemSpecificsEnabled is set to Enabled or Required.
If this model is enabled, use GetCategorySpecifics (or GetItemRecommendations) to see if eBay recommends Condition (or a localized equivalent) as a name.
If Condition is a recommended name, check to see whether eBay recommends a specific set of values to choose from.
After choosing the right condition recommendation from eBay's list, use Item.ItemSpecifics to specify the condition name and value in AddItem (or related calls).

Using Attributes-Based Item Specifics to Specify an Item's Condition

If the category doesn't recommend Condition as a Custom Item Specific (described above), try to use the older ID-based Item Specifics model (also called the "Attributes model"), if available.

eBay's Attributes model provides a standardized way to describe different aspects of a listing, such as Item Specifics (part of the item's basic description).

Please note that you may need to spend a good deal of time learning about Attributes in order to use this format successfully. See Working with Attribute-Based Features for general information about working with the Attributes model and definitions of terms like attribute and characteristic set.

To use eBay's Attributes model to specify an item's condition:

Use GetCategory2CS to retrieve the characteristic set mappings for the category in which you are listing. See Retrieving Category-to-Meta-Data Mappings.

It's a good idea to retrieve the mappings for all categories, store the results locally, and then look up the category of interest in those results.

Examine both the mapped categories and the site-wide list to determine which characteristic sets are mapped to the category in which you are listing. In particular, you need to know the characteristic set IDs (CharacteristicsSets.AttributeSetID) that are associated with each category ID.

Some sites, like eBay Germany, define a site-wide Item Condition characteristic set. This means you can use the same Item Condition attribute details for all categories that are mapped to the characteristic set.

Other sites, like eBay US, do not support a site-wide Item Condition characteristic set. This means different characteristic sets define different Item Condition attribute details. For example, some categories may support New and Used, others may support New, Used, and Refurbished, and other variations may also exist.

For US Media categories only (Books, DVD & Movies, Music, Video Games), you can use the lookup attribute fields (LookupAttribute) and specify "New" or "Used" instead of specifying the Conditon attribute (so you don't need to look up the IDs).

Example 5-1 shows a snippet of a mapping in the GetCategory2CS response from the US site. (These mappings change periodically, so it is a good idea to call GetCategory2CS once a day to check for updates). This shows that category ID 98082 (a Complete Bikes & Frames category) is mapped to attribute set ID 1900 (the BMX Bikes & Frames characteristic set).

Example 5-1 A Category-to-Characteristic Set Mapping (BMX Bikes & Frames)

<Category> <CategoryID>98082</CategoryID> <CharacteristicsSets> <Name>BMX Bikes &amp; Frames</Name> <AttributeSetID>1900</AttributeSetID> <AttributeSetVersion>34709</AttributeSetVersion> </CharacteristicsSets> <ProductFinderIDs> <ProductFinderID>1848</ProductFinderID> <ProductFinderBuySide>true</ProductFinderBuySide> </ProductFinderIDs> </Category>

Use GetAttributesCS to retrieve attribute details (meta-data) for the characteristic set of interest. See Retrieving Item Specifics Meta-Data.

Table 5-1 lists the attribute details for various sites that support a site-wide Item Condition.

For sites like the US, you need to examine the GetAttributesCS response to determine the attribute definition for the characteristic set of interest (i.e., the one that is mapped to the category in which you are listing). In particular, you need the attribute and value IDs which you will use as input to AddItem (as described later in this section).

Example 5-2 shows the Condition attribute definition for a characteristic set on the US site, as returned in the GetAttributesCS response. In this case, the characteristic set ID is 1900 (BMX Bikes & Frames), the attribute ID is 10244 (Condition), and the value IDs are 10425 (New) and 10246 (Used).

Example 5-2 Item Condition Attribute Meta-Data (BMX Bikes & Frames)

<CharacteristicsSet order="2" id="1900"> <DomainName><![CDATA[BMX Bikes & Frames]]></DomainName> ... more elements here ... <Attribute labelVisible="true" id="10244"> <Label><![CDATA[Condition]]></Label> <Type><![CDATA[2]]></Type> <EditType>0</EditType> <HelpText><![CDATA[http://pages.ebay.com/help/attrhelp/contextual/ siteid0_vcsid1900_attrid10244.html]]></HelpText> <HasGlossary /> <ValueList count="3"> <Value id="-10"> <Name><![CDATA[-]]></Name> </Value> <Value id="10425"> <Name><![CDATA[New]]></Name> </Value> <Value id="10426"> <Name><![CDATA[Used]]></Name> </Value> </ValueList> <ValidationRules> </ValidationRules> </Attribute> ... more elements here ...

A number of other characteristic sets use these same IDs for the Item Condition. However, some do not. Also some characteristic sets do not define an Item Condition at all. Therefore, you should always look up the correct IDs, if any, for the category you are using.

(Optional) Retrieve the Item Specifics SYI XSL stylesheet. See Retrieving the Item Specifics SYI XSL Stylesheet.

If your application supports a graphical user interface, we usually recommend that you use the Item Specifics SYI XSL stylesheet to present Item Specifics (the attribute meta-data) to the seller.

However, if you do not want to fully support Item Specifics, and you only want to support the Item Condition, it may not be necessary to use the stylesheet.

To render the condition attribute (if any) and other Item Specifics, apply the XSL stylesheet, present the Item Specifics page to the seller, and capture the seller's selections. See Working with the Item Specifics XSL Stylesheet.

Use AddItem to add the listing with the condition the seller selected.

Use the Item.AttributeSetArray.AttributeSet property to specify the item condition attribute details when you are working with AddItem, VerifyAddItem, ReviseItem, or RelistItem requests. See Listing with Item Specifics and Catalog Data for more information about this format and the IDs you need to set.

Example 5-3 shows a snippet from an AddItem request in which the category ID is 98082 (Complete Bikes & Frames), the attribute set ID is 1900 (BMX Bikes & Frames), the attribute ID is 10244 (Item Condition), and the attribute value is 10425 (New).

Example 5-3 An Item Condition Attribute in AddItem

<PrimaryCategory> <CategoryID>98082</CategoryID> </PrimaryCategory> <AttributeSetArray> <AttributeSet attributeSetID="1900"> <Attribute attributeID="10244"> <Value> <ValueID>10425</ValueID> </Value> </Attribute> </AttributeSet> </AttributeSetArray>

Site-Wide Item Condition Details

The table below lists the site-wide characteristic set IDs, attribute IDs and value IDs that are supported on certain sites. Other sites (like the US) do not currently support site-wide attributes. You should use GetAttributesCS to programmatically determine condition attributes for individual characteristic sets (and the most recent IDs for these site-wide characteristic sets).

Table 5-1 Site-Wide Item Condition Meta-Data 

Site (ID)	AttributeSet ID	AttributeSet Label	Attribute ID	Attribute Label	Value ID	Value Label
UK (3)	1952	Item Condition	10244	Item Condition	10425	New
					10426	Used
AU (15)	2431	Item Condition	10244	Item Condition	10425	New
					10426	Used
AT (16)	2033	Artikelzustand	10244	Artikelzustand	10425	Neu
					10426	Gebraucht
DE (77)	1950	Artikelzustand	10244	Artikelzustand	10425	Neu
					10426	Gebraucht
CH (193)	2036	Artikelzustand	10244	Artikelzustand	10425	Neu
					10426	Gebraucht
IN (203)	2299	Item Condition	10244	Item Condition (required)	10425	New
					10426	Used

User-Contributed Notes