Writing Selling Manager Applications

Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro help sellers manage listings on eBay. Thus, the Selling Manager API calls provide advanced functionality for managing listings.

Subscribing a User to Selling Manager

Selling Manager calls require a subscription to Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro (and for many calls, Selling Manager Pro is required). As of summer 2009, a Selling Manager subscription is free for all sellers. For information about specific Selling Manager calls, including subscription requirements, see the Trading API Call Reference:

Trading API Call Reference

http://developer.ebay.com/DevZone/XML/docs/Reference/eBay/index.html

For general information about Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro, see the following locations.

Selling Manager

http://pages.ebay.com/selling%5Fmanager

Selling Manager Pro

http://pages.ebay.com/selling_manager_pro

Sandbox and Production Use of Selling Manager Calls

Selling Manager calls are available to all applications in the sandbox environment. The calls are subject to change without notice; the deprecation process is inapplicable to these calls.

In the production environment, the following restrictions apply to the calls:

Only for use by Selling Manager applications
Only for use on the US site

For information about creating a Selling Manager application, see the following location:

http://developer.ebay.com/products/selling-manager-applications/

Concepts for Selling Manager Calls

You can use Selling Manager calls to help sellers manage listings based on sellers' folders, products, templates, and automation rules.

For the input and output fields of all the calls (including calls for revise and delete operations), see the Trading API Call Reference, accessible from Selling Manager Documentation.

Here is an overview of the concepts used in many of the calls:

Folder. A container for similar products.
Inventory. The products available for listing, along with their quantities, templates, and folders.
Product. A type of merchandise. A product name is the same as a sale template group name. A product ID is the same as a sale template group ID. A Selling Manager product is listed using a Selling Manager template. The concept of "product" in Selling Manager calls is unrelated to the concept of "product" in non-Selling Manager calls (such as GetProducts).
Template. Contains the data needed to list an item. In Selling Manager Pro, a "template" can be thought of as a "listing template." A template ID is accessible by calling GetSellingManagerInventory.
Automation Rule. A rule for automatically listing new items from a template, or for relisting existing items.

Retrieving Selling Manager Inventory and Templates

You can retrieve a seller's existing folders, inventory, and templates before presenting the seller with custom options for managing their listings.

Retrieving Inventory Folders

You can use the GetSellingManagerInventoryFolder call to retrieve a seller's current folder hierarchy. Your application should store the folder hierarchy, and the FolderID-FolderName pairs, in order to present folder-related options to the seller.

Retrieving Inventory

You can use the GetSellingManagerInventory call to retrieve a seller's current product, template, and inventory data. Your application needs this data to present inventory-related options to the seller.

Retrieving Templates

After obtaining at least one SaleTemplateID, e.g. using GetSellingManagerInventory, you can use the GetSellingManagerTemplates call to retrieve the data for one or more of a seller's templates. This data enables your application to present template-related options to a seller.

Adding, Revising, and Deleting Products and Templates

Your application can perform add, revise, and delete operations on products and templates. For a list of the calls available for these operations, see the Trading API Call Reference link in Selling Manager Documentation.

Adding a Product

If a seller wants a new type of merchandise, i.e. a new product, use AddSellingManagerProduct.

Adding a Template

Use AddSellingManagerTemplate when a seller wants to create a new set of listing data for a new kind of listing. When you use AddSellingManagerTemplate, specify the product for which the template will be used by specifying a ProductID.

Using Selling Manager Automation Rules

A seller can use automation rules to automatically list and relist items that are based on a specific template. For example, a seller can specify that a set of items is automatically relisted unless the product inventory is at or below a certain level.

Retrieving Current Automation Rules

If you want to retrieve a template's automation rules, use GetSellingManagerTemplateAutomationRule, specifying the template ID in the SaleTemplateID field.

Adding New Automation Rules

Using SetSellingManagerTemplateAutomationRule, you can add an automation rule to an existing template. After you retrieve the seller's templates using the GetSellingManagerTemplates call, you specify the template ID (in SaleTemplateID) of the template to which you want to associate a rule. The rule is added to existing rules. To delete a rule, use DeleteSellingManagerTemplateAutomationRule.

See the input fields for SetSellingManagerTemplateAutomationRule (accessible from Selling Manager Documentation) to see the available rules and the available settings for each rule.

Retrieving Selling Manager Alerts and Email Logs

A Selling Manager Application can provide a seller with alerts and email logs.

Retrieving Alerts

Use GetSellingManagerAlerts to retrieve up-to-date data about listings. The types of data you can retrieve are:

Automation alerts. Alerts related to automation rules, e.g. that an automation rule that normally would have listed an item has failed to list the item.
General alerts. General alerts, e.g. that negative feedback was received.
Inventory alerts. Alerts related to inventory, e.g. that a product is low in stock.
PaisaPay alerts. Alerts related to items paid with the the PaisaPay payment method.
Sold alerts. Alerts related to sold items, e.g. that payment for an item is overdue.

Retrieving Email Logs

Use GetSellingManagerEmailLog to retrieve a log of emails that a seller sent, or is scheduled to send, to a buyer. The log includes emails regarding the buyer's payment and feedback. For each email, the log indicates the state of the email (successful, pending, or failed).

Retrieving and Modifying Data About Sold Items

Using a time-range filter or another filter, you can get a list of a seller's sold items. You also can retrieve records of individual items that were sold.

Retrieving a List of Items Sold

You can use GetSellingManagerSoldListings to retrieve comprehensive information about items sold.

Retrieving and Revising a Record of Sale

You can use GetSellingManagerSaleRecord to retrieve a detailed, individual sale record. You can use ReviseSellingManagerSaleRecord to revise many fields of a record, e.g. the pay date, sales tax, and shipping address and date.

Selling Manager Documentation

The 26 Selling Manager calls provide functionality that is provided by Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro.

Links to the input and output of the Selling Manager calls are available in the Table of Contents of the Trading API Call Reference:

Trading API Call Reference

http://developer.ebay.com/DevZone/XML/docs/Reference/eBay/index.html

User-Contributed Notes