Specifying Shipping Costs when Creating or Revising a Listing
This section contains the following topics. Additional information about shipping-related costs is in Miscellaneous Shipping Topics.
Required Domestic Shipping Service
Specifying Calculated Shipping
Required Domestic Shipping Service
Although requirements for specified shipping vary by site, sellers are strongly encouraged to add specified shipping to all listings. If items in a category require specified shipping, then GetCategoryFeatures returns true for Category.ShippingTermsRequired.
On the Germany (DE) and Spain (ES) sites, users must specify at least one domestic shipping service.
On the US site, users must specify at least one domestic shipping service, and must specify whether the shipping is flat or calculated. The exception is freight shipping, and if freight shipping is specified, there is not a requirement to specify the cost.
In most cases, a seller specifies one or more shipping services, and the seller specifies a service for flat and, calculated shipping (see Specifying Flat Rate Shipping, Specifying Calculated Shipping).
Sometimes, though, a seller does not wish to (and, in certain cases, cannot) select a shipping service for a particular shipping carrier. Consider these scenarios:
- "I will not ship the item. You must arrange for pickup of the item."
- "Shipping is free for you!"
- "I will ship via FedEx. The cost to you (beyond the cost of the item) will be the actual FedEx charge plus $2 for my trouble."
- "If you are the winning bidder, contact me and tell me how you want it shipped, and we'll work out the cost."
- "This item requires freight shipping. I will pick the freight shipping carrier and work out the details with you once I know your location."
Specifying Local Pickup
If a seller does not intend to ship an item, set Item.ShippingDetails.ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingService to LocalDelivery. (Note: There is slightly different behavior on the eBay website. First time sellers listing an item through eBay website must provide at least one domesting shipping service.)
Specifying Free Shipping
(For the eBay US web site only.) When ShippingServiceOption.FreeShipping is set to true, the cost of shipping is zero for the first domestic shipping service (for flat or calculated shipping).
If InsuranceOption is Required and FreeShipping is true, eBay changes the insurance cost to 0 for that shipping service. But if InsuranceOption is Optional, the cost of shipping insurance remains, for it is up to the buyer whether to buy shipping insurance, regardless of whether the seller specified free shipping.
This applies to the AddItem family of calls. This element is also returned by GetItem and GetItemShipping if the first domestic shipping service was marked as FreeShipping.
Specifying Freight Shipping
See Specifying Freight Shipping.
Specifying Other Shipping Solutions
In rare cases, no shipping service in eBay's ShippingServiceCodeType matches what the seller wants to do. The seller can add information to the item description (Item.Description) to explain the shipping situation to bidders.
Mixing Shipping Types
A seller can offer up to three domestic shipping services and up to three international shipping services. All domestic services must be the same shipping type (for example, Flat versus Calculated); the same is true for international shipping services offered by the seller.
For eBay US and for Motors Parts and Accessories, a seller can mix flat rate and calculated shipping types on domestic and international shipping services; that is, the seller can opt to use flat rate shipping for domestic shipping services and calculated shipping for international shipping services, and vice versa. The ShippingType values CalculatedDomesticFlatInternational and FlatDomesticCalculatedInternational exist for this reason.
See also InternationalShippingServiceOptionsType and ShippingServiceOptionsType.
Which input properties are required and which tags are returned in the realm of shipping depends on whether the seller selected flat rate or calculated shipping and on whether domestic or international shipping services have been offered.
Revising Shipping Details
The typical approach for revising a listing is to omit a tag if its value is to remain unchanged. You should not use this approach with shipping tags, however. Certain shipping tags are of concern: if you omit them while revising an item, shipping information related to those tags will removed from the listing.
Therefore, if you are revising a listing for which shipping details were previously provided, the best practice is for you to resubmit all details related to shipping, even if all of those shipping details are no different from those in the original listing.
For example, if you specify ShippingDetails when you revise or relist an item but you omit its child field InternationalShippingServiceOption, eBay will drop any international shipping services from the listing.
For multi-quantity Store Inventory Format listings and for multi-quantity Fixed Price listings, a seller can revise all shipping details of the listing (except for sales tax and for shipping type of Freight) for all unsold items. This applies to both domestic and international shipping. Checkout is not affected for those who bought items prior to the seller's shipping changes--the shipping details that were in effect at the time of purchase are used for that buyer at the time of checkout.
See also Restrictions on Changing Item Properties During a Revision.
Specifying Flat Rate Shipping
Elements of Flat Rate Shipping
Maximum Flat Rate Shipping Cost
Elements of Flat Rate Shipping
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Note: For the latest, most accurate descriptions of the elements below, see the schema documentation or eBay Trading API Call Reference documentation for these elements.
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A key container is ShippingDetails. In it you find the following tags for flat rate shipping:
InsuranceDetails.InsuranceFee
InsuranceDetails.InsuranceOption
InternationalInsuranceDetails.InsuranceFee
InternationalInsuranceDetails.InsuranceOption
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShipToLocation
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShippingService
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShippingServiceAdditionalCost
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShippingServiceCost
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShippingServicePriority
ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingService
ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingServiceAdditionalCost
ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingServiceCost
ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingServicePriority
ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingSurcharge
ShippingType
Other key tags:
Item.ShipToLocations
Using Flat Shipping
Set ShippingDetails.ShippingType to Flat.
Specify the domestic and international shipping services. If any international shipping services are specified, at least one domestic shipping service must be specified. The seller can specify up to three domestic shipping services and up to three international shipping services from which the buyer may choose. Use ShippingServicePriority to note the seller's preference for sequence of display of the corresponding shipping service relative to the other services (1 = first in list).
Set the base shipping cost and the cost for shipping additional items, if fitting.
Set the insurance costs, if any. The values that the seller selects for such things as ShippingServiceCost and InsuranceFee are completely up to the seller, regardless of what the seller actually has to pay for such services. The seller sets the prices and the buyer chooses from among the shipping options. If the seller has offered insurance (as opposed to requiring it or not offering it at all), InsuranceWanted represents whether the buyer has chosen to pay for insurance. See Shipping Insurance.
If shipping insurance is used and InsuranceFee is a nonzero value, InsuranceOption should be one of Optional, Required or IncludedInShippingHandling. IncludedInShippingHandling exists because a carrier might include insurance at no additional cost when the shipping/handling cost reaches a certain level—see
Automatic Shipping Insurance.
See Shipping Insurance.
To learn how total shipping cost is calculated using these values, see Determining Shipping Costs for a Listing.
For details about the individual fields, see the eBay Unified Schema eBay Trading API Call Reference (for example, in AddItem):
Maximum Flat Rate Shipping Cost
"Total shipping cost" is the sum of the seller's base flat rate shipping charge and the cost of insurance (if insurance is required). For some categories, eBay imposes a maximum on the shipping cost that a seller can specify for the first domestic flat rate shipping service.
In most cases, the maximum shipping cost depends only upon the category in which the listing is being created. The key element in such a case is MaxFlatShippingCost.
In a few cases, the maximum cost depends not only on the category but also on which "shipping service group" the particular shipping service is in. eBay has put certain shipping services in groups. (Grouping is irrelevant to you and to the seller. But an example for a group established by eBay might be "all services for which insurance is required." ) Key elements in these cases are three GroupNMaxFlatShippingCost elements (where N can be 1, 2 or 3).
Call GetCategoryFeatures periodically (but not with every listing) to establish a database of facts about maximum flat rate shipping cost per site and per category and per shipping service. (See GetCategoryFeatures documentation to learn the basic use of this call.) Here is how to interpret the response of GetCategoryFeatures regarding maximum flat rate shipping cost:
- If you find no MaxFlatRateShippingCost element and no GroupNMaxFlatShippingCost elements, there is no maximum shipping cost for that category.
- If you find a MaxFlatRateShippingCost element, there is a maximum flat rate shipping cost for that category and it does not matter what shipping service was offered by the seller. (You will not find any GroupNMaxFlatShippingCost elements if there is a MaxFlatRateShippingCost element.) The maximum cost is the value of the MaxFlatRateShippingCost element.
- If you find GroupNMaxFlatShippingCost elements, the maximum flat rate shipping cost depends on what shipping group the first flat rate domestic shipping service is in. (You will not find any MaxFlatRateShippingCost element if there are GroupNMaxFlatShippingCost elements.)
- If SiteDefaults.MaxFlatShippingCostCBTExempt is returned and is
true, no maximum cost is imposed when the seller lists an item that ships into the country of that site from another country.
The value of each GroupNMaxFlatShippingCost element is the maximum cost associated with the group with that name.
Call GeteBayDetails with DetailName set to ShippingServiceDetails and find the ShippingServiceDetails container corresponding to the first flat domestic shipping service. The value of ShippingServiceDetails.CostGroupFlat is the name of the group to which that shipping service belongs. The maximum cost is the value of the corresponding GroupNMaxFlatShippingCost element from GetCategoryFeatures.
Once you know the maximum, you can test your seller's proposed total shipping cost to ensure it does not exceed the maximum shipping cost.
Specifying Calculated Shipping
Elements of Calculated Shipping
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Note: For the latest, most accurate descriptions of the elements below, see the schema documentation or eBay Trading API Call Reference documentation for these elements.
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A key container is ShippingDetails. In it you find the following tags for calculated shipping:
CalculatedShippingRate.InternationalPackagingHandlingCosts
CalculatedShippingRate.OriginatingPostalCode
CalculatedShippingRate.PackageDepth
CalculatedShippingRate.PackageLength
CalculatedShippingRate.PackageWidth
CalculatedShippingRate.PackagingHandlingCosts
CalculatedShippingRate.ShippingIrregular
CalculatedShippingRate.ShippingPackage
CalculatedShippingRate.WeightMajor
CalculatedShippingRate.WeightMinor
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShipToLocation
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShippingService
InternationalShippingServiceOption.ShippingServicePriority
ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingService
ShippingServiceOptions.ShippingServicePriority
Other key tags:
Item.ShipToLocations
Using Calculated Shipping
Set ShippingDetails.ShippingType to Calculated.
Specify the domestic and international shipping services. If any international shipping services are specified, at least one domestic shipping service must be specified. The seller can specify up to three domestic shipping services and up to three international shipping services from which the buyer may choose. Use ShippingServicePriority to note the seller's preference for sequence of display of the corresponding shipping service relative to the other services (1 = first in list).
You should not attempt to set the base shipping cost (e.g. via ShippingServiceCost) because the base shipping cost is determined by eBay for the shipping service that the buyer selects from among the choices the seller has provided. (See Core Concepts.)
If the seller wishes to add packaging/handling costs, set CalculatedShippingRate.PackagingHandlingCosts. See Packaging/Handling Cost.
You can offer or require insurance for an item with InsuranceOption. However, you cannot set InsuranceOption to IncludedInShippingHandling because insurance is not established by the seller but rather by eBay calculation for the selected shipping service.
The cost of insurance cannot be established for the shipping service until the sale price of the item is known. When it is established, it is seen in ShippingInsuranceCost.
See Shipping Insurance.
The sites which support domestic and international calculated shipping are United States, Canada, Canada France, and Australia.
Package dimensions and weight are required for some combinations of package type and shipping service on some sites. See Package Dimensions and Weight.
For details about the individual fields, see the eBay Unified Schema eBay Trading API Call Reference (for example, in AddItem):
Specifying Freight Shipping
Freight shipping may be required if the items to be shipped exceed a particular weight. Freight shipping solutions exist only for the US and UK sites and only for domestic shipping.
The US eBay site provides a choice for freight shipping: either choose FreightQuote.com as the shipping carrier, or choose "other shipping service" (for freight shipping services not affiliated with eBay).
The only way to choose FreightQuote.com is via the eBay US Web site. There is no API equivalent. In contrast, you can use either the web site or the API to specify that a shipping carrier other than FreightQuote.com is being used.
The UK eBay site offers "courier" shipping. "Courier" is the UK's name for what the US calls "freight".
To specify "other freight service" via API, provide only the following in the ShippingDetails container:
<ShippingDetails>
<ShippingType>FreightFlat</ShippingType>
<ShippingServiceOptions />
</ShippingDetails>
When FreightQuote.com is the shipping carrier, eBay sets ShippingType to Freight and sets ShippingService to FreightShipping.
If the site is US and FreightQuote.com is not the shipping carrier OR if the site is UK and Courier was selected, eBay sets ShippingType to FreightFlat. For the US site, eBay sets ShippingService to Freight, and for the UK site, eBay sets ShippingService to Courier.
The table below summarizes the facts noted above.