Working with Platform Notifications

In addition to sending and receiving data via eBay Trading API calls, your application can retrieve data sent by the eBay servers as Platform Notifications. To use this data, your application must be able to retrieve information from locations you specify when you set up your Notification Preferences.

Platform Notifications are triggered by events such as the ending of a listing or the creation of a transaction. Platform notifications are not identical in intent, or content, to the email messages that buyers and sellers might get when an item is listed, bid on, or purchased. However, they may contain some of the same data that appears in those messages. If your application uses notifications, it is a good practice to use API calls to confirm the data received using notifications.

Unlike API calls, which handle data using a request-response model, eBay Platform Notifications use an asynchronous style of operation in which the data is pushed from eBay when it is available. That is, when you set Notification Preferences, you provide eBay with URLs or email addresses, and then eBay delivers the notifications to these locations as events occur.

If you subscribe to Platform Notifications, you can reduce the number of times your application needs to execute transaction retrieval, feedback, and other routine API calls because the data is pushed to a location that your application monitors.

Your application can subscribe to notifications using SetNotificationPreferences and can check the preferences already set with GetNotificationPreferences. See SetNotificationPreferences and GetNotificationPreferences for more details. Your platform notification usage can be monitored with GetNotificationsUsage. For more information on GetNotificationsUsage and how to use it to troubleshoot notification problems, see GetNotificationsUsage.

Use ApplicationDeliveryPreferences.ApplicationURL to specify a default URL to receive notifications for your application. Notifications will not be sent to any URL(s) if ApplicationDeliveryPreferencesType.ApplicationEnable is set to Disable.

See also Specifying Multiple Notification URLs and Email Privacy Policy.

In this chapter:

Notifications for Buyers and Sellers
Subscribing to Platform Notifications
Receiving Platform Notifications
Informational Alerts

User-Contributed Notes