Overview

The Account Management APIs allow developers to manage account settings, user preferences, and account configurations to enhance the seller’s experience on eBay. These APIs included methods to create and manage business policies and custom policies, retrieve seller payout and other monetary transaction data, and manage shipping rate tables, enabling sellers to maintain compliance with eBay’s requirements and optimize their operations.

API Use Cases

Managing business policies
Managing custom policies
Managing seller finances
Managing shipping rate tables
Retrieving subscription and advertising eligibility
Managing sales tax settings
User account calls
Managing opt-in programs
Managing business policies

The Account Management APIs allow sellers to define and manage their payment, return, and fulfillment business policies. These business policies can be applied to listings in the Listing Management APIs by referencing their IDs in the request payloads.

Managing custom policies

Sellers can manage custom policies such as product compliance and take-back policies to meet regulatory and custom expectations. These policies can be applied to listings in the Listing Management APIs by referencing their IDs in the request payloads.

  • Use the createCustomPolicy method to define new custom policies, including product compliance and take-back policies.
  • Use the getCustomPolicies method to retrieve all existing custom policies, including product compliance and take-back policies.
  • Use the getCustomPolicy method to retrieve details of a specific custom policy by ID.
  • Use the updateCustomPolicy method to make changes to existing custom policies, including product compliance and take-back policies.
Managing seller finances

The Finances API provides a comprehensive view of financial transactions and payouts between sellers and eBay. Use the Finances API to fetch details of all transactions, including fees, charges, and credits.

  • Use getPayouts to retrieve a list of payouts issued to the seller. Use getPayout to fetch detailed information about a specific payout.
  • Use getPayoutSettings and updatePayoutPercentage in the Account API v2 to configure and retrieve seller payout settings. These methods are only applicable to sellers based in mainland China.
  • Use getTransactions to retrieve financial transactions such as sales, eBay shipping label purchases, listing fees, buyer refunds, and seller credits.
  • Use getSellerFundsSummary to get an overview of the seller's payout funds, including available, on-hold, and processing amounts, helping track and manage finances effectively.
  • Use getTransfer to retrieve the details of a specific monetary transfer between eBay and the seller, including the amount, status, currency, date, and related metadata for tracking and reconciliation.
  • Use GetAccount to retrieve the seller's account balance, fees, and invoice information.

Note: 
To comply with EU and UK payments regulatory requirements, specific API calls made on behalf of EU/UK domiciled sellers must include digital signatures. These requirements are mandated under Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulations to ensure secure transactions.

Account management APIs and methods requiring digital signatures

  • Finances API: All methods.
  • Trading API: GetAccount call.
Managing shipping rate tables

Shipping rate tables allow sellers to define shipping costs based on various factors, including the buyer's location. Sellers can create both domestic and international shipping rate tables to cater to different shipping needs. These tables can be applied to listings by referencing the rate table ID in the Listing Management APIs.

  • Use getRateTables in the Account API v1 to fetch a list of all shipping rate tables. 
  • Use getRateTable in the Account API v2 to retrieve a specific rate table that includes shipping cost information.
  • Use updateShippingCost in the Account API v2 to modify costs within existing shipping rate tables.
Retrieving subscription and advertising eligibility

The Account Management APIs include methods for retrieving subscription details, advertising eligibility, and account-level privileges. 

  • Use getPrivileges to verify if a new seller has completed registration and to view daily selling limits, including transaction count and total sales value.
  • Use getSubscription to fetch the seller’s subscription details.
  • Use getAdvertisingEligibility to check the seller’s eligibility for different advertising programs.
Managing sales tax settings

Sellers can configure and manage sales tax rates for specific tax jurisdictions on US and Canada marketplaces.

  • Use getSalesTaxes to fetch all configured sales tax settings.
  • Use getSalesTax to fetch the sales tax settings for a specific jurisdiction.
  • Use createOrReplaceSalesTax to add or modify tax settings for a jurisdiction.
  • Use deleteSalesTax to remove the tax settings for a specific jurisdiction.
  • Use SetTaxTable to configure or update sales tax settings for jurisdictions in the US and Canada.
  • Use GetTaxTable to retrieve the tax settings for all jurisdictions that the seller has configured.
User account calls

The eBay APIs provide essential methods for managing specific account details, including account preferences, shipping discounts, and identity verification.

  • Use GetUser to fetch detailed information about the seller's account, including feedback scores and registration details.
  • Use SetUserPreferences to update seller account preferences.
  • Use GetUserPreferences to retrieve seller account preferences such as business policies, out-of-stock control preferences, shipping cutoff times, and unpaid item assistance preferences.
  • Use the Identity API to verify and manage account-level identity information for sellers, ensuring compliance with eBay's verification policies.
Managing opt-in programs

Sellers can opt into or out of specific eBay programs to tailor their account experience. The currently supported programs include Out-of-Stock control, Business Policies opt-in, and Motors Dealers program:

Code Samples

Retrieve Fulfillment Business Policies for US Marketplace

curl -X GET "https://api.ebay.com/sell/account/v1/fulfillment_policy?marketplace_id=EBAY_US"
-H "Authorization:Bearer OAUTH_token"

Retrieve a List of Seller Payouts for US Marketplace

curl -X GET "https://apiz.ebay.com/sell/finances/v1/payout"
-H "Authorization:Bearer OAUTH_token"
-H X-EBAY-C-MARKETPLACE-ID:EBAY_US

Error Handling

  • If the marketplace ID provided in the API request is invalid, refer to the eBay Marketplace IDs documentation for a list of valid marketplace IDs and ensure the correct marketplace ID is passed in the request.
  • If the API call to create or update a policy fails due to missing required fields, ensure that fields such as name, marketplaceId, and any specific compliance or policy details (e.g., description, categoryTypes) are included and valid. Refer to the API documentation for endpoint-specific field requirements and validate your request payload before making the API call.
  • If creating a new policy fails because a policy with the same name already exists, use the getPolicies method to fetch existing policies and ensure your new policy name is unique.

Best Practices

  • Periodically fetch business policies to ensure consistency between your system and eBay’s account settings.
  • Implement caching for frequently used data like policies or tax settings to reduce redundant API calls.