Determining Category Support for Certain Features

Subtopics

Determining Whether a Category Supports Reserve Prices

URLs for Category Lists for Global eBay Sites

As described earlier, GetCategories returns the core information about each category, such as the category name, ID, level in the hierarchy, and so forth. It also returns information about each category's parent ID so that you can build the category tree within your application. In addition, GetCategories returns information about a few listing features that are supported by individual categories.

As the volume of the data returned from GetCategories can be quite large, the user can use the GetCategoryFeatures call instead to get information about certain features that are available for one or more categories (see GetCategoryFeatures). Use the getItemAspectsForCategory method of the Taxonomy API to determine which item specifics are required/recommended/available for a category.

When you use calls like GetCategoryFeatures, you may need to combine the results with information from GetCategories in order to build a complete set of information about an individual category and the features it supports. For example, GetCategoryFeatures returns category IDs but it does not distinguish between parent and leaf categories, while GetCategories does indicate which categories are leaf categories.

Discovering How Categories Treat Use of Reserve Prices

A category can allow listings with reserve prices. A reserve price is the lowest price at which a seller is willing to part with the listed item through an auction listing.

Some categories that allow listings with reserve prices also allow you to reduce those reserve prices when you modify an item. Other categories do not.

An entire site may or may not support reserve prices on items being listed. This value is indicated by the ReservePriceAllowed field returned by GetCategories. If ReservePriceAllowed is true, the site overall allows reserve prices. Note that GetCategories returns the value of ReservePriceAllowed, but you cannot set it.

Similarly, an entire site may or may not support reducing reserve prices on listed items. This value is indicated by the ReduceReserveAllowed field returned by GetCategories. If ReduceReserveAllowed is true, the site overall allows reducing reserve prices. Note that GetCategories returns the value of ReduceReserveAllowed, but you cannot set it.

GetCategories also returns the value of MinimumReservePrice, the lowest reserve price allowed for the site, but does not set it.

If the ORPA (Override Reserve Price Allowed) field's value is returned under a Category node as true, it indicates that the reserve price can be overridden for listings in that category, but the eBay site's default value for this setting is actually false. If ReservePriceAllowed is true for the site and ORPA is true for the category, the site allows reserve prices in general but the category does not allow reserve prices.

You cannot set the ORPA field for a category. Categories are defined for individual eBay sites by the eBay site administrator and vary from one site to the next. That is, the US eBay site has different categories than, say, the Germany eBay site.

You can, however, use GetCategories to return an array of categories and parse the response for the values of ReservePriceAllowed, MinimumReservePrice, and ORPA to determine the rules for a given category. Any combination of values for the three fields is possible.

Similarly, the ORRA (Override Reduce Reserve Allowed) field in Category, if set to true, reverses the site's ReduceReserveAllowed setting for the category. That is, if ReduceReserveAllowed is false for the site and ORPA is true for the category, the site does not allow sellers to reduce reserve prices in general but the category does allow sellers to reduce reserve prices. If ReduceReserveAllowed is true for the site and ORPA is true for the category, the site allows sellers to reduce reserve prices in general but the category does not allow sellers to reduce reserve prices. You cannot set the ORRA field for a category. Parse the response for the values of ReduceReserveAllowed, MinimumReservePrice, and ORRA to determine the rules for a given category.

Depending on the site and category, you also may need to call GetCategoryFeatures and check MinimumReservePrice.

Remember that:

URLs for Category Lists for Global eBay Sites

The table below shows the URLs for the category lists on the various eBay marketplaces.

Table: Category Lists for Global eBay Sites
Site (ID) URL
AT (16)

https://www.ebay.at/sch/allcategories/all-categories
AU (15)

https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/allcategories/all-categories
BEFR (23)

https://www.befr.ebay.be/sch/allcategories/all-categories
BENL (123)

https://www.benl.ebay.be/sch/allcategories/all-categories
CA (2)

https://www.ebay.ca/sch/allcategories/all-categories
CAFR (210)

https://www.cafr.ebay.ca/sch/allcategories/all-categories
CH (193)

https://www.ebay.ch/sch/allcategories/all-categories
DE (77)

https://www.ebay.de/sch/allcategories/all-categories
ES (186)

https://www.ebay.es/sch/allcategories/all-categories
FR (71)

https://www.fr.ebay.com/sch/allcategories/all-categories
HK (201)

https://www.ebay.com.hk/sch/allcategories/all-categories
IE (205)

https://www.ebay.ie/sch/allcategories/all-categories
IT (101)

https://www.ebay.it/sch/allcategories/all-categories
MY (207)

https://www.ebay.com.my/sch/allcategories/all-categories
NL (146)

https://www.ebay.nl/sch/allcategories/all-categories
PH (211)

https://www.ebay.ph/sch/allcategories/all-categories
PL (212)

https://www.ebay.pl/sch/allcategories/all-categories
SG (216)

https://www.ebay.com.sg/sch/allcategories/all-categories
UK (3)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/allcategories/all-categories
US (0)

https://www.ebay.com/sch/allcategories/all-categories