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Simplified Returns Hero

As announced in the 2018 Spring Seller Update and the UK eBay Business Seller News, eBay is simplifying and streamlining returns on eBay. Our new return policy options will help drive a retail-standard returns experience for buyers and may boost sales for sellers.

Starting this month, the new simplified return options below are available to sellers. Starting in August 2018, listings that sellers do not update to one of these new returns policy options, including Good ‘Til Cancelled, will automatically be updated for them.

  • No returns accepted
  • 30-day returns
  • 60-day returns
  • 30-day returns with free shipping
  • 60-day returns with free shipping

Certain product categories have unique retail standards and sellers of those products will be able to offer variations on the updated returns policy options. Categories that will continue to have the option to offer 14-day returns include Collectibles & Art, Cameras & Photo and Medical, Mobility & Disability Equipment.

 

Note: These changes are already available to sellers on the US site and will be available on all others (AU, UK, CA, CA-FR, DE, FR, IT, ES) incrementally in June.

We understand that some applications depend on API metadata to support return policies. Therefore, the API will continue to accept listings with a 14-day return policy through late August, to minimize interruptions.

To provide buyers with the more streamlined experience that they will expect, we recommend that you offer sellers options to make the necessary changes as soon as possible.

API Changes

The following changes will be available in the eBay API.

Listing and Inventory APIs (Trading API AddItem family, Sell APIs, and Business Policy API)

  • Sellers can now specify different requirements for domestic and international returns.
  • Sellers will not be able to specify extended holiday, warranty and restocking fees.
  • Germany, France, Italy & Spain sites will continue to support ReturnPolicy.Description in listings. Other sites will no longer support this field.
  • Only the US site (0) and Motors (100) will continue to support Refund Type.
  • When you list with ReturnsAccepted, also specify ReturnsWithinOption and ShippingCostPaidByOption

Metadata APIs

  • GeteBayDetails will stop showing return policies with a compatibility level in July. Migrate to GetCategoryFeatures for the latest policies.
  • GetCategoryFeatures will return category-specific return policies.
  • Sell Metadata will return category-specific return policies in a future release.

Timeline of API Updates

API schema is being updated as per the following timelines.

Sandbox Production API Schema Updates
Available now Available now Trading API updates (Addition of International return policies and Simplified Returns and Deprecation of unsupported fields (e.g., restocking fee)
Business Policies Management API updates
Account API updates
Mid-June 2018 Mid-June 2018 Changes to Compliance API
eBay SDK Updates with schema: 1061
Aug 2018 Aug 2018 Changes to GetCategoryFeatures
Changes to Sell Metadata (get_Return_Policies)
eBay SDK Updates with new schema
Sellers will no longer be able to list or revise items that have 14-day returns (exceptions listed above)

Best Practices to Support These Changes

For all users:

  • We recommend that sellers update their business policies using the API or the eBay website to ensure that they are compliant with the simplified options.
  • Integrate with the Compliance API in June to help sellers identify listings that are not compliant.

For Trading API users:

  • If you code against the WSDL or XSD directly, update to schema version 1061 or higher to support the new elements.
  • Integrate with GetCategoryFeatures to retrieve the options that vary by category, or see the Exceptions section in the Top Rated Plus Overview to determine options available by categories.

For Inventory API users: