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Program news

We hope everyone is well. We want to take this time to share with you some eBay Developers Program updates from the recent quarter (January - March 2025). 

New Sell API guides available

We have recently launched six new Sell API guides that can be accessed from the Selling Apps page. Each guide consists of detailed use cases and follows a consistent template designed to enhance usability and comprehension. The available guides include:

New Pre-owned conditions for apparel categories

222 Pre-loved Apparel leaf categories now support three separate Pre-owned item conditions - Pre-owned - Fair (ID 3010), Pre-owned - Good (ID 3000), and Pre-owned - Excellent (ID 2990). This change has been rolled out globally.

Condition ID 3000 is not new, but the condition description for affected categories was changed from “Pre-owned” to “Pre-owned - Good”. The getItemAspectsForCategory and fetchItemAspects methods have been updated to show the new conditions and the repurposed Condition ID 3000. 

To support the two new conditions in the Inventory API, PRE_OWNED_EXCELLENT and PRE_OWNED_FAIR were added as values to the ConditionEnum type.


API updates

The following updates have been made to our APIs this quarter.

New createDocumentFromUrl method in Media API

The Media API has been enhanced with a new createDocumentFromUrl method. This method allows the download of a document from a specified URL, and if successful, eBay will upload that document to the seller’s account.

In the request of this method, the user will have to supply the documentType value, and will have to specify which language(s) the document is written in through the languages array.

A successful createDocumentFromUrl call will return a documentId field, and this value will be used in the documents.documentId field of the Inventory API, or the Document.DocumentID field of the Trading API to attach a document to a listing.

Six new methods in Metadata API

Six methods were recently added to the Metadata API. These methods provide various leaf category-level metadata for a specified eBay marketplace. All six of these endpoints can provide metadata for all leaf categories on a marketplace with one call, or the user can set an inclusive filter to include up to 50 leaf categories. These endpoints are briefly discussed below:.

  • getListingTypePolicies: retrieves the listing types and listing durations of those listing types that a category supports.
  • getCategoryPolicies: retrieves various metadata, including the supported offline payment methods for a category, the minimum auction reserve price for the category, and a boolean to indicate if the category supports immediate payments.
  • getClassifiedAdPolicies: retrieves metadata related to classified ad listings, including whether the category supports classified ads.
  • getMotorsListingPolicies: retrieves metadata related to motor vehicles and Parts & Accessories listings.
  • getShippingPolicies: retrieves metadata related to shipping, including maximum flat rate shipping costs and a boolean to indicate whether the category supports Global Shipping Program (UK only) or eBay International Shipping (US only).
  • getSiteVisibilityPolicies: retrieves metadata that indicates whether the category supports active site visibility on other eBay marketplaces besides the listing marketplace.

Contact URL added as option for GPSR contacts

A contact URL field was added as a GPSR contact option in the following containers:

For a category that requires GPSR contact information, the seller will have the option of supplying one or more of the following: email address, phone number, or contact URL.

Browse API updates

The following changes were made to the getItem, getItemByLegacyId, getItems, and getItemsByItemGroup methods of the Browse API in Q1:

  • A contactUrl field was added to the manufacturer container and the responsiblePersons array. Along with email address and phone number, a seller may also provide a contact URL in the listing for a GPSR contact.
  • A quantity_for_shipping_estimate query parameter was added to the request of the “get item” methods. This parameter allows the user to specify a quantity greater than 1, and then the shipping costs returned under the shippingOptions container will reflect the specified quantity.
  • An immediatePay field was added to indicate if the seller is requesting immediate payment for an item.

API updates for new UK Buyer Protection

Buyers purchasing items from private sellers on the eBay UK marketplace are now charged a Buyer Protection fee. The following changes were made to order-related APIs to show this new fee and the taxes charged against this fee:

For more information about the UK Buyer Protection fee, see the Buyer Protection fee help topic. 

Two new Product Safety pictograms added 

eBay now supports two new Product Safety pictograms - CE marking and Contains coin battery. The getProductSafetyLabels method was updated to return these new pictograms. Product Safety pictograms can be added to listings using the Regulatory.ProductSafety container of Trading API or the regulatory.productSafety container of the Inventory API.

Three new tax identifier types added

The following three new tax identifier types were added to the order management calls of the Trading API (see ValueTypeCodeType) and the Fulfillment API (see TaxIdentifierTypeEnum):

  • CURP: This value indicates that the tax ID type is a CURP number, which is one identifier used by the Mexican tax authorities (SAT) to identify taxpayers in Mexico. In Spanish, this ID is known as the 'Clave Única de Registro de Población'.
  • RFC: This value indicates tax ID type is an RFC number, which is one identifier used by the Mexican tax authorities (SAT) to identify taxpayers in Mexico. In Spanish, this ID is known as the 'Registro Federal de Contribuyentes'.
  • RUT: This value indicates that the tax ID type is a Tax Registration Number, which is an identifier used by the Chileans government to identify taxpayers in Chile. In Spanish, this ID is known as the 'Rol Único Tributario'.

eBay Delivery International Shipping API

The initial version of the eBay Delivery International Shipping API was released in Q1. This API allows Greater-China based eBay sellers to create, manage, and track eBay order shipments. This is a restricted API only available to Greater-China based sellers and requires a special OAuth scope.

New field added for Promotion feed type

A new promotionSourceType field is now returned in the promotion feed type of Buy Feed API v1. This field indicates whether a discount was created by a seller independently or if it was created by eBay for a multi-seller discount event.

eBay deprecation and decommission updates

Both the Shopping API and Finding API were decommissioned in Q1. Former consumers of these APIs should consider the Browse API as the alternative for searching against eBay listings. 

The following Trading API calls were decommissioned in Q1:

  • GeteBayOfficialTime
  • GetChallengeToken
  • ValidateChallengeInput
  • ValidateTestUserRegistration

We hope everyone had a great start to 2025, and we are looking forward to working with the community for the rest of the year!