eBay: marketplace guide

About this guide

This is a ChannelEngine guide on the US-based marketplace eBay. Here you can find information on how to request an eBay account, how to configure this marketplace on ChannelEngine, and what the specific requirements are.

Table of contents

About this marketplace

Commercial information

How to request an account

Associated costs

Marketplace features

Settings and configuration

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

• Setup
• Categorization
• Mappings
• Additional mappings and options

Additional information

FAQs

About this marketplace

The eBay channel plugin supports two buying models:

• Buy it now - the seller sees the Buy it now button on the listing.

• Accepts offers - the seller sees the Make offer button on the listing.

The Auction buying model is not supported via the eBay channel plugin. For more details on the supported buying models, check out eBay: supported buying models.

Commercial information

* eBay Motors is also available as a separate marketplace, but only for the US market. Although the integration works in the same way, the only categories available are related to cars, motorbikes, and other vehicles.

Disclaimer: to connect to eBay, ChannelEngine uses eBay's Sell API. eBay's backend, however, uses an older platform. Therefore, there could be discrepancies between the feature sets of both systems.

How to request an account

To start selling on eBay, you first need to request a business account. Regardless of the country you use during the setup, one account is sufficient to start selling on every available portal. More information on how to set up selling on eBay can be found on Selling internationally.

eBay is a fully open marketplace, and there are no strict requirements attached to business accounts. The number of different categories and products that you are able to offer via eBay is almost limitless.

If you are a new eBay seller, you may experience pauses in incoming orders because eBay places selling limits on your account. For details on eBay's sales limit policy for new sellers, check out eBay's article Selling limits.

Associated costs

eBay does not charge any listing fees for items listed in your default country. Your default country corresponds to the eBay portal where you originally created your commercial/business account as well as the country where your warehouse is located. However, if you choose to sell internationally through other eBay portals, e.g.: if you initially registered on eBay.co.uk and now want to also list items on eBay.de, you may incur listing fees for each product. The specific fees you may encounter depend on the type of business account you hold and the category in which your products are listed.

For detailed information on commercial seller fees, please visit the eBay help pages for the following regions:

• United Kingdom
• United States
• The Netherlands (in Dutch)
• Germany (in German)
• Italy (in Italian)

If your eBay store is not included in the list above, refer to the commercial seller fees section in the help center of your specific eBay market for more details.

Marketplace features

1. ChannelEngine reflects the list of supported carriers that are present in eBay's API. The list that appears on ChannelEngine can differ from the stated list on eBay's backend due to a discrepancy between eBay's API and the eBay backend.
2. Returns is currently in beta, so the related task cannot be scheduled to run automatically. Check out the section Returns below.
3. On eBay, SKU matching only works with your existing products.

Settings and configuration

Setting up each channel on ChannelEngine follows the same flow, though not every channel includes the steps listed below.

1. Go through the Setup.
2. Create a Product selection.
3. Complete the Categorization.
4. Set up the Mappings: content, offers, and carriers.
5. Configure the Pricing: rules and currency conversion.
6. Fill in the Stock settings.
7. Finish the Activation.
8. Check the Listed products overview.

Marketplace-specific requirements and exceptions

Setup

On eBay

If your business is based in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, or Switzerland, sign up via eBay's starter promo page. For other countries, sign up for an eBay account in a regular way. 

Following the creation of your account, set up the mandatory policies necessary for ChannelEngine to list your products on eBay. The policies that must be set up are Payment, Return, and Shipping.

1. Go to Account settings, Business policies on eBay. For all the policies listed below, it is recommended to choose an easy and specific name for ChannelEngine (e.g.: ChannelEngine payment) – without special characters such as colons, semi-colons or hashtags.
2. Create a Payment policy. Its name is required to properly configure ChannelEngine, so make sure to write it down (or copy-paste it). When configuring PayPal as a payment method, it is advised to enable Require immediate payment when buyer uses Buy It Now to prevent orders from remaining on a waiting status for a long period.
3. Create a Return policy. An easy and specific name is also recommended here.

4. Create a Shipping policy. The same naming advice is applicable to this policy as for the Payment policy. The shipping policy is where you set up the countries you want to ship to, and, as such, in what countries the offers are visible. Make sure to only enable countries you can and want to ship to.

   

5. Enter the previously created policies on ChannelEngine.

On ChannelEngine

Settings

• Payment policy name - the name of your payment business policy on eBay.
• Return policy name - the name of your return business policy on eBay.
• Inventory location name - the name of your inventory location on eBay.
• Inventory location country ISO code - the ISO country code associated with your inventory location on eBay. E.g.: US.
• Inventory location address- your street address, e.g.: 545 B James Court.
• Inventory location postcode - the postcode associated with your inventory location on eBay, e.g.: 31578.
• Inventory location city - the city associated with your inventory location on eBay. E.g.: New York.
• Inventory location state or province - the state or province of your inventory location, e.g.: NY or Alberta.
• Set stock to 0 instead of remove offer - enable this setting to set your stock to zero and exclude your product offers from being listed on eBay. This does not remove your products from eBay but only deletes them from the listing. Make sure you enable this setting together with the Out of stock setting on the eBay backend.
• Fetch shipping policy for order - enable this setting to fetch your shipping business policy from eBay and append it to the order extra data. Be careful as enabling this setting adds extra load and may slow down the order import.
• Extra fields to export - select the custom fields that you want to export to eBay as aspects. You can also deselect the fields that you no longer want to export. To learn more about custom fields and aspects, check out eBay: include or exclude custom fields.

Advanced settings

• Enable promotions - this setting is visible only if not already enabled. When enabled, Map promotion and Percentage discount for 2-4 attributes are made available in Offer mappings. If you enable this setting, you must reauthorize and reactivate the channel.
• Enable store category validation - this setting is visible only if not already enabled. When enabled, ChannelEngine validates your mapped eBay store categories against your existing store categories on eBay. If you enable this, you must reauthorize and reactivate the channel. The validation messages are shown on the Validation and feedback tab on the Listed products page.
• Append country code to SKU - send a country code suffix with SKUs whose content appears in multiple languages. For guidance, check out the section Countries and languages below.
• Override shipping policy - overrides the shipping policy values set up on the eBay backend with the shipping costs set on the product level – if such a value is defined on the Content mappings tab.
• Group products by - if your products have variants, check out the section Guidelines for product variations below. Select your desired product family grouping:
  • None - no product variants (default).
  • Parent - the parent-child structure that is used on ChannelEngine. This allows prospective buyers to select by size, color, or whatever value you assign to the Variant aspect attributes.
  • Grandparent - the grandparent-(parent)-child structure that is used on ChannelEngine. The child products are grouped according to their grandparent. The parent product is ignored and is used only to locate the grandparent. This allows prospective buyers to select by size, color, or whatever value you assign to the Variant aspect attributes. 
• STP enabled - if you qualify to send strikethrough pricing to eBay, then enable this setting.
• Import WebInterpret orders - if enabled, ChannelEngine imports orders from the selected eBay accounts (e.g.: eBay IT, eBay FR) into your tenant. This is only applicable if you use WebInterpret's services, which let you list products in additional countries on eBay without the need to create a new account. Orders imported from other eBay accounts include the Marketplace code field as part of the order extra data.

Authorization

Click the orange button Authorize at the bottom of the Authorization page.

A pop-up appears, prompting you to sign in to your eBay account. Once logged in, you can confirm that ChannelEngine is allowed to have access to your account.

Categorization

Categorization on eBay is mandatory. If your categories are not linked, products under those categories are not published on eBay.

Mappings

Content

Attributes that you map in Mappings, Content mappings are sent to eBay as aspects. Only 25 aspects are allowed in your data export to eBay, so:

• The Required attributes are added first,
• and then the Optional attributes,
• and then the attributes from the setting Extra fields to export.

If no maximum length is set on a text attribute that gets exported as an aspect, ChannelEngine truncates comma-separated values to 50 characters. If the text contains commas, each value that is separated by commas is truncated to 50 characters. 

Ensure that your key product attributes are described in 50-character, comma-separated snippets.

For overall guidance on setting up short and long product descriptions, check out eBay: how to set up product descriptions.

All products (required)

• Prefill from eBay catalog - if mapped to yes, eBay populates your product content with input submitted by other merchants. This only works when creating products on eBay. Note that if you map it to no, after mapping it to yes, you must remove the products you had already created on eBay with this input before you can add them again – it is not enough to simply change the attribute value.

• Image URL 1 - the URL for your main product image. The requirements are:

  • Minimum resolution - 500x500 px.
  • Recommended resolution - between 800x800 px and 1,600x1,600 px, which allows prospective buyers to enlarge the images.
  • File format - JPG, BMP, GIF, TIF, PNG, WEBP, HEIC, AVIF. All non-JPEG files are automatically converted to JPEG. Since JPEG files do not support transparency, PNG files that have a transparency element are converted to have a white background. TIF files with transparency may result in a black background being incorrectly rendered.
  • File size - at most 7 MB.
  • Color space - JPEG images must be uploaded in RGB. CMYK is not supported.
  • Images must be free from text and artwork added by the merchant.
  • The image URL must not redirect to another URL.
  • No rate limits, passwords, or tokens in the web hosting serving the image.
  • HTTPS protocol.
  NB: although eBay cannot check if self-hosted images meet the above requirements, self-hosted images that do not comply may be removed from listings at a later stage. Relisting or revising the product may fail if its images do not meet the requirements. 
  NB: if one of the images uses eBay Picture Service: eBay hosted images (eBay EPS), and others do not, ChannelEngine automatically uses its own content delivery network (CDN) to host the images. This is because eBay does not allow for mixing both types of images. In these cases, mapping images to anything other than the usual product image attributes does not work.
  NB: images that do not comply with eBay's requirements may cause issues with the related thumbnails. However, eBay does not provide feedback via the API. Therefore, make sure your images comply before submitting them.

• Shipping policy name - map this attribute with the Shipping policy you created on eBay's backend. 

  NB: for eBay Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, UK, US, and eBay Motors, optional mapping attributes are available on ChannelEngine so that eBay can calculate the shipping policy.  See Package dimensions unit, Package height, Package length, Package width, Package weight, Package weight unit, Package type, and Package irregular shipping in All products (optional). 
• VAT - the product's sales tax, according to the eBay country where it is listed.

All products (optional)

• EPID - the product's eBay product identifier (EPID).
• K-type numbers - see the K-types section.
• Product subtitle - the product's subheading, which helps it stand out in the search results page. Note that eBay charges for the use of this feature. For more details on it, such as the costs involved, check out the Fees for optional listing upgrades section of the Selling fees article on eBay. The maximum number of characters allowed is 55.
• Return policy name override - overrides the default return policy, which is configured on the Setup page of your eBay marketplace.
• Payment policy name override - overrides the default payment policy, which is configured on the Setup page of your eBay marketplace.

• Brand - the product's brand.

  NB: for many product categories, mapping the Brand attribute is required. If this attribute is left unmapped, ChannelEngine attempts to upload the product to eBay, but this might result in errors and unlisted products. The same goes for unique identifier numbers, such as EANs.
• eBay Plus - see the eBay Plus section.
• Image URL 2-10 - the URLs for your additional product images. Additional images can be mapped to default ChannelEngine attributes, or to other extra data attributes, during content mapping. For the image requirements, see Image URL 1. For additional tips and guidelines, check out the articles Introduction to pictures in listings and Adding pictures to your listings in the eBay help center.
• Variant aspect 1-5 name - introduce an aspect that distinguishes product variations from one another. Note that the aspect selected needs to be localized according to the sales channel. E.g.: while you can map this attribute to 'size' for eBay UK and US, you need to map it to Größe for eBay Germany. Follow eBay's taxonomy when mapping this attribute.

• Variant aspect 1-5 value - provides a corresponding value for the Variant aspect name attribute. E.g.: black, small, etc. Follow eBay's taxonomy when mapping this attribute.

  NB: if product variations share identical values for the Variant aspect value attribute, eBay does not display them. This is because values must differ per variation. Check out the section on product variants for more guidance. 
• ISBN - the product's international standard book number (ISBN), if applicable.
• Limit quantity per buyer - use this to limit the maximum quantity of a product a customer can purchase in a single order.
• Package dimensions unit - required if you map the package height, length, or width. Select the unit from a list.
• Package height - the height of the product's packaging. Use the Package dimensions unit attribute to map the unit.
• Package length - the length of the product's packaging. Use the Package dimensions unit attribute to map the unit.
• Package weight - the weight of the product's packaging. Use the Package weight unit attribute to map the unit.
• Package weight unit - required if you map the package weight. Select the unit from the list. 

• Package width - the width of the product's package. Use the Package dimensions unit attribute to map the unit.

  NB: if you map any package dimensions (unit, height, length, or weight), all four are required. If you map either the package weight or the package weight unit, both are required.  
• Package type - the type of package, e.g., envelope, large letter. This attribute is available for mapping only for certain countries.
• Package irregular shipping - indicates whether the package requires special or fragile handling and therefore cannot go through the stamping machine at the shipping service office.
• Product title - the product's title. The maximum number of characters allowed is 80.
• Product description - the product's description. The maximum number of characters allowed is 500,000 and HTML formatting is supported.
• Use product adoption - if enabled, eBay may match your SKU (such as the Manufacturer part number) to offers from other merchants and use their category and product compatibility information (e.g.: K-types). If enabled, eBay sets your MPN to your SKU if the brand is mapped – otherwise, it is left empty. If disabled, eBay sets the MPN to 'Does not apply', and eBay does not do product adoption for newly created products. Note that if you disable this feature, after enabling it, you must remove the products you had already created on eBay with this input before you can add them again – it is not enough to disable the feature.
• Regulatory document 1-5 - the document IDs for the product's safety information that is uploaded to eBay for General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) purposes. Check out GPSR compliance for details.
• Secondary category - the product's second category. Note that eBay may charge a fee if you list your products in two categories.
• Store category 1- if you have set up an eBay store, you can add the first shop category in which the product is listed in the format /<Category>/<Subcategory>/<SubSubcategory> to a maximum of three levels. E.g.: /Fashion/Women/Shirts.
• Store category 2 - if you have set up an eBay store, you can add a second shop category in which the product is listed in the format /<Category>/<Subcategory>/<SubSubcategory> to a maximum of three levels. E.g.: /Fashion/Women/Accessories. 

Category-specific

Auto

• Best offer auto accept price - if mapped, eBay automatically accepts any offer at or above this price. To use this attribute, you must also map the Best offer enabled attribute. This price must be lower than the product's regular selling price.
• Best offer auto decline price - if mapped, eBay automatically declines any offer at or below this price. To use this attribute, you must also map the Best offer enabled attribute. This price must be lower than the product's regular selling price.
• Best offer enabled - map this attribute to show the Make offer option on the eBay product page that allows a customer to offer a price to buy the product. To use this attribute, make sure you also map both the Best offer auto accept price and Best offer auto decline price attributes. 

Refurbished within a given category

• Condition - the product's condition. If left unmapped, by default, the status New is used. The list of conditions for your products depends on the category. For more information on this, check out the Item condition by category and Category and marketplace support for the eBay Refurbished Program articles on eBay.
  • Only merchants approved by eBay can use refurbished condition types, such as Certified refurbished, Excellent refurbished, etc.
  • The condition type Used excellent on ChannelEngine often corresponds to Used on eBay.
  • If the condition types for a category on ChannelEngine include Pre-owned excellent and Pre-owned fair, the condition type Used excellent on ChannelEngine corresponds to Pre-owned good on eBay.
  • If you map a condition that does not apply to the product's category, the product does not pass eBay's validation when exported.
• Condition description - a description is required if your product has any condition other than New.

Electrical appliances (EU)

If you sell products on eBay in the EU, and if those products have an electrical rating, you need to publish your products' energy efficiency data on eBay. Such products typically include such as electrical appliances. The energy efficiency data is then visible in your listings on eBay. ChannelEngine makes it easy to add energy efficiency data in the content mappings by mapping the following attributes (localized to the country of sale): 

• Energy efficiency label image URL - upload the energy efficiency label as an image to eBay Picture Service, and provide the generated URL here.
• Energy efficiency label image description - a description of the elements on the energy efficiency label.

• Energy efficiency label product information sheet URL - upload the product information sheet as an image to eBay Picture Service, and provide the generated URL here. 

  For both URLs, upload the files to eBay Picture Service (EPS), and use the resulting URLs in the above attributes. 

  Below are the requirements for the images:

  • Labels and product information sheets must be provided as image files (JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIF) and linked using the EPS URLs that are returned after upload.

  • Successful upload returns eBay-hosted image URLs (from EPS), which are used to update the listing on eBay.

  • Pictures with a minimum width of more than 500 pixels are supported.

  • When referencing the EPS image, adding $_10 before the extension can deliver a higher-resolution variant in certain contexts, e.g.: …/$_10.jpg. Check out eBay's example of an EPS URL pattern (including a $_10 variant).

Trading cards

For trading card categories, e.g.: Sporting Goods > Sports Trading Cards > Sealed Trading Card Packs, you must map additional attributes called "condition descriptors". If the category supports condition descriptors for trading cards, the following attributes are required, depending on your input to the Condition attribute:

For ungraded conditions:

• Card condition - if you have selected Used very good for the Condition attribute, then the trading card's condition is ungraded. For ungraded conditions, select a condition from this dropdown, e.g.: Near mint or better. 

For graded conditions:

• Certification number - if you have selected Like new for the Condition attribute, then the trading card's condition is graded. For graded conditions, enter the certification number as free text. 
• Grade - select a grade from the dropdown. 
• Professional grader - not all grades are supported in each category, and ChannelEngine does not automatically validate your selected value, so anything is selectable in this dropdown. To understand which value to select based on the category in which your item resides, consult eBay's Guide: condition descriptor IDs for trading cards.
• Example for a trading card with a graded condition:
  • Professional grader - Beckett Collectors Club Grading (BCCG)
  • Grade - 8
  • Certification number - 439349834893488

Offer

Required

The only offer attribute required is Price, which is mapped to the CE:Price attribute behind the scenes by ChannelEngine if the Use price before reprice rules setting is disabled in your environment.

Optional

For information on the Map promotion and Percentage discount for 2-4 and more items attributes, check out the article eBay: how to set up multi-buy volume discounts.

Carrier

Carrier mapping is required on eBay, and eBay supports a fixed list of carriers. ChannelEngine reflects the list of supported carriers that are present in eBay's API. The list that appears on ChannelEngine can differ from the stated list on eBay's backend due to a discrepancy between eBay's API and the eBay backend. When mapping carriers for eBay on ChannelEngine, most of the supported eBay carriers appear in the Channel dropdown field. If a known, supported eBay carrier does not appear there, map this carrier to 'Other' in the Channel dropdown field.   

Additional mappings and options

Additional mappings

• Once you have added shipping costs per individual product (e.g.: because they vary based on size and weight), these are used to overwrite the Domestic shipping costs set in the Postage policy.
• For many product categories, the GTIN/EAN, brand, and MPN are mandatory. For non-auto parts (which have an actual MPN) you can use the SKU. 
• The title/name of a product cannot be empty.
• When selling used or refurbished products, it is mandatory to fill in a Condition description matching the condition of those items.
• There are limits on how many products can initially be sold on eBay, especially for new sellers/accounts. You can find more information on Selling limits.

Merchant product numbers/SKUs

eBay has strict requirements when it comes to the stock-keeping units (SKUs) used for offers. SKUs can only contain alphanumeric characters, hyphens (-), slashes (/), and underscores (_), with a maximum length of 50 characters.

SKUs containing other special characters are rejected by eBay. For more information on how to prevent issues with offers on specific marketplaces, check out our Merchant product numbers/SKUs article.

K-types

• 10426,1071 -> product compatible with K-types 10426 and 1071
• 10426;1071 -> product compatible with K-types 10426 and 1071
• 10426|Rear axle;1071|Front axle -> product compatible with K-type 10426 with note 'Rear axle' and K-type 1071 with note 'Front axle'

GPSR compliance

Map category-specific attributes

To comply with General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) for eBay, first, map category-specific attributes on ChannelEngine.

• Manufacturer address line 1-2, City, Company name, Country code, Email, Phone number, Postal code, State or province
• Product safety components, Pictogram, Statement
• Responsible person address line 1-2, City, Company name, Contact URL, Country code, Email, Phone number, Postal code, State or province

Upload product safety documents and map IDs

Additionally, to comply with GPSR for eBay, upload product safety documents to the eBay backend. To ensure the documents stay linked to a listing on eBay after ChannelEngine exports the product content, you must map their document IDs on ChannelEngine.

On eBay

Upload your product safety documents.

1. Log in to your eBay seller back-end account. Note that the language shown depends on your eBay marketplace region.
2. Open the listing that requires a GPSR document and edit it.
3. Find the section Product documents or Safety information (wording may vary by locale).
4. Click Add document and upload the relevant product safety document to the listing. Make sure your documents meet eBay's requirements listed on the upload page.
5. Click Save. eBay hosts the file and assigns a unique document ID to it.

Locate the product safety document IDs.

1. Go to your live eBay product listing.
2. Go to the Safety information or Product documents section.
3. Click the PDF for each uploaded document and inspect its URL. E.g.: https://docs.ebay.com/document/a3bdf8ea-aa3e-4f9a-8574-285abb8411a3.
4. Copy the GUID after document/, e.g.: a3bdf8ea-aa3e-4f9a-8574-285abb8411a3. This is the document ID that you need to map on ChannelEngine.

On ChannelEngine

Map the product safety document IDs on ChannelEngine.

1. On ChannelEngine, go to the eBay channel for the relevant region.
2. Go to Content mappings, All products.

3. Locate the Regulatory document ID 1-5 attribute. Paste the document IDs from the previous step into each Regulatory document ID attribute. Up to five document IDs can be mapped per offer, one ID per attribute.

   NB: do not clear mapped document IDs unless you intend to detach documents. Removing IDs may lead to product offers without GPSR documents.
4. Click Save to update your mappings.

If you manage multiple regional eBay channels, configure document IDs per channel, aligned with how those listings and documents are managed in each eBay account.

Troubleshooting product safety document uploads

If your product safety documents disappear from eBay, complete these steps:

1. Verify that the document still exists in your eBay seller backend for the listing.
2. Confirm the exact document ID is mapped to the Regulatory document ID attribute, with no extra spaces or characters.
3. Ensure the mapping is set on the correct eBay channel (region/account), and that the product is included in exports.
4. Wait for the next offer export from ChannelEngine.

If you run into validation or policy errors on eBay, complete these steps:

1. Confirm that the product safety file type and content meet eBay’s requirements on the upload page.
2. Check that your product’s category supports or requires GPSR documents and that other GPSR attributes (manufacturer, responsible person, safety pictograms/statements) are mapped where relevant.
3. Wait for the next offer export from ChannelEngine.

Additional information

Guidelines for product variations

The product variants feature allows you to group variations of the same product. Variantions can be grouped based on the parent-child or grandparent-parent-child structure of your products on ChannelEngine.

• To switch to another way of grouping or disable grouping (using None), go Setup, and change the Group products by setting. 
• A product cannot be a product variant and a separate single product on eBay at the same time. So if you enable grouping, the product does not appear separately on eBay – only as a variant.
• It is recommended to include a stock rule in your product selection to avoid listing errors. If you include a stock rule in your product selection, read the section Set stock to zero instead of removing products below.

For full guidelines on setting up product variations for eBay via ChannelEngine, check out eBay: setting up product variations.

Countries and languages

ChannelEngine offers support for eBay in the countries listed in the Commercial information section of this guide. There are more countries in which eBay is active (such as in other parts of Asia), however, ChannelEngine deliberately offer support only for portals with relatively fast shipping options and Western currencies.

Multiple countries, one language

Although there are multiple eBay portals, if you place a product on one portal, it is found on all portals. This can be changed by either excluding or including countries in your Shipping policy. Make sure to set up your shipping policy exactly as desired before uploading products, in order to prevent orders you cannot fulfill.

If you only use one portal but ship to multiple countries, your product information is shown in your setup language on every portal. In this scenario, it is advised to choose the plugin for the country you are shipping from. So if your warehouse is in the Netherlands and you are using Dutch descriptions, select the eBay.nl plugin.

Please note that if someone searches for a specific unique attribute (such as an EAN) on an excluded eBay portal, your product can still be found. However, orders can not be placed on it.

Multiple countries, multiple languages

If you want to place products on several eBay portals in multiple languages (which is advised to achieve maximum conversion), add a different eBay plugin per language. E.g.: if you want to sell to Dutch, German and French customers, add the eBay.nl, eBay.de, and eBay.fr plugins. You are required to perform the above-mentioned steps for each portal set up.

Furthermore:

• Create payment, return, and shipping policies for every eBay portal. You can use the same login for every portal. I.e.: if you create an account on eBay.nl, you can use the same credentials on eBay.de.
• Make sure to use the correct policy names for every channel.
• Use a business eBay account, otherwise you cannot use 'good till cancelled' offers on other eBay portals. This can be done from your eBay account, under Account, Personal information, Account type, Change account type. After changing the account, you have to re-authorize ChannelEngine via the Authorize button in your account.
• A different SKU is necessary for each portal. If you use a single SKU, make sure the setting Append country code to SKU is enabled on the Setup page. When enabled, the SKUs of products on a given eBay sales channel end with the respective country code suffix, e.g.: eBay.nl products are published with the suffix _nl. When importing an order, the suffix is removed to ensure your order management system recognizes the product.

Note that eBay's BE (French) portal (www.befr.ebay.be) that caters to French-speakers in Belgium is not currently supported. Therefore, this plugin cannot be added on ChannelEngine.

Returns

Returns on eBay are imported and you can mark them as received, after which they are exported to eBay for full refund.

Beware of the following limitations:

• You can only fully accept or decline a return. Partial decline is not possible.
• ChannelEngine only exports updates on a return request that was previously imported. It is not possible to create a return on ChannelEngine and export it to eBay, because eBay does not support this scenario.
• ChannelEngine does not support eBay's return shipping labels, seller shipping labels, or seller-funded return shipping (i.e.: free return shipping). Your customer has to get the shipping label for returns, and pay for the return shipping.
• ChannelEngine only supports refunds, not replacements.
• As of the time of writing, returns were only available on eBay United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Canada (both in English and French).

eBay Plus

eBay Plus is a membership program that provides buyers with access to special deals, exclusive sales, discounts, free delivery, and free returns.

Currently eBay Plus is only available in Australia and Germany. If you sell in one of these markets, you can map the eBay Plus attribute under Content mappings. Products with this attribute mapped to Yes display a badge on their pages, and are included in the eBay Plus search filter.

For more information on eBay Plus, check out the Selling with eBay Plus article on eBay's Seller Center.

Order extra data items

When an order is imported to ChannelEngine, ChannelEngine also fetches extra data items related to the order itself – or to order lines. This extra data is specific to this channel. An explanation of each can be found below: 

Order extra data

Order line extra data

* Conditional fields are only displayed if the marketplace provides a value. 

Sales tax on US orders

As is generally the case with North American marketplaces, ChannelEngine does not independently calculate VAT/sales tax on incoming eBay US orders. It uses the tax information supplied by the marketplace.

However, if the total tax on the order is higher than the combined tax on the product lines, ChannelEngine assumes that the remaining difference is tax applied to the shipping costs. Therefore, ChannelEngine calculates the tax on shipping costs for orders by subtracting the sum of the tax on the individual product lines from the total order tax.

For more guidance on how to leverage ChannelEngine to track VAT on your orders, check out ChannelEngine: VAT settings.

Change the location of your warehouse

If your warehouse is moved to a different location or if you are switching to a different fulfillment supplier, you have to configure the change on both ChannelEngine and eBay. 

On ChannelEngine

If you have advanced order management enabled in your tenant, update your stock location information while ensuring that the postal code is also accurate and updated. For guidance, check out ChannelEngine: advanced order management [add-on].

On eBay

Due to limitations on eBay, the warehouse location is only updated for newly added products. For existing products, you have to manually change the location on eBay via the following steps:

1. Go to Sell.
2. Select all products by selecting the upper checkbox.
3. Select Edit in the options listed above your offers.
4. A spreadsheet view appears, listing all your products. You can change the location of your products in bulk.

Set stock to zero instead of removing products

On ChannelEngine

If you use a stock filter in your product selection, ChannelEngine removes products from eBay whose stock is zero. When they are in stock again, ChannelEngine recreates them. If you do not want zero-stock items to get removed from eBay, then enable the setting Set stock to 0 instead of remove offer in the Setup step. 

When the setting is enabled, zero-stock products are not removed from eBay. Instead, the stock is updated to zero.

On eBay

You must also enable the same feature on eBay – as described in eBay's Bulk listing tool article. To enable the out-of-stock option on eBay:

1. Go to Selling preferences.
2. Scroll down to Multi-quantity listings and select the toggle beside Listings stay active when you're out of stock.

Note that eBay removes products with stock equal to zero after a certain time, with no communication to ChannelEngine. Therefore, your product is ultimately removed from eBay if the product is out of stock for a long period of time.

FAQs

I no longer see validation messages on the 'Listed products' page. What happened?
To provide a clearer and more readable overview of validation messages, this feature was moved from the Reason column under the Listed products tab to the Validation and feedback tab, under the same Listed products section.

How does ChannelEngine handle eBay's account deletion protocols?
eBay provides their customers with a way to request that their personal data is deleted from eBay's systems. When this happens, eBay notifies companies and developers using their APIs so they act accordingly. If such a request is received by ChannelEngine, a daily task is triggered to anonymize the customer's data – unless an existing order is still open. This task runs nightly (CET).

Can I add a 'shop category' to eBay via ChannelEngine?
Yes, adding a shop category to eBay via ChannelEngine is possible. To do so, map the Store category 1 and Store category 2 (if applicable) attributes. 

Why is there a code in the delivery address of some eBay UK orders?
eBay UK has been adding a unique code to the second line of eligible addresses in the UK since September 2020 (e.g.: ebay1234abc). Currently this addition is exclusive to orders where Royal Mail is the carrier. The code is automatically used to attain tracking information from Royal Mail, which in turn provides buyers with an easy way to track their purchases. Make sure to take this into account in your flows when using Royal Mail as a carrier in the UK.

My product has the status 'Published', but it is not available on eBay. What is the issue?
If the product is a variant and you have enabled the Group products by setting on ChannelEngine, check whether the related parent or grandparent product contains errors. Errors at the parent or grandparent level can block the entire product family – including child products – from being exported to eBay.

To resolve this, go to the Listed products page and review any warnings or errors associated with the parent or grandparent product.