Reminder: Breaking Change: GTC Listings must Include Return Policy and Handling Time Starting Mid-September

Just a reminder that we rolled out the requirement to specify Return Policy and Handling Time in two phases. The first phase, where they are required for new and relisted items, was enforced in June. The second phase, where they are required for Good Til Canceled (GTC) listings, will be enforced in mid-September.

In mid-September, when GTC listings are renewed, they will be checked for Return Policy and Handling Time. If they are not included, the listing will break.

It is likely that you have some customers that will break if they do not take any action. Please make sure that your application supports Return Policy and Handling Time in the structured data, and that your sellers are specifying it. If Return Policy and Handling Time is mentioned only in the Item Description and not the structured data, it will not count toward enforcement and the listing will break.

Also, if you have a lot of listings to update, make sure that you have left enough time to make the updates by the compliance deadline of mid-September. Your bandwidth constraints may limit you in how many revisions you can do in a day, so you may need to start your revisions as early as mid-August to make sure you have enough time to do all the revisions.

Note: Return Policy and Handling Time are not required in categories like Vehicles or Parts & Accessories.

For more information on how to specify Return Policy and Handling Time, see the API Documentation on Return Policy and Handling Time.

Developer Impact: Summer 2009 Updates

Monday, Stephanie Tilenius announced the Summer 2009 Updates. Here is the developer impact for those announcements. Watch the developer blog for more details on these changes.

As announced in April, in the spirit of partnership, eBay is now consolidating changes that impact your business into two or three major releases a year, with two months advance notice. This post introduces the second and final major release of 2009. Most of these updates will launch between September 22 and October 1, 2009.

In some cases we will launch these features to the eBay Sandbox before the September 22 release. Watch the blog for a list of those features. Also note that "September 22" means "the week of September 22" as it takes time to roll code to all the eBay servers.

• Rewards for sellers delivering great buyer experiences

• New way to look at DSRs
  • Avoid getting low DSRs—1s and 2s. Buyers have different ideas about what constitutes a high rating, but most leave a 1 or a 2 only when they experienced a significant issue with their transaction. eBay will be shifting focus from average DSRs to the number of low DSRs as a more accurate measure of customer satisfaction.

The Feedback API allows you to get insight into your seller DSR ratings, including which group of transactions may have resulted in 1s or 2s. It is a good idea to add this functionality to your application so your sellers can carefully monitor their DSRs.

• Only domestic DSRs will count toward requirements for eBay.com. International transactions can be subject to factors outside a seller's control and we want to make sure sellers can expand globally without undue impact to their standing on eBay.com.

There are no specific API changes for this feature, but the API will reflect eBay site behavior.

• PowerSeller program update: rewarding quality over quantity
  • Starting in October, a new eBay top-rated seller status will be added to the PowerSeller program to recognize and reward sellers providing great buyer experiences based on the new way to look at DSRs (very few 1s and 2s). eBay Top-rated sellers will receive the highest PowerSeller Final Value Fee discounts (20%), increased visibility in search results for Fixed Price listings, exclusive access to purchase Featured First and a prominent Top-rated seller badge on item pages. The Top-rated seller badge will be tested in search results pages this summer. The current PowerSeller icon will no longer be displayed on buyer-facing pages including item pages.
  • All sellers with 100 or more annual transactions and at least $3,000 annual sales who meet the requirements for Top-rated seller status will be invited into the PowerSeller program and can start receiving Top-rated seller benefits in October.
  • Next April, the PowerSeller program will also include a requirement for sellers based on the new way to look at DSRs (very few 1s and 2s). PowerSellers that don't have Top-rated seller status will get 5% Final Value Fee discounts.
  • Meanwhile, the current PowerSeller discount structure will continue until April 1, 2010 to give sellers 8 full months to keep their current discounts while they adjust business practices to qualify for the new Top-rated seller status.

Information about top-rated sellers will be returned in Trading API and other API calls, just as it currently is for PowerSellers. We are currently planning to make more information about Top-Rated Sellers available via a dedicated API in a future release.

• New minimum standards for all sellers:
• Starting in October, there will be a new minimum standard for all eBay sellers based on the number of low DSRs (1s and 2s) received. The minimum standard will be stricter in April, 2010.
• A new Selling Practices policy will define guidelines for professionalism and accuracy in all aspects of listings and transactions.
• Optional buyer charges for shipping insurance will no longer be allowed. Sellers can still buy shipping insurance and add the cost to the item or shipping price.

As of SR2, any insurance charges including in listing calls like AddItem will automatically be dropped from the listing with a warning. The listing will not fail.

• Updates to the Seller Dashboard: You can now see a snapshot of your low DSRs (1s and 2s) and standing toward the new Top-rated seller requirements updated monthly through a link at the top of your Seller Dashboard. In September, you will be able to see daily updates.

For SR2, this additional information will only be available via the Seller Dashboard on the ebay.com website. We are currently planning to add this information to a dedicated API in a future release.

• Enhanced search presents more relevant listings

• Best Match, eBay's default sort order, will look at listing's recent sales in relation to the number of recent impressions it received as a key factor for Fixed Price listings. An "impression" is any time a buyer sees a search results page that includes the listing.

This new Best Match behavior will be reflected in the new Finding API for searches with a Best Match sort order specified. However, for technical reasons, will not be reflected in other Search calls.

• In addition, single quantity and newly listed Fixed Price items will be given exposure in Best Match even though they have no sales history. These listings will be given initial impressions based on the performance of similar listings. This change will improve the exposure of new Fixed Price listings that are relevant to buyers.
• Auction-style listings will still get a boost in exposure as they are about to end. To keep auctions enticing, Auction with Buy It Now listings will be required to have a BIN price at least 10% higher than the auction start price.

Listing calls that do not meet this criteria will fail with a blocking error.

• A new Search Visibility tool will help you evaluate how your Fixed Price and auction-style listings are performing in search results.

A new, dedicated Best Match API is being released with SR2. This API offers the same functionality as the Search Visibility Tool that will be offered on ebay.com.

• Several features will be discontinued including Featured Plus, Border, and others to save you money and keep the focus on relevance.

If discontinued listings enhancements such as Border are included in your listing calls, they will be dropped with a warning. The calls will not fail.

• Product pages are rolling out to more buyers, so list with product details to make sure your listings are included. Also, eBay will start selecting sellers' photos for inclusion in the eBay product catalog on September 1. If your photo is chosen, your user ID and a link to your profile page will appear on the product page. If you'd prefer not to have your pictures selected, opt out no later than August 31.

Listings must include a valid Product ID to be shown on Product Pages. Product catalogs are being rolled out to more categories, so there are more items that are eligible to be shown on Product Pages when you include their Product ID.

Also, there is no way via the API to opt out of sharing photos. Sellers must go to their My eBay to opt out.

• Easier, more profitable selling on eBay

• Faster recourse for unpaid items. A streamlined process will cut the resolution time in half. We are also working on a new automated option that will make the process even more efficient, cut the time to resolution to as little as 8 days and block negative feedback when a seller opens a claim and a buyer doesn't pay. This automated option will be tested in late September and our goal is to gradually make it available to all sellers by the holidays.

This new process also applies to items listed via the API. LeaveFeedback will be blocked in cases where this new process applies.

• eBay dispute resolution for buyer claims is expanding to more buyers to make the process faster and easier for sellers and buyers.

No additional dispute-management functionality is being added to the API with SR2. We are exploring the option of adding it in a future release.

• Buyer communications will be faster and easier to manage with enhancements to My Messages and streamlined post-transaction emails.

There are no API changes as part of this change, but developers who offer email management will want to be aware that fewer emails will be generated for each transaction.

• Get more control over international ship-to locations. You'll have the same ship-to choices you have now, plus you'll be able to specify countries you do not want to ship to.

With SR2, sellers can specify a list of countries they will not ship to. They can specify this globally, and on a per-item level. Global preferences can only be set via the ebay.com website, but per-item preferences can be set in the AddItem call. To take advantage of this feature, sellers must select the option in My eBay to exclude countries that they will not ship to.

• Upload tracking and delivery confirmation numbers for more shipping carriers.

Currently shipping carriers are selected from a list of enums. With the SR2 release, you will be able to specify the shipping carrier in a string. This will allow sellers to include more shipping carriers in their listings, including ones that the eBay site does not currently support. You can also specify a tracking number for that shipping carrier. Where eBay can identify the carrier, the tracking number will be displayed as a link to more shipping information.

• Editing listings, even multi-quantity listings with a sale and listing descriptions, will be faster and easier.

Currently it is not possible to edit live, Fixed Price listings once there has been a sale. As of SR2, this will now be possible. Also, when retrieving listings via GetItem, and so on, you have the option of retrieving a specific version of the listing. If no version is specified, the latest version will be returned.

• New Selling Manager applications boost efficiency for sellers of all sizes-try them free!

Selling Manager applications will be generally available to sellers shortly after SR2. To build your own Selling Manager application, see Selling Manager Applications.

• Category and Item Specifics changes are now consolidated with the rest of updates. Find out if there are changes to your categories.
• Stores subscribers-now you can put all your Fixed Price listings on vacation.
  

Get more details on all these updates You're also invited to:

• Take part in one of several upcoming webinars on Tuesday, July 28 and Thursday July 30.
• Join me and other leaders from eBay and PayPal in a Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, July 29. Check the Announcement Board soon for more details.
• Talk with members of my staff during the next two days on a special discussion board we've set up for this purpose.

Watch the developer blog for more details on these changes.

Video Interview with 2009 eBay Star Developer Award Winner Monsoon

"For our customers, we found that conversion -- if you have real-time, accurately priced inventory -- jumped up between 5X to 15X compared to where the sellers had been previously -- a huge, huge increase in sales."

-- Clark Hale of Monsoon on the value of their dynamic pricing tool to eBay sellers

Clark Hale and Jeff Cutler-Stamm joined us at this year's eBay Developers Conference at eBay's campus in San Jose to discuss their recent win in the Most Innovative category of the 2009 eBay Star Developer Awards.

Monsoon's particular take on dynamic pricing creates efficiencies for their customers selling on the eBay marketplace through automation. Rather than relying on historical pricing data, they enable sellers to make use of pricing of competitive products for sale on the site at that particular moment. Jeff also shares "where all the action is" amongst his top three API calls by volume: FindItemsAdvanced, AddItem and ReviseItem.

Watch our interview with Clark and Jeff filmed on location at eBay DevCon (clip is 7:00 in length).

-Delyn

eBay CEO John Donahoe Speaks at FORTUNE Brainstorm: TECH 2009

Photo Attribution: ebayink

Last Thursday, John Donahoe joined Fortune's editor at large, Adam Lashinsky, on stage at FORTUNE Brainstorm: TECH 2009 down in Pasadena. John took the opportunity to reiterate the fact that eBay is no longer just about auctions, and that everything we do is in consideration for long-term success: investing in technology and the customer experience. This same day, PayPal held a platform preview event and became the first and only global payments platform open to third-party developers. Visit their site to get more details about their PayPal Innovate 2009 developer conference happening in November.

Check out Richard Brewer-Hay's blog post on eBay Ink for the Fox Business News and CNBC interviews of John from the FORTUNE Brainstorm: TECH 2009 event. To quote RBH: "Bottom line, it's clear that there is an emphasis on elevating the role of technology at eBay, and we're building out the platform as a result." 

It is an exciting time of opportunity for developers looking to build applications on our open e-commerce platforms from eBay and PayPal

- Delyn

eBay Announces Top-Rated Seller Status and Selling Manager Applications

Developers building applications on the eBay API platform should be aware that eBay today announced a number of changes coming over the next few months, including Top-Rated Seller Status, a new BestMatchItemDetails API, and that Selling Manager Applications will be available to subscribers of Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro later this summer.

Laurel Kline has posted a fantastic and detailed API impact write-up for developers. Don't get caught off guard -- know how these product and policy announcements will impact your applications.

If you are interested in building  your own Selling Manager application, see Selling Manager Applications.

- Delyn