In general, "shipping service" refers to a domestic or international shipping service option offered by a shipping carrier. For example:

  • An example of a shipping carrier is the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
  • An example of a shipping service offered by the USPS is called Priority Mail.

The Trading API has an enumerated type that defines many of the shipping service options offered by shipping carriers with whom eBay has a relationship. For example, there is an enumeration value named USPSPriority, which corresponds to the above-mentioned Priority Mail service.

Tip: For the domestic leg of a Global Shipping Programme shipment, sellers can use any carrier and service that is available to them.

Shipping service options

Valid domestic and international shipping service options for each country are returned by calling GeteBayDetails with DetailName set to ShippingServiceDetails.

When retrieving valid shipping service options for other marketplaces, the site ID for the marketplace in question must be specified in the X-EBAY-API-SITEID header.

The response payload includes one — or more — ShippingServiceDetails.ShippingService containers which include the following important information about shipping service options.

ShippingServiceDetails.ValidForSellingFlow

For both domestic and international shipping service options, the returned value for this field should be reviewed first in order to determine if the associated shipping service has been deprecated or remains available.

For any shipping service to be available for new/revised listings, it is imperative that the returned value of ShippingServiceDetails.ValidForSellingFlow be true. This indicates that the associated shipping service is available as a shipping option and can be used for new or revised listings.

If, however, this returned value is false, the associated shipping service has been deprecated and must not be used for new or revised listings.

For additional information, refer to Deprecated Services.

ShippingServiceDetails.InternationalService

Once it has been ascertained that a shipping service remains active and is available for new/revised listings, sellers should then determine if the service in question is a domestic or international option.

An excerpt of a typical response payload is illustrated below.

<GeteBayDetailsResponse  xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents">
. . .
<ShippingServiceDetails>
  <Description>International Priority Shipping</Description>
  <InternationalService>true</InternationalService>
  <ShippingService>InternationalPriorityShipping</ShippingService>
  <ShippingServiceID>50100</ShippingServiceID>
  <ShippingTimeMax>8</ShippingTimeMax>
  <ShippingTimeMin>6</ShippingTimeMin>
  <ServiceType>Flat</ServiceType>
  <ServiceType>Calculated</ServiceType>
  <ShippingPackage>Letter</ShippingPackage>
  <ShippingPackage>LargeEnvelope</ShippingPackage>
  <ShippingPackage>PackageThickEnvelope</ShippingPackage>
  <ShippingPackage>USPSLargePack</ShippingPackage>
  <ValidForSellingFlow>false</ValidForSellingFlow>
  <ShippingCarrier>MondialRelay</ShippingCarrier>
  <ShippingServicePackageDetails>
    <Name>Letter</Name>
  </ShippingServicePackageDetails>
  <ShippingServicePackageDetails>
    <Name>LargeEnvelope</Name>
  </ShippingServicePackageDetails>
  <ShippingServicePackageDetails>
    <Name>PackageThickEnvelope</Name>
  </ShippingServicePackageDetails>
  <ShippingServicePackageDetails>
    <Name>USPSLargePack</Name>
  </ShippingServicePackageDetails>
  <DetailVersion>702</DetailVersion>
  <UpdateTime>2018-09-16T01:19:25.000Z</UpdateTime>
  <ShippingCategory>EXPEDITED</ShippingCategory>
</ShippingServiceDetails>
. . .
</GeteBayDetailsResponse>