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Default Shipping Set to On
Feature Type:
 
New Feature
 
Anticipated Launch Date:
 
September 2005
 
Developer Impact:
 
This feature impacts developers with applications which display eBay items, specifically those that are interested in relaying shipping information to their users.
 
Feature Description:
 
With this enhancement, Search and Browse pages on the eBay Web site will display the Shipping column by default.
 
eBay will display shipping values for items that have specified a shipping cost in the Shipping Details section of the listing process. This includes listings that have included a flat-rate in eBay’s flat-rate shipping tool (the $ amount will be shown) or have included the eBay Shipping Calculator (a “Calculate” link will be shown). Those listings that have included eBay’s new Freight Calculator will show-up in the column as “Freight”. Listings that specify that they are for Pickup Only through the eBay Shipping Details will show-up as “Pickup Only”.
 
Since buyers will generally prefer items that indicate the item’s shipping cost, we suggest your listings use the eBay APIto specify shipping costs in our Shipping Details section as often as possible. However, we also realize that some listings include their own calculator that may have different logic than ours, so we are introducing the a new feature for API listings.
 
For those items which do not have a shipping value specified in the column, Instead of showing "--" in the search results column (which it does today), it will show text "Not specified" or "See description," depending on logic in a new tag, ShippingTermsInDescription (a tag in the AddItem family of calls and is returned by GetItem, GetSellerList and GetBidderList).
 
If an item's shipping costs are specified in the item description, Developers should set ShippingTermsInDescription to ‘1’ (for XML) or ‘true’ (for SOAP) so that users of Search on the eBay Web site see this detail regarding shipping costs.
 
Otherwise, the shipping costs will be displayed as "Not specified." We believe that buyers will prefer items that indicate “See description” over those that say “Not specified”.
 
For more details on the Shipping Cost Defaults, see the Release Notes.
 
Feature Description of Use Case Search Results Generated on eBay Recommendation
Existing 1) Shipping Type “Flat” and Costs specified via API Buyer will see actual shipping costs in search results (e.g. $5.95) PERFERRED METHOD
Existing 2) Shipping Type “Calculated” and Costs specified via API Buyer will see “Calculate Link” in search results PERFERRED METHOD
New 3) Shipping Costs Specified in Item Description and tag “ShippingTermsInDescription=1” Buyer will see “See Item Description” in search results ACCEPTABLE METHOD
Existing 4) Shipping Costs Specified in Item Description and tag “ShippingTermsInDescription=0” or not set Buyer will see “Not Specified” in search results SUBPAR METHOD
 
Feature Benefits:
 
The benefit for making the shipping column on by default is to provide buyers with an improved visibility into the true cost of the items for sale on eBay. Additionally, developers can make the information that they display in the shipping column more complete, representative and intuitive for buyers when comparing items in search results. Buyers will prefer items that state the costs in the column over those that don’t. For those that don’t, they will prefer those that state that the shipping costs are in the listing ("See description") over those that are "Not specified".
 

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