Integrate My Store With eBay
The eBay listing module allows you to list your Shift4Shop store's products directly on eBay where the products may be auctioned or bought outright using eBay's Buy it Now options. Furthermore, as your products are ordered on eBay, the orders can be sent to your Shift4Shop store's Online Store manager, where you can process the orders from one centralized location.
The procedure of listing your Shift4Shop store items on eBay involves first granting access to eBay's API from your store. Then, after API access has been given, you will create a special listing template that will be used to display your items on eBay. Finally, you will designate which items to list on eBay, how long they will be available, and how much they will sell or begin bidding for.
This guide will help you set up the eBay listing integration.
Granting API Access
The integration between your Shift4Shop store and eBay is made possible through a special API app created for Shift4Shop users. The first step in the process of integrating your store is to grant the necessary API access to your eBay account.
To begin, follow these steps:
Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager.
Using the left navigation menu, go to Modules.
Use the search bar at the top and search for eBay to view the module. When the module appears, click on the Settings button. You will see a series of links listed. If you have not yet granted API access, clicking on either of these links will take you to a page with a button labeled "Grant Access."
At the top left of the page, select the eBay environment you would like to use. (*See Additional Information below).
Click on the Grant Access button.
You will now be redirected to the eBay login page.
*Additional Information
In the "Grant Access" page, you will also see a drop-down menu labeled "Select the environment." This menu will allow you to configure your store's integration while using either:
eBay's sandbox environment API
useful for placing initial tests before going live with the full integration as no fees are involved.Production environment
The live eBay API which connects to your live eBay account.
Be aware that while using this environment, your listings may incur charges from eBay.
This is optional, but we recommend first creating a sandbox account for yourself and then having this selected while setting up your store for the eBay integration for the first time (while following this guide) as it will not incur any charges to you as a buyer or seller. After your initial setup, you can uncheck the box and re-grant access, this time to eBay's production API; when you're ready to go live with the integration.
If you are interested in creating an eBay sandbox login, you will first need to register for their developer program (it's free!) and use that registration to create your sandbox users. We recommend creating at least two separate sandbox users so that you have one that will act as the seller and the other login to act as the buyer.
5. Log into your (sandbox or production) eBay account.
You will see a page on the eBay interface allowing you to grant access. Click Agree to continue and you'll be returned to your Shift4Shop Admin.
You have successfully granted access to eBay's API from your store.
Configuring Your Store's eBay Settings
Here, we will go over your basic module settings. Once access to eBay's API has been granted, your eBay settings page will refresh with additional options to toggle. However, if you need to revisit the page later, use the following steps.
From your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager:
Use the left navigation menu and go to Modules.
Use the search bar at the top to search for "eBay" and view the module.
Click on the Change Settings link.
You will see a page with the following sections:
eBay Account Integration
At the top of the page you will see the Authentication Status and its validity, its expiration and the last time synchronization of your integration took place. You can also click on the "Perform a check" link to synchronize the integration on demand.
Additional Information
Below the authentication information, you will have an area labeled "Reset eBay integration" with a "Reset" link next to it. Clicking this reset link will let you disable the integration module altogether and clear all of your API tokens; effectively resetting all of your Shift4Shop/eBay integration options.
Settings
On the right side of the eBay Account Integration section, you'll see an area called "Settings" with a series of checkboxes. These are:
Enable eBay integration
Turn on the eBay integration for your store's products.Allow stock to be updated when listing on eBay
If checked, this setting will remove the quantity of items listed on eBay from your Shift4Shop store's inventory.
In other words, if you have 10 units on hand of a particular item in your store, and you list 3 of them on eBay, this checkbox will update your store's inventory to reflect 7 units on hand, since 3 of them are designated for listing on eBay.Enable eBay Motors Listings
Use this setting if you will be listing items on the eBay Motors service for car parts.Send synchronization results to e-mail
Use this field to specify the email address to which synchronization logs will be sent. Synchronization occurs approximately once every hour.
eBay Orders Management
The next section of the page will contain settings for how your eBay orders are managed on the Shift4Shop store.
Get all eBay orders
Select this option if you would like all of your eBay orders to be transferred to the Shift4Shop store.
Leaving the box unchecked will only import eBay orders for products you are listing from the Shift4Shop store.Consider eBay Orders in Sales Reports
This checkbox will factor in eBay orders as part of your Shift4Shop store's built-in sales reporting.
Be aware that this setting will correlate with the preceding setting of getting all orders from eBay.
Set the order Date to the date the order is marked as Paid on eBay
This checkbox will set the imported order's date to the date when it was marked as "Paid" on eBay
Below these checkbox options, you will see a link labeled:
Manage Payment Methods Mapping
Clicking this link will display a pop-up window with eBay payment options on one side and your store's payment methods on the other.
This window allows you to map the payment methods used on orders coming from eBay and assign (or "Map") them to your Shift4Shop store's payment methods for reporting and visuals.
Additional Information
Without this payment method mapping, the orders coming from eBay will appear with the payment method as blank. Therefore, the sole purpose of this mapping function is to allow you the ability to have the orders' payment methods mapped to something. It can be an offline payment method that you create specifically for eBay orders or a generic payment module not used on your normal Shift4Shop orders.
Keep in mind that this will not affect or incur transactional charges from your payment gateway. The orders are essentially paid for because they were purchased on eBay, but for your Shift4Shop's internal reports, you may wish to have something present to reflect the payment that was "used" on your store.
Finally, below the mapping link, you will see a small text field labeled:
Use this Prefix for eBay orders
This allows you to specify a special prefix that will be used on orders being imported from eBay for reference.
For example, your store's regular orders may be listed with ab-1234 as the order number, but you'd like your eBay orders to be something like eBay-AB-1235, etc. In this case, you'd enter the prefix as "eBay-"
eBay Store
If you have an actual eBay store, this next section will allow you to pull category structure data and information from that store to your Shift4Shop store. This can be useful if you would like to have your Shift4Shop store's category structure match the categories in your eBay store.
Header & Footer
These two areas will let you add a header and/footer to your product descriptions when the items are listed on eBay. Both the header and footer windows can be populated with raw HTML code, or you can use WYSIWYG to format things more easily.
Once you have toggled your necessary settings, click Save at the top.
eBay Listing Templates
The next portion of the process involves setting up your eBay product's listing template which is a set of variables that will be used by the eBay listing. During this process, you will configure a series of settings that allow you to control how the product will be viewed on the eBay site, the purchasing and shipping options it uses and several other factors. When designating products to be included on eBay, you will use the created template to display it on eBay's pages.
From your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager:
Use the left navigation menu and go to Modules.
Use the search bar at the top and search for "eBay" to locate and view the module.
Click on the Listing Templates link.
Click + Add New at the top right of the page to begin creating a new eBay Listing template.
Name your template (this will be a name that is easily referenced for when you assign it to individual products).
Select the eBay Web Site that the product listing will be used on.
General Tab
When selecting the eBay website to use for the template, some additional settings will appear below the name and website selectors. These settings are:
Hide the bidder's user id on list
Marking the "Yes" checkbox will hide bidder usernames from being listed on the item when bids are placed.Make this the default template
Select this checkbox if you'd like to make this the default template selection for all of your products when it comes time to list them.
Below these two checkboxes, you will see a section where you can set the eBay categories where your products (using this listing) can be found.
Primary eBay Category
Click the Change link to specify the primary eBay Category taxonomy that the products using this template will use.
This will help eBay users find your products easier.Secondary eBay Category
(optional) Click the Change link to specify the secondary eBay Category taxonomy that the products using this template will use.
(If using eBay Motors, only the primary eBay category will be allowed.)
Additional Information
When selecting the categories, you will see the categories and sub-categories listed in red. Clicking on each red category will open up its sub-category structure and so on until you see the final category listed in blue. This category (in blue) is known as the Leaf category.
Be sure to click all the way through and select the leaf category for your selection.
Use eBay variations
This setting will only come up for certain eBay categories and it will affect the way products with Advanced Options are listed on eBay.If marked "Yes" then the product will be listed as one product with each advanced option related to a variation on eBay.
If not marked, each advanced option will be listed as its own individual product on eBay.
Listing Duration
Select the number of days the listing will be active on eBay.Measurement System (Only if listing on ebay.ca or ebay.co.uk)
Select whether product measurements will reflect Metric or Standard measurement units.
After setting and selecting the above configuration option, you will be done with the general settings of the listing template. You should also see a series of tabs at the top of the page for Specifics, Pricing, Payment, etc.
Next, we'll describe these tabs and the settings found within them.