Retrieve data

The Trading API offers four calls that let you retrieve order line item data directly. The four calls are summarized below:

• GetOrders

  Returns all orders in which the authenticated caller is a buyer or seller. The retrieved orders can include single line item orders and multiple line item orders. Based on the buyer or seller's activity, the response can be quite large. The number of orders returned can be reduced by filtering by Order ID, order role, or order status. There are also date filters to restrict results based on order creation time or the last modification date.

  Note: GetOrders returns data related only to the user that is issuing the call.

  For additional information about available filters, refer to the GetOrders reference documentation.

• GetSellerTransactions

  Returns all order line items for the seller making the request. The seller can filter results by seller-defined Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) values. The caller can also restrict the results with date filters, including order creation time or the last modification date.

  Note: GetSellerTransactions returns data related only to the user that is issuing the call.

• GetItemTransactions

  GetItemTransactions can be used to retrieve all order line items for a specific listing based on an ItemID, return the data for a particular order line item, or can return the order line item data for all variations of a multiple-variation, fixed-price listing.

  The number of results returned can be reduced using date filters, including order creation time or the last modification date.

  GetItemTransactions should be used when an application's user wants to retrieve order line items for an item that was listed by someone else (i.e., another seller,) since both GetOrders and GetSellerTransactions returns data related only to the user that is issuing the call.

• GetOrderTransactions

  Returns all orders in which the authenticated caller is a buyer or seller. The caller may filter by OrderID, SKU value, or by OrderLineItemID. This call does not have any date filters.

Some order line items are processed with back-end batch jobs. This means there can be a short delay between an end time of an item and the recording of the initial order line item entry in the eBay database. Therefore, to make sure you do not miss any order line items, use the current date as the most recent date in the range to make sure you have captured all possible order line items and any updates. For each listing, use GetItemTransactions at set intervals to get updates on any order line items that are new or have changed status since the last time you executed GetItemTransactions for that listing.

Depending on the window of time that has been specified, the call may still return hundreds of order line items. Therefore, it is recommended that you configure the request to get one page of data at a time where each page contains a more manageable number of order line items. Pagination breaks up the total data set into smaller chunks.

Monitor orders

To check the status of — and process — all orders on a continuous basis, call GetOrders every 15 minutes. In the request, make sure:

• The DetailLevel is set to ReturnAll
• The ModTimeFrom value is set back two minutes from the time you last made the call
• The ModTimeTo value is set to the current time. If this field is omitted, the ModTimeTo value defaults to the current time.

Iterate through each order (OrderArray.Order) returned in the call. Checkout is complete and the order may be sent if the OrderArray.Order.CheckoutStatus.Status value is Complete, and the OrderArray.Order.CheckoutStatus.eBayPaymentStatus value is NoPaymentFailure. If any other values are returned in these fields, confirmation of buyer payment has not yet been completes and the item should not be shipped.

Retrieve order line items for a single item

To retrieve the order line item data for one specified fixed-price listing, use GetItemTransactions.

In general, only use this call when you cannot use GetSellerTransactions. For more information, refer to GetItemTransactions API reference documentation.

Retrieve order line items for a specific seller

To retrieve the order line item data for a specified seller, you can use GetOrders, or alternatively, GetSellerTransactions. Using GetSellerTransactions involves three general steps: setting up the execution environment, specifying the order line items to return, and making the API call.

An eBay user cannot use GetSellerTransactions to retrieve another seller's list of order line item data. eBay uses the security credentials to determine whose order line item data to return.