Items in certain categories can have details whose values are well known and do not vary from listing to listing. Instead of filling in this standard information for every listing, a seller can create a listing based on an eBay catalog product, and the product details defined in this catalog product "pre-fills" the listing.

When an auction item has bids or the listing ends in fewer than 12 hours, you cannot change the product ID and you cannot remove the product from the listing. However, you can change the values of the Item.ProductListingDetails.IncludeStockPhotoURL, Item.ProductListingDetails.UseStockPhotoURLAsGallery, and Item.ProductListingDetails.IncludeeBayProductDetails flags.

When an auction item has no bids and does not end within 12 hours, you can use ReviseItem to add, modify, or remove product details.

If an item is listed with product details and you change the relevant category, you need to make sure the new category is mapped to the characteristics set associated with the product. The product data must always be consistent with at least one of the listing's categories. If the item already includes product details, but that information is inconsistent with the new category, you must remove the product information or replace it with new product information that is consistent.

Common scenarios when revising an item with product details include:

  • Add product details to the listing.

    To add product details:

    • Set Item.ProductListingDetails to include all product information that you want to provide in the listing.
    • Specify the ID of the product that should be used to pre-fill the listing.
    • Use optional child elements to specify whether you want the listing to include a stock photo, whether you want to use the stock photo as the item's gallery image, and whether to include a stock summary in addition to your own item description.
  • To include a stock photo in the listing, you can either use the stock photo as the Gallery image by setting Item.ProductListingDetails.UseStockPhotoURLAsGallery to TRUE or use the first image passed in Item.PictureDetails.PictureURL as the Gallery image. For more information, refer to Use an eBay stock photo as a gallery picture.

  • Remove all existing product data, including Item Specifics.

    To remove all existing product data from the listing set:

    Removing product data without removing Item Specifics has the following effects:

    • Pre-filled item specifics are removed from the listing.
    • Item specifics that are not pre-filled are maintained unless you remove them or change the category to one that does not support the previously specified item specifics.
    • The stock photo (if any) is removed from the listing and Gallery (if applicable).
    • The link to additional summary information is removed from the listing.

  • Replace previous product data including pre-filled Item Specifics.

    To replace the previous product data with data for a different product:

  • Add, modify, or change item specifics that have not been pre-filled.

    To add, modify, or change only the item specifics that were not pre-filled, refer to Update Item Specifics for information about revising Item Specifics.

Changes to product data in the system do not affect an existing listing. Therefore, the product ID and any pre-filled data that was present at the time of the AddItem request remains constant at the time of the ReviseItem request.

After calling ReviseItem with updated product details, you should compare the response to the request to make sure that the data that was actually listed matches the data that was passed in. For example, if you changed the value of an item specific but the value is now pre-filled in the catalog, the pre-filled value overrides the value that had been passed in.