Overview
Connecting your Akeneo PIM to eBay (including eBay Motors) via Akeneo Activation lets you manage product listings and offers efficiently. Understanding the distinction between a product export and an offer export is fundamental to successfully publishing and maintaining your listings on the eBay marketplace.
Before publishing or updating any offers on eBay, ensure that your offer data (such as price and stock levels) is correctly associated with your product information in Akeneo Activation. eBay requires complete product data to create a listing, and associated offer information to make it available for sale.
Publishing new offers
To publish a new offer on eBay for the first time, use the product export job in Akeneo Activation.
This initial export sends the complete product information from your PIM, along with the associated offer data, to create the listing on the eBay marketplace. A product export is necessary because eBay requires all core product attributes—title, description, images, and category-specific details—to build the product page. Sending offer data without the corresponding product information results in an error.
Workflow for new offers:
- Link product and offer data in Akeneo Activation. Products must have a quantity greater than 0 before creating a new offer on eBay.
- Configure your product catalog for the eBay channel.
- Run the product export to publish the new listings.
Updating existing offers
Once a product listing exists on eBay, you can update offer information—such as price and stock quantity—using the offer export job. This process is faster and more efficient because it only sends the data points that changed, rather than the entire product dataset.
Use the offer export for routine updates, including:
- Price adjustments
- Inventory level changes
To update core product information (such as the product title or description), run a full product export again. The offer export is limited to offer-specific attributes.
Managing offers on eBay
You can manage offers for eBay directly within Akeneo Activation. This feature supports importing and synchronizing commercial data—such as prices, stock levels, and channel-specific fees—via manual, API, or FTP workflows. See Import product offers to Activation for details on available import methods.
The offer import template for eBay requires specific fields that differ from other marketplaces.
The order of columns in your CSV file is flexible. Akeneo Activation processes the data correctly as long as the required headers are present.
| Column name | Examples | Required | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| offer_sku | offer_sku_1_1 | ✅ | The unique offer identifier. You can use the SKU or another identifier of your choice. |
| product_identifier | product_1SKU | ✅ | Must be the product SKU. |
| stock_condition | New | ✅ | Accepted values: New, UsedLikeNew, UsedVeryGoodState, Refurbished
|
| base_price_amount | 10.0 | ✅ | The current selling price. For promotional pricing, set this to the discounted price. |
| base_price_currency | EUR | ✅ | Currency code (e.g., EUR, USD). |
| original_retail_price | 19.00 | ❌ | The original price shown as struck through on eBay. Must be higher than base_price_amount for the promotional display to appear. |
| minimum_advertised_price | 2.00 | ❌ | |
| originally_sold_for_retail_price_on | 15.00 | ❌ | |
| stock_quantity | 10 | ✅ | Current stock level. Must always be included in eBay offer updates (see note below). |
Download the eBay offer template
Due to eBay's API requirements, base_price_amount and stock_quantity must always be included in every offer update, even when only one of these values has changed. eBay does not support partial offer updates.
Publishing a promotional price for an eBay offer
In Akeneo Activation, you can display a discounted price as the main selling price for an eBay offer while showing the original price struck through—for example, "~~$19.00~~ Now $15.79". Because Akeneo Activation's offer import does not have a dedicated promotional price field, this display requires mapping both the discounted price and the original price in your offer import file.
How to set up a promotional price on eBay
Step 1: Prepare the offer import file
In your eBay offer import CSV, set the following fields:
| Field | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
base_price_amount |
Discounted price (e.g., 15.79) |
Becomes the main selling price on eBay. |
original_retail_price |
Original price (e.g., 19.00) |
Displayed as struck through. Must be higher than base_price_amount. |
stock_quantity |
Current stock | Required for every eBay offer update. |
The original_retail_price must be strictly higher than base_price_amount for the struck-through display to appear on eBay. If the values are equal or the original is lower, the promotional display does not render.
Step 2: Import the file and push the offer to eBay
Import the offer file in Akeneo Activation. Once imported, the offer export pushes the update to eBay. The listing displays the discounted price as the selling price and the original price struck through.