eBay Integration Instructions

ChannelReply makes helpdesk-eBay integration a snap. First, connect Zendesk, Gorgias, Freshdesk, Re:amaze, Help Scout, Zoho Desk, Kustomer or Onsite Support to ChannelReply. Then follow the written instructions below. In minutes, your accounts will be connected, making eBay customer support easier than ever.

Click on any screenshot to see the full-sized image.

1. Get Ready

Use a Standard Browser Window

If you're currently using an Incognito or Private window in your browser, switch to a standard window. Private modes block cookies that are critical for proper setup.

What to Do if You Already Have a ChannelReply Account

The first thing you need to do is sign in to ChannelReply. Then click “eBay” on the dashboard (you may need to scroll down to see it).

Click “ADD NEW EBAY ACCOUNT.” Then go to Step 2.

What to Do if You Don’t Have an Account Yet

If you don’t have ChannelReply yet, start your free 14-day trial here. Follow the prompts to connect your helpdesk. When you see a screen like the one shown below, choose eBay.

2. Connect eBay

You'll arrive on a page that says "Let's supercharge eBay." If you use Zendesk, Gorgias, Freshdesk, Help Scout, Zoho Desk, Kustomer or Onsite Support, click “CONNECT CHANNELREPLY TO EBAY.”

If you use Re:amaze, you may be asked to select a channel/brand here. Choose the best channel for this eBay account and then click “CONNECT CHANNELREPLY TO EBAY.” If the one you’re looking for isn’t shown in the dropdown, read “Managing Re:amaze Brands & Domains (Channels) in ChannelReply.”

After hitting the "CONNECT" button, you’ll be asked to sign in to eBay.com. Note that even if you normally sell on an eBay subdomain like eBay.co.uk or eBay.de, you will still be taken to eBay.com. Don’t worry about this—the integration will work no matter where you sell.

Sign in to your account to continue.

Click “Agree” on the next page if you would like to accept the terms of the integration and continue with setup.

3. Prevent Double Messaging

After agreeing to the terms, you’ll be taken back to ChannelReply. You'll see this screen about configuring your email settings:

You can either follow along with the video below and then jump to step 5, or just continue reading these instructions below the video.

Log in to eBay. Then mouse over your name in the upper-left corner and select "Account settings." Choose "Business info." (If you don't see "Business info," click "Personal information.")

Sign back in to your eBay account if prompted. Once you arrive at the screen shown below, find the email settings in the "Contact info" section.

Make sure the address listed here does not forward messages to your helpdesk. If you need to change it, click “Edit” next to the “Email address” field to do so.

Once you have entered and saved any email address that does not forward to your helpdesk, you're finished with the basic integration! ChannelReply will deliver your buyer messages and most notifications, and you won't get any duplicates.

Return to ChannelReply and click "Next" to continue.

You'll arrive on a success screen similar to the one shown below.

You now have three choices:

1. Stop here if you’d like. Messaging is working and all your settings will be saved.
2. Click “ADD NEW MARKETPLACE” to connect more eBay, Amazon, Back Market, Etsy, Newegg, Shopify, Walmart US and/or Walmart Canada accounts. (You can always do this later from your dashboard.)
3. Recommended: Click “GO TO MY ACCOUNT” to return to your dashboard, then continue reading this article. We'll show you how to get all your eBay notifications via ChannelReply or customize your settings to get only the ones you want.

4. (Recommended) Configure eBay Notifications

Return to your ChannelReply dashboard if you have not done so already. Then click "eBay."

Hit “EDIT” under your newly connected eBay account.

Scroll down and you’ll see a section labeled “NOTIFICATION PREFERENCES.”

You can learn more about each of these in our eBay Notifications guide if you aren't sure which ones you want. We'll just walk you through the fastest way to get everything you need below.

Enable New Order Notifications (Optional)

Click the grey slider next to “New Order” to enable our eBay New Order notifications.

These notifications are free and don’t count toward your message limit, so it’s safe to turn them on! You can also reply to them directly, making them useful for contacting buyers who haven’t messaged you.

If you don't want to receive every order notification, there is another option. Once New Order is enabled, you can scroll to the bottom of the screen to find the setting "New Orders with Buyer's Notes Only." Enabling this will cause ChannelReply to only generate New Order notifications if the buyer has added a note to the order.

Disable Unwanted Notifications (Optional)

If there are any enabled notifications that you want to disable, now is the time to turn them off. Simply click on the slider. The knob will move from right to left, the slider will change from green to grey, and a success notification will confirm that your changes are saved.

Add Advanced Token & Enable Payment Dispute Notifications (Recommended)

Adding an advanced authorization token will let us deliver your payment dispute notifications. These notifications are free—like New Order notifications, they don’t count toward your monthly limit.

The advanced token also ensures that our eBay Resolution Center Support actions work reliably, so we recommend adding it.

Simply click “Add Advanced Token” below the list of notification options.

Sign in to your eBay account again when prompted. You'll be shown an advanced authorization page with a list of the permissions you'll be granting. eBay requires you to at least scroll through the list to show that you've read these permissions.

Once you've read them, click "Agree and Continue."

You’ll be returned to your ChannelReply dashboard. All the eBay notifications you want are now enabled, including payment disputes! You’ll receive them all in your helpdesk—no further setup needed.

5. (Optional) Manage Other Account Settings

On the ChannelReply dashboard, click “eBay.”

Click “EDIT” under the account you wish to manage.

This will take you back to your eBay Edit Account page. Here’s an explanation of each of the settings available here:

Account Details

This section displays the account's eBay User ID. It also allows you to test your connection, add authorization tokens, or disconnect your eBay account.

Test Connection

Hitting this button will check for issues like expired tokens or revoked permissions. You will see a success notification in the upper right if all is well. If a problem is detected, an error message with troubleshooting suggestions will appear instead.

Add Advanced Token

Clicking this button is another way to begin adding your advanced token, as discussed in step 4. Adding this will enable Payment Dispute notifications and make RCS actions more reliable. This button will not appear if you have already added your advanced token.

Remove Ebay Account

Click “Remove Ebay Account” if you ever want to disconnect your eBay account from ChannelReply. Confirming removal completely revokes ChannelReply’s access to the account and deletes it from our system.

Edit Global Details

This section holds all settings that affect both ChannelReply and CR Feedback. At the moment, it only contains the Tag field, plus the buttons to save or cancel your changes to your tag.

Tag

You can enter any tag or tags of your choice in the “Tag” field. Whatever you enter will appear on all messages ChannelReply delivers from this eBay account, making them easier to keep track of. Something as simple as “ebay” will do the trick if you only have one account.

If you want to include multiple words, we recommend separating them with underscores. Words separated by spaces will appear as different tags.

For more info on how tags work, see "Creating and Using ChannelReply Tags."

ChannelReply Settings

This section includes settings that affect this eBay account's integration with ChannelReply.

At the top of this section, you will only see a Custom Signature field. If you use Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias, or Onsite Support, this will be the only setting above "NOTIFICATION PREFERENCES." Other users will see an additional setting unique to their helpdesk. 

The "SAVE CHANGES" and "Cancel" buttons here only affect your ChannelReply Settings fields. Remember to hit this "SAVE CHANGES" button and not the one in "EDIT GLOBAL DETAILS" to save your signature and/or helpdesk-specific setting.

Help Scout Users Only: Help Scout Mailbox

If you use Help Scout, you'll have the option to select a Help Scout mailbox. This will determine which mailbox receives messages from this eBay account.

Choosing a mailbox is critical for setting up advanced features like Help Scout Custom Fields. However, it is not a required step for messaging. If you do not have a mailbox selected here, we will deliver your messages to your default mailbox (if you have one selected in CRM Settings). If you have no default mailbox, messages will go to the first mailbox listed in your Help Scout account.

To choose a mailbox, simply click "Choose mailbox ..." and select one from the dropdown menu.

Re:amaze Channel (Re:amaze Users Only)

Re:amaze users will have the Re:amaze Channel option. You can use this option to change which channel/brand this eBay account is associated with in Re:amaze. If you don’t see the brand you’re looking for, read “Managing Re:amaze Brands & Domains (Channels) in ChannelReply.”

Zoho Desk Departments (Zoho Desk Users Only)

Zoho Desk users will be able to choose a Zoho Desk department for each eBay account they connect. Simply click the dropdown box and choose the department you'd like us to send your eBay messages to. If you have a lot of departments, you can use the search bar that appears in the dropdown to find the right one fast.

Kustomer Channel (Kustomer Users Only)

We recommend using this setting if:

1. You have multiple "From" email addresses in your Kustomer account.
2. Any of your "From" addresses are tied to a specific template.

Most templates are incompatible with eBay's API, so we may be unable to deliver your message if the wrong "From" address is selected. This can be a pain if your default address is incompatible with eBay. Nobody wants to have to manually select an email address every time they reply!

To solve this problem, enter any "From" email address from your Kustomer account in this field. Make sure the address you select is not tied to a specific template in Kustomer. Anytime you start replying to a new message from this eBay account, the email address you entered here will be automatically selected as your "From" address.

Note that your eBay customers will not see the address you enter here.

Signatures

You can also add a custom signature here if desired. This signature will appear at the end of your replies to customers from this eBay account.

Note that if you already have a signature in your helpdesk, this signature will appear after it. You can leave this field blank if you only want to use the signature from your helpdesk.

Never include links in any signature used for eBay, as links may violate eBay policy.

Want to remove your helpdesk signature from replies to eBay customers? You can! Check out our text remover instructions to learn more.

Once you’re happy with your settings, click “SAVE CHANGES.”

Notification Preferences, Return Notification Settings, Message Threading, Reply Settings, & Preferences

Below the "SAVE CHANGES" button, you will see the notification preferences you worked on in step 4.

You will also see other settings below that.

• RETURN NOTIFICATION SETTINGS will appear if Returns is enabled.

• MESSAGE THREADING will appear if you have New Order, Cancel Order, Inquiries, Cases, or Returns enabled.

Note that the threading option only appears if the relevant notification is turned on. For example, Thread buyer messages into New Order tickets will only appear if you have New Order notifications turned on.  

• REPLY SETTINGS will appear if you have any type of eBay feedback notification enabled. If enabled, this lets you reply to eBay feedback notifications. Note that your replies will not be posted publicly to their feedback, but will be delivered privately to the buyers.

• PREFERENCES will appear if you have New Order enabled.

You can find detailed info on all these settings in the "Additional Info" section of our eBay notifications guide. It explains what these settings do and how they work in different helpdesks.

Advanced Setup Tips

There are a lot of ways to take your eBay integration to the next level!

Custom Fields / Variables

Custom fields or variables let you use eBay order data in your helpdesk's most advanced tools. Depending on your helpdesk, you may be able to use eBay data in canned replies, autoreplies, reports, automations, and/or ticket views. This can save your team an incredible amount of time!

For more info and links to setup instructions, see our custom fields FAQ.

Autoresponders

We've built eBay autoresponder systems for every helpdesk we support. Just click on the name of your helpdesk for autoresponder setup instructions: Zendesk, Freshdesk, Zoho Desk, Gorgias, Re:amaze, Help Scout, Kustomer or Onsite Support.

Text Remover

eBay has strict rules against including links and contact info in your messages. If you normally include these things in your signature, or if you're worried about your agents making a mistake, set up our text remover. This will auto-delete any specific unwanted text from all your messages to eBay customers.

How Do I Add More than One eBay Account to ChannelReply?

Once you’ve finished adding one account, simply follow these instructions from the beginning to add another. You can add as many eBay accounts as you’d like.

Need support, or want tips on using your helpdesk’s advanced features with eBay? Contact us and we'll be happy to help!