eBay Addon Error: Please specify a return policy

Greetings!  Thanks in advance for any feedback that you might offer.

Testing a new eBay listing and upon submission, receive the error:

Please specify a return policy for your listing.

This seems easy enough to rectify.  However, I can find no area that allows me to add a return policy.  I would happy to admit that I am blind and am missing something obvious but I've searched the eBay add on user's guide, these forums and via web searches but find no reference.

Anyone have a similar experience?

Thanks again.


Edited by mrjasonsweet - 27-June-2009 at 1:15pm

Thanks Matt!

I went through this whole ordeal, too, and got the fix from EI. Unfortunately, it was just a quick fix that just makes your listing go through to ebay, but with a default return policy. If you actually want to define a Return Policy, there is more tweaking. I actually coded our pcEbayClass.asp file so that it specifies the exact Return Policy that we want, and I no longer have to go to a listing after I've exported to walk through several pages to change the return policy criteria. We do Bulk Uploads and I could spend an hour just cleaning up my exports. The whole point, in my opinion, is to bypass the annoying pages of listing and revising on ebay. So here's what I did, if anyone's interested in doing the same:


1. Backup your pcEbayClass.asp file in the 'includes' folder (of course).
2. Look for the line that reads:

Set objReturnPolicy = objEbayClass.XMLCreateNode(objItem,"ReturnPolicy","")

3. Below that may look different, depending on the fix you received from EI, but here are the things I added:

Call objEbayClass.XMLCreateChild(objReturnPolicy,"ReturnsAcceptedOption","ReturnsAccepted") Call objEbayClass.XMLCreateChild(objReturnPolicy,"RefundOption","Exchange") Call objEbayClass.XMLCreateChild(objReturnPolicy,"ReturnsWithinOption","Days_14") Call objEbayClass.XMLCreateChild(objReturnPolicy,"ShippingCostPaidByOption","Seller")

The 1st line is whether you accept returns or not; the 2nd is the type of Refund - Exchange or MoneyBack; the 3rd line is self-explanatory; the 4th is who is responsible for shipping: Buyer or Seller.

This is a hard-coded return policy that gets put on all exported items. There's no drop-down box to choose. This works for us, as our return policy is a blanket policy - not product by product policy. I've never understood that on ebay. A seller should be able to specify their Return Policy in their preferences - that return policy would be displayed on all products - but an individual product could override that return policy. Would make more sense to me.

For detailed explanation on these options go here to the ebay AddItem Call Reference page.

Hope this helps! BACK UP FIRST!

Hi, Matt:
Can you please tell me how I would find this update? Would this be "Check for Updates" under "Help" in my control panel? If so, I routinely check and tells me I'm up-to-date. Where are updates to add-ons normally posted? If I can't find it, I'm sure there are others that can not as well. Thanks. -rh

I will do that then. Come September 15 though, opening a ticket would cost me one of my 24. ;-)