WAXENGINE

eBay Integration

How WaxEngine connects to your eBay account, what the connection can do, how authorization is managed for you, and how to disconnect.

Overview

WaxEngine connects directly to eBay to provide end-to-end listing management. You connect once through eBay’s official sign-in, and WaxEngine handles everything else, you never need an eBay developer account, API keys, or tokens.

Under the hood the connection powers three groups of capabilities:

CapabilityWhat it does for you
Listing managementCreate, revise, and end listings; pull your orders and feedback
Marketplace searchFind sold and active comps that feed the pricing engine
OffersSend discounted offers to watchers on your listings

Connecting Your Account

You connect eBay during onboarding (Step 4 of the wizard) or anytime from Settings:

  1. Click Connect eBay
  2. You are taken to eBay’s own sign-in page, WaxEngine never sees your password
  3. Sign in to the eBay account you sell from and click Allow

That is the entire process. From that point on, WaxEngine acts on your behalf for listing management: publishing cards, revising prices, ending stale listings, sending offers, and reading your sold orders and feedback.

What the connection cannot do

The authorization is scoped to selling operations. WaxEngine cannot change your eBay password, access your payment details, or do anything outside the listing-management permissions you granted.

Publishing Listings

When you click Publish on a reviewed card, WaxEngine:

  1. Generates an optimized title (up to eBay’s 80-character limit)
  2. Uploads your card images to eBay’s picture service
  3. Creates the fixed-price listing with your price, item specifics, shipping policy, and branding image
  4. Records the listing in your inventory history

eBay re-hosts all images on its own servers, so your listings load fast and meet eBay’s image requirements automatically. eBay requires images to be at least 500 pixels on the longest side, clear phone photos easily exceed this.

Pricing Comps

The pricing engine searches eBay for sold and active listings of the same card:

  • Sold comps, What the card has actually sold for recently
  • Active competition, What other sellers are charging right now

Results feed into the price suggestion and the price breakdown you see on every card. See Pricing Engine for how the pillars combine.

Sending Offers

The Offer tier and the automation engine send discounted offers to watchers through eBay’s offer system. Key constraints eBay enforces:

  • Offers can only be sent to listings that have watchers
  • eBay requires a minimum discount percentage
  • There is a cooldown period between offers to the same buyer
  • WaxEngine tracks offer history to respect cooldowns and prevent duplicates

Authorization, Handled for You

eBay authorizations use expiring tokens behind the scenes. WaxEngine refreshes them automatically, including during long-running operations like bulk analysis or big offer batches. You should never have to think about it.

Two situations require a quick re-connect:

  • eBay expires the authorization, this happens naturally after about 18 months
  • You change your eBay password or revoke the app’s access from your eBay account settings

In either case, go to Settings → Reconnect eBay and repeat the two-click sign-in.

Disconnecting

You can disconnect eBay at any time from Settings. Disconnecting immediately stops WaxEngine from acting on your account. You can also revoke access from your eBay account’s third-party app permissions, both routes have the same effect.

Rate Limits and Reliability

eBay imposes daily API limits. WaxEngine is designed to stay well within them for normal usage:

  • Bulk operations are throttled intentionally
  • Transient network errors are retried automatically
  • Authorization is refreshed automatically before it expires mid-operation
  • Failed calls are logged with reasons so nothing fails silently

Troubleshooting

”eBay connection expired” or authorization errors

Go to Settings → Reconnect eBay and complete the quick sign-in. This is normal after ~18 months or after an eBay password change.

”Item not found” when revising a listing

The listing may have ended or been removed by eBay. Run Analyze to refresh your active listing data.

Slow responses

eBay’s systems can be slow during peak hours (evenings, weekends). Bulk operations are throttled intentionally to stay within eBay’s limits.

Image upload failures

  • Check image resolution, eBay requires at least 500 pixels on the longest side
  • Use JPEG or PNG format
  • Retry the publish; transient upload errors usually clear on the second attempt

Next Steps