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Most sellers offer free shipping, even if for only a subset of their inventory. This topic describes how to configure this most basic shipping option.

To create a domestic free-shipping option:

  1. Use createFulfillmentPolicy to create the fulfillment policy that includes your free-shipping option.
  2. In the shippingOptions field, create a ShippingOption element with the following settings:
    • Set optionType to DOMESTIC.
    • Set costType to either FLAT_RATE or CALCULATED, depending on the service you'll use to ship the order.

  3. Populate the shippingServices container with your variation on what's shown in the following snippet of a fulfillment policy:

    {
  "categoryTypes": [
    {
      "name": "ALL_EXCLUDING_MOTORS_VEHICLES"
    }
  ],
  "marketplaceId": "EBAY_US",
  "name": "Domestic free shipping",
  "shippingOptions": [
    {
      "costType": "FLAT_RATE",
      "optionType": "DOMESTIC",
      "shippingServices": [
        {
          "buyerResponsibleForShipping": "false",
          "freeShipping": "true",
          "shippingCarrierCode": "USPS",
          "shippingServiceCode": "USPSPriorityFlatRateBox"
        }
      ],
      "handlingTime": { 
          "unit" : "DAY",
          "value" : "1"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Some notes about the settings in this policy:

  • Because this fulfillment policy does not support international shipping, the shippingOptions container has just a single ShippingOption element, and the optionType in this element is set to DOMESTIC. If you want this policy to also provide for international shipping, add a second ShippingOption element and set its optionType to INTERNATIONAL (setting up international shipping is described in How to set up worldwide shipping).
  • Set costType to either FLAT_RATE or CALCULATED, depending on how you want to ship your orders.
  • The handlingTime field specifies how much time the seller will take to ship the order from the time of sale. For more information on this field, see handlingTime in the Account API Reference.

As a seller you might think that you can leave the shippingServices configuration blank because you might want to choose the shipping service you'll use when you ship your items. However, most customers expect sellers to provide tracking IDs for all their purchases, and you can provide this information at the time of sale only if you've preconfigured your shipping services.

Also see How to set up shipping carrier and shipping service values.