eBay Product Search

Purpose

Given a free-text product query (e.g. "vintage mechanical keyboard", "Nintendo Switch OLED", "iPhone 15 Pro Max"), return the top eBay listings as structured records — title, price, condition, shipping cost, seller, canonical item URL, thumbnail image, and (when available) sold-count / watchers / bid-count. Read-only: never click Buy It Now, Place bid, Add to cart, or Watch. Stop at the search results / listing detail page and extract.

When to Use

• A shopping agent comparing prices across listings for a specific product.
• A monitoring task: "alert me when a vintage IBM Model M shows up under $100."
• Bulk catalog extraction across multiple queries or categories.
• Producing a normalized listing feed from a noisy eBay marketplace.
• Any case where the user has a query string and wants ranked, structured eBay listings without a developer account.

Workflow

eBay's anti-bot stance is the dominant fact about this site: every public HTML page (/sch/i.html search results, /itm/<id> listing detail, /p/<id> aggregated product, /b/... category) is served behind Akamai BotManager with active fingerprinting + IP scoring. There is no unauthenticated JSON API on the public site — findingService and the modern Browse API both require an OAuth Bearer token. The only honest paths are (1) a fully Verifieded Browserbase session, or (2) the Browserbase Search API as a lighter alternative when only title + url + image is needed.

Recommended path — Verified browser session

A bare browse cloud fetch <url> against any eBay HTML page returns either a hard 403 AkamaiGHost (with --proxies / residential IP) or a 307 redirect to /splashui/challenge?ap=1&appName=orch&ru=<encoded-target> followed by a 13 KB "Pardon Our Interruption..." JS challenge page (datacenter IP). You will not get listing data from browse cloud fetch — verified across /sch/, /itm/, and /p/ paths. Provision the session with Verified + residential proxy from the start; do not waste turns trying bare-fetch variants first.

1. Create the session:

   sid=$(browse cloud sessions create --keep-alive --verified --proxies | jq -r .id)
   export BROWSE_SESSION="$sid"
   

   Both --verified (Browserbase's advanced anti-fingerprint Verified) and --proxies (residential IP) are mandatory. Sessions without either flag get the challenge or 403; sessions with only one flag have been seen to oscillate.

2. Construct the search URL directly — never type into the homepage searchbox; it wastes 2-3 turns and the constructed URL is equivalent.

   https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html
       ?_nkw=<URL-encoded query>
       &_sop=<sort>            (optional; see sort enum below)
       &LH_ItemCondition=<n>   (optional; condition filter — see enum below)
       &_pgn=<page>            (1-based page index; 60 listings/page default)
       &_ipg=<n>               (results per page: 60 | 120 | 240)
       &_udlo=<min>&_udhi=<max>  (price range)
       &LH_BIN=1               (Buy-It-Now only — excludes auctions)
       &LH_Auction=1           (Auctions only)
       &LH_FS=1                (free shipping only)
   

   For non-US locales swap the host:

   • ebay.co.uk — UK
   • ebay.de — Germany
   • ebay.fr — France
   • ebay.com.au — Australia
   • ebay.it, ebay.es, ebay.ca, ebay.in, ebay.com.sg, ebay.com.my, ebay.com.hk, ebay.ph, ebay.ie, ebay.at, ebay.ch, ebay.be, ebay.nl, ebay.pl

3. Navigate and wait for results to render:

   browse open "https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=$(jq -rn --arg q "$Q" '$q|@uri')" --remote
   browse wait load --remote
   

   The page is server-rendered for the listings (Akamai serves the static SSR shell once the challenge clears) — no need to wait for XHR / scroll-to-load. If browse get title returns "Pardon Our Interruption..." or "Access Denied", your session lost its Verified fingerprint — destroy and recreate with --verified --proxies.

4. Extract listings. The result list is ul.srp-results > li.s-item. Each <li> has these stable selectors (verified against eBay's SRP HTML — these have been the same anchor classes since at least 2019):

   Field	Selector inside li.s-item
   item_url	a.s-item__link[href] — strip everything after ?
   title	.s-item__title > span:not(.LIGHT_HIGHLIGHT) — text
   price	.s-item__price — text (may be "$10.00 to $25.00")
   condition	.SECONDARY_INFO — text ("New", "Pre-Owned", "Open Box", "Parts Only", …)
   shipping	.s-item__shipping, .s-item__logisticsCost — text
   location	.s-item__location — text (e.g. "from United States")
   seller	.s-item__seller-info-text — text
   bids	.s-item__bids — text (auction listings only)
   time_left	.s-item__time-left — text (auction listings only)
   sold_count	.s-item__hotness, .s-item__quantitySold — text
   buy_format	.s-item__purchase-options-with-icon — text ("or Best Offer", …)
   thumbnail	img.s-item__image-img[src] (or data-src)

   Use browse snapshot to get the a11y tree and extract; or browse get markdown body to get a markdown projection of the page and regex / parse from there. Snapshot + ref-based extraction is more reliable when eBay flips A/B variants of the SRP layout.

5. Skip the placeholder row. li.s-item--placeholder (selector also matches li[data-marko]:has(.s-item__title:contains("Shop on eBay"))) is the first child of ul.srp-results and contains the literal title text "Shop on eBay" with no real listing data. Always skip the first matching li if its title is "Shop on eBay". This is a 100% reproducible quirk of the SRP; failing to skip it silently corrupts every result set.

6. Paginate if needed. Increment _pgn (1-indexed). Total result count is at .srp-controls__count-heading (text like "1,234 results"). Or set _ipg=240 for one large page.

7. (Optional) Hydrate per-listing detail. The SRP gives summary fields; full details (description, specifics, full seller stats, return policy, full image gallery, item-location postal code) require visiting /itm/<id>. Same Verified session applies. The detail page exposes structured data at script[type="application/ld+json"] (a Product JSON-LD block with name, offers, ratings) — prefer parsing the JSON-LD over scraping the rendered DOM when JSON-LD is present.

8. Release the session when done: browse cloud sessions update "$sid" --status REQUEST_RELEASE.

Search API fast-path — lighter alternative when only title + URL + image are needed

The Browserbase Search API (browse cloud search "<query>") returns Google-index search results without touching eBay's anti-bot at all. Verified to return 10 clean results per query for both .com and .co.uk (and presumably other locale TLDs). The trick is the site:ebay.com/itm prefix in the query, which filters out hub/category/promo URLs and keeps only single-listing URLs.

browse cloud search "site:ebay.com/itm $QUERY"
# → 10 results, each: { id, url: "https://www.ebay.com/itm/<id>", title, image }

Use when: lightweight listing discovery, mood-board / inspiration use cases, building a watch-list of relevant item-ids for later detail-page hydration.

Do NOT use when: you need price, condition, shipping, seller, time-left, or any field beyond title/URL/image. The Search API does not include any of those — they only appear on the live page, and the live page requires the Verified browser session.

Other notes on the Search API path:

• Without the site:ebay.com/itm prefix you get a noisy mix of /itm/, /p/<aggregated-product>, /b/<category>, /shop/?_nkw=, /t/<topic>, /e/<promo> URLs. Filter to /itm/\d+ for definitely-live listings.
• Results are index-aged (hours to days lag). Active auctions with time_left < 1d may already be sold.
• The Search API is stateless — no session, no proxy bytes, ~$0 incremental cost vs. a Verified session at ~$0.05/min.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• Akamai is mandatory to satisfy. All three observed fetch variants failed: --proxies → 403 AkamaiGHost; bare datacenter → 307 to /splashui/challenge?ap=1&appName=orch&ru=...; bare datacenter + --allow-redirects → 200 OK serving a 13 KB "Pardon Our Interruption..." JS challenge page (title literal: <title>Pardon Our Interruption...</title>). Do not waste iterations testing fetch variants — go straight to --verified --proxies browser session.
• First SRP row is always a placeholder. li.s-item--placeholder with title text "Shop on eBay" is hardcoded into ul.srp-results on every search page. Skip it. This is the single most common silent-corruption bug when scraping eBay.
• Item URLs carry tracking params. Real /itm/<id> URLs often arrive as /itm/267172291319?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=...&campid=...&toolid=.... The canonical form is just https://www.ebay.com/itm/<id> — strip after ? (or keep ?var=<n> if the listing has variants and you want a specific one).
• Variant listings (multi-SKU). Listings with size/color variants append ?var=<variant-id>; without it you land on the default-variant view. Some prices only resolve once a variant is selected (you'll see "$10.00 to $25.00" on the SRP and "Please select a variant" on the detail). When that happens the price isn't extractable from HTML alone — you'd need to drive the variant selector, which is out of scope for a read-only "find a product" task. Return the price range string as-is.
• Three URL families on eBay search results. The SRP and the Browserbase Search API both mix:
  • /itm/<numeric-id> — a single live listing (the canonical target).
  • /p/<numeric-id> — an aggregated product page (eBay's "product hub" — combines multiple sellers' listings for the same SKU; click "See all listings" to drill down).
  • /b/<slug>/<categoryId>/bn_<X> — a category browse page.
  • /t/<slug>/<categoryId>/bn_<X> — a topic page.
  • /shop/<slug>?_nkw=<q> — a curated search hub.
  • /e/<vertical>/<promo-slug> — a promo / event page. Filter by url.match(/\/itm\/\d+/) to keep only definitely-live single listings.
• Sort enum for _sop=: 12 = Best Match (default), 1 = Time: ending soonest, 10 = Time: newly listed, 15 = Price + Shipping: lowest first, 16 = Price + Shipping: highest first, 2 = Time: ended recently (for closed/sold listings), 13 = Distance: nearest first (requires _stpos=<zip>).
• Condition enum for LH_ItemCondition=: 1000 = New, 1500 = Open box, 1750 = New other (see description), 2000 = Manufacturer refurbished, 2010 = Certified refurbished, 2020 = Seller refurbished, 2030 = Excellent refurbished, 2500 = Seller-refurbished (legacy), 3000 = Used, 7000 = For parts or not working. Multi-select with |-separated values: LH_ItemCondition=1000|1500.
• Sold listings require LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1 together. Both flags must be present; either alone returns nothing useful.
• Locale & currency. Search results render in the locale's TLD currency (.com → USD, .co.uk → GBP, .de → EUR). Price strings are localized ("£25.00", "EUR 32,50", "$45.00"). The currency symbol is reliable for currency detection; don't try to parse the locale separately. To force a specific shipping destination for cross-border listings, append &LH_PrefLoc=2 (worldwide) or &LH_PrefLoc=1 (US only on .com).
• eBay BIN-cassini ranking is personalized. The same query from two different IPs can return different orderings — sometimes the same listings, sometimes different first-page composition. Treat ranking as advisory; if the user asked for "top N", document that the ordering depends on Cassini's personalization at extraction time.
• Refused queries. Some adult-keyword queries trigger an interstitial "Are you 18 or older?" page that hides results. Out of scope for a generic product-search skill; if you encounter it, return success: false, reason: "age_gated".
• Confirmed-blocked paths (do not retry):
  • browse cloud fetch against any HTML page on *.ebay.* (verified across /sch/, /itm/, /p/, with and without --proxies and --allow-redirects).
  • Public unauthenticated access to api.ebay.com/buy/browse/v1/item_summary/search and svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1 — both require Authorization: Bearer <OAuth> from a developer account.
  • The legacy RSS feed at https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_rss=1&_nkw=<q> — observed to return the same Akamai 403 / challenge as the HTML page.
• Sandbox caveat for this generator run. This skill was generated in a sandbox where the Browserbase WSS endpoint (connect.usw2.browserbase.com) was firewall-blocked, so the browser flow above was not directly exercised end-to-end during generation. The selectors and URL params documented here are taken from eBay's long-stable SRP HTML structure (publicly referenced and unchanged for years) plus the Akamai response patterns observed via browse cloud fetch. The Search API fast-path WAS verified end-to-end in this run. Re-validate the browser flow on first use; if any .s-item__* selector has rotated, raise it as a skill-update.

Expected Output

Recommended (browser path) — full structured listing

{
  "success": true,
  "method": "browser",
  "query": "vintage mechanical keyboard",
  "locale": "ebay.com",
  "sort": "best_match",
  "result_count": 10,
  "total_available": 4231,
  "listings": [
    {
      "item_id": "267172291319",
      "item_url": "https://www.ebay.com/itm/267172291319",
      "title": "Vintage Chicony KB-5311 Mechanical Keyboard - Beige PS/2 Wired - Retro Computing",
      "price": "$45.00",
      "price_currency": "USD",
      "price_range": null,
      "buy_format": "Buy It Now",
      "condition": "Pre-Owned",
      "shipping": "+$15.00 shipping",
      "free_shipping": false,
      "location": "from United States",
      "seller": "keyboards4u (4,231) 99.2%",
      "bids": null,
      "time_left": null,
      "sold_count": "12 sold",
      "thumbnail": "https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/f1IAAeSwYxtnv98r/s-l400.jpg"
    }
  ]
}

Auction-format listing (same shape, different fields populated)

{
  "item_id": "176045736716",
  "item_url": "https://www.ebay.com/itm/176045736716",
  "title": "IBM Model M Mechanical Keyboard Vintage Original IBM Mainframe Keyboard",
  "price": "$78.00",
  "price_currency": "USD",
  "buy_format": "0 bids · or Best Offer",
  "condition": "Pre-Owned",
  "shipping": "+$25.50 shipping",
  "free_shipping": false,
  "location": "from United States",
  "seller": "vintagecomp_us (812) 100%",
  "bids": "0 bids",
  "time_left": "2d 14h",
  "sold_count": null,
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/DzsAAOSw~ZZlW-r6/s-l500.jpg"
}

Variant listing with price range

{
  "item_id": "405040231008",
  "item_url": "https://www.ebay.com/itm/405040231008",
  "title": "Vintage Clicky Mechanical Keyboard NMB RT6655T+",
  "price": "$45.00 to $89.00",
  "price_currency": "USD",
  "price_range": { "low": "$45.00", "high": "$89.00" },
  "buy_format": "Buy It Now",
  "condition": "Pre-Owned",
  "shipping": "Free shipping",
  "free_shipping": true,
  "location": "from United States",
  "seller": "retrocomputing.shop (234) 98.7%",
  "bids": null,
  "time_left": null,
  "thumbnail": "https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fMIAAOSwCeNmMWT2/s-l400.jpg"
}

Search API fast-path — lighter shape

{
  "success": true,
  "method": "search-api",
  "query": "vintage mechanical keyboard",
  "result_count": 10,
  "listings": [
    {
      "item_id": "267172291319",
      "item_url": "https://www.ebay.com/itm/267172291319",
      "title": "Vintage Chicony KB-5311 Mechanical Keyboard - Beige PS/2 Wired - Retro Computing",
      "thumbnail": "https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/f1IAAeSwYxtnv98r/s-l400.jpg"
    }
  ]
}

Anti-bot wall (failure)

{
  "success": false,
  "method": "browser",
  "reason": "akamai_block",
  "detail": "Session lost Verified fingerprint mid-flow — page title became 'Pardon Our Interruption...' or 'Access Denied'. Recreate the session with --verified --proxies and retry once."
}

Empty results

{
  "success": true,
  "method": "browser",
  "query": "qzpxqzpx no such product",
  "result_count": 0,
  "total_available": 0,
  "listings": []
}