I am making a call to GetItem but the response returns empty Description tag. How is that possible?
The Item.Description is optional when IncludePrefilledItemInformation is set to true and the seller listed the item against a catalog product. So if the seller did not specify their own custom description, GetItem response will return empty Description tag. The catalog description that gets associated with the item is not retrievable via any API call due to copyright requirements.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <GetItemResponse xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents"> <Timestamp>2011-02-02T18:07:52.298Z</Timestamp> <Ack>Success</Ack> <Version>1267</Version> <Build>E705_CORE_BUNDLED_12601375_R1</Build> <Item> .... <Description> </Description> <ItemID>300500281174</ItemID> ........ <ProductListingDetails> <ProductID>111322:2:1055:248670638:278796618:219b4902e5cc8ccff0a1a1f4e10036cc:1:1:1:1246870</ProductID> <IncludeStockPhotoURL>true</IncludeStockPhotoURL> <IncludePrefilledItemInformation>true</IncludePrefilledItemInformation> <UseStockPhotoURLAsGallery>true</UseStockPhotoURLAsGallery> <StockPhotoURL>http://i16.ebayimg.com/04/c/000/77/7c/c62c_7.JPG?set_id=81040003C1</StockPhotoURL> <Copyright>Portions of this page Copyright 1995 - 2011 Muze Inc. <img src="http://pics.ebay.com/aw/pics/sell/catalogs/muze_40x10.gif"/> All rights reserved.</Copyright> </ProductListingDetails>