findCompletedItems Replacement: Migrating Off eBay's Finding API (With Field Mapping)

If a cron job that's been running since 2015 suddenly started returning nothing, this is probably why. eBay's Finding API, and with it findCompletedItems, the call half the reseller tools on the internet were built on, is gone.

#What happened to findCompletedItems

• October 15, 2020: eBay staff confirmed findCompletedItems was deprecated and access restricted. New apps couldn't call it; old ones limped along.
• January 2024: eBay announced the Finding and Shopping APIs would be decommissioned.
• February 5, 2025: decommissioned. The endpoint no longer serves requests.

eBay's official migration path is the Browse API, which is fine if you were using Finding for active listings. For sold items, there's no drop-in successor you can sign up for. A developer on eBay's forums looked for one and concluded: "The only comparable api is" Marketplace Insights, and that one is Limited Release.

#Field-by-field mapping

The Finding API returned XML (or JSON-wrapped XML) where every value was an array. Here's where each field you probably used lives in a SaleHistory /v1/sold response.

Two things you no longer have to write yourself: a stats block (median, p25/p75, min, max) and a flags array that marks lots, for-parts listings and outliers. Seller details aren't in the response: they don't help you price an item, so we left them out.

#The request, translated

Old:

GET https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1
  ?OPERATION-NAME=findCompletedItems
  &SERVICE-VERSION=1.13.0
  &SECURITY-APPNAME=YourAppID
  &RESPONSE-DATA-FORMAT=JSON
  &keywords=nintendo%2064%20console
  &itemFilter(0).name=SoldItemsOnly&itemFilter(0).value=true
  &itemFilter(1).name=Condition&itemFilter(1).value=3000
  &paginationInput.entriesPerPage=100

New:

GET https://api.soldcomps.io/v1/sold?q=nintendo+64+console&condition=used
Authorization: Bearer sh_live_xxxxxxxx

#A drop-in shim

If you have a lot of code that expects the old response shape, wrap the new call and keep your callers unchanged:

import requests

def find_completed_items(keywords, condition=None, key=None):
    """Returns a list shaped like the old Finding API searchResult.item array."""
    r = requests.get(
        "https://api.soldcomps.io/v1/sold",
        params={"q": keywords, **({"condition": condition} if condition else {})},
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {key}"},
        timeout=30,
    )
    r.raise_for_status()
    return [
        {
            "itemId": [it["item_id"]],
            "title": [it["title"]],
            "sellingStatus": [{
                "currentPrice": [{"__value__": str(it["sold_price"]["value"]),
                                  "@currencyId": it["sold_price"]["currency"]}],
                "sellingState": ["EndedWithSales"],
            }],
            "listingInfo": [{"endTime": [it["sold_at"]]}],
            "viewItemURL": [it["url"]],
        }
        for it in r.json()["items"]
    ]

Once everything's migrated, delete the shim and read the clean fields directly. The Python tutorial shows the idiomatic version.

#Things that behave differently

• No pagination. One request returns up to 200 sales. That's the whole 90-day picture for most specific queries. If you need more, narrow the query (add condition, a price band or more specific keywords) rather than paging.
• 90 days, not forever. eBay only exposes about 90 days of completed sales publicly. That was true of findCompletedItems too.
• Best Offer. eBay sometimes hides the accepted offer amount. Those rows have best_offer_price_known: false and are kept out of stats. Read how Best Offer inflates comps.
• No eBay credentials. findCompletedItems needed your AppID. Now you only send your SaleHistory key. That matters more since eBay started requiring sign-in for sold search.