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I am using SKU in all my listing but still I am running into duplicate listings issues. Why ?
Duplicate listing can be avoided using SKU only if it is tracked by InventoryTrackingMethod.
Here are a few scenarios where even though you have listed item with SKU but may end up having dupliacte listing i.e. multiple listings with the same SKU
Use Case 1:
Your item was listed with SKU but <InventoryTrackingMethod> was not set. If you make a call to GetItem and see if <InventoryTrackingMethod>True </InventoryTrackingMethod> is returned. If InventoryTrackingMethod is missing or set to false, duplicate listing may happen because SKUs are not being tracked by InventoryTrackingMethod.
Use Case 2 :
Here is another case where item was initially listed without SKU but then later revised to add SKu and InventoryTrackingMethod.
Suppose you have originally listed an item via AddItem api with no SKU tag and since AddItem doesn't support InventoryTrackingMethod-SKU, the item got listed without InventoryTrackingMethod tag as well. Now if you make a call to ReviseFixedPriceItem with the something like this in the request :
< InventoryTrackingMethod>SKU</ InventoryTrackingMethod>
<SKU>sku-123</ SKU>
No warning/error will be returned. If you make a call to GetItem with the above Revised item, you will see the SKU number but there will no InventoryTrackingMethod tag in the response.
In this case, SKU will be added but InventoryTrackingMethod will be silently dropped.
Now if you try to list AddFixedPriceItem with the following :
< InventoryTrackingMethod>SKU</ InventoryTrackingMethod>
<SKU>sku-123</ SKU>
Item will be listed because the SKU- sku-123 is actually not being revised earlier to be tracked by InventoryTrackingMethod and so it will lead to duplicate listings having the same SKU.
In this case it will be best to End the Item and Re-list again with AddFixedPriceItem api.