If you want to connect with eBay via an API (application programming interface), then you have two more options as of this week.
This graphic from the Developer Conference event will give you a sense of the two new API options:
Gail Frederick, Senior Director of eBay’s Developer Ecosystem and Services says: “Over the past seven months, we’ve not only grown the number of registered developers who are part of our program, but our APIs have continued to accelerate selling and buying. As a team, we have an API-first mentality – we’re taking a developer-centric model for delivering APIs. Working with third-party developers and launch partners to build and update APIs is important for eBay as we aspire to become the world’s most powerful selling platform, and a platform that developers love.”
Fighting talk. But the event in San Jose is merely the start. Are you plugged into eBay via an API? And what does it provide?
5 Responses
The real question is not “are you plugged into eBay’s apis?”, but is ebay using them? eBay has a huge credibility gap with its technology — it is creaky and unreliable, subject to random and unexpected failures, and with the classic api support of blaming everyone else present at the interface.
If they really believe that they are stable and functional then they should be using them internally. If ebay aren’t prepared to take their apis seriously, why should you build them into your business and rely on them?
We use ebay API’s really successfully to pull orders from ebay into our own internal system and to mark them as dispatched when our post physically leaves.
We’ve also just created a new use of the API’s by allowing us to create auto-generated ebay listings every time we add new products to our website, cutting down the time on listing in multiple sites. The system we’ve created also allows for those listings to be edited every time we edit our website items too.
We’ve used an api application to link our Ebay items to another site for a couple of years.
When everything is working it’s fine.
The problem is that doesn’t happen very often. Problems occur almost daily, with regular times when it goes down completely and has to be reset. 20th of the month is a favourite day for this to happen, seemingly.
Minor Ebay system problems mean pictures don’t show up properly via the api. Bigger problems mean some items don’t appear at all or are unuseable.
Overall, the benefits just about outweigh the hassles, adding about 20% to our sales, but all the problems stem from the fact that the Ebay system is not 100% stable or reliable.
So anything trying to link with that will only be as reliable as the Ebay system, which is something Ebay never really wants to address.
We use a 3rd party api system (WP Lister) to import orders, from both Amazon & Ebay, into our web site, manage stock as well as add / edit products.
No noticeable problems, everything seems to work as it should
I’m experimenting with ebay apis successfully at #ebayFacebook:
https://sell.ebayfacebook.com/
Yes, there have been some issues with documentation but there are many useful functions. Please feel free to test the app functions while it’s in beta:
https://dvdeland.com/wp/app-links/