eBay Web Services for Affiliates

Presented solo by:

Alan Lewis (eBay Technical Evangelist)

“Web Services provide great opportunities for innovative affiliates to make money”

•    What is the eBay Affiliate Program?

The eBay Affiliate Program is a community of developers, webmasters and entrepreneurs who get paid to promote Ebay.

Originally launched in the US in 2001, there are now programs in over 25 countries worldwide.

Top 100 Global Affiliates make an average of more than $500,000 a year.

•    Affiliates and the eBay API

o    Data

Knowledge is Power.  You can use the eBay API to extract data and information around their marketplace, like Keyword Market Trends, Supply/Demand Discrepancies

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    GetPopularKeywords
-    GetRelatedKeywords (Upcoming)
-    GetContextualKeywords (Beta)

Historical Data
- Not free, but worth the money – through their data partner, DataUnison.

o    Content

Quality Content is available at a low cost by using the API.

Shopping Comparison:  Use eBay Search and listing data to understand pricing trends for products. Display items with a low price on your site for frugal shoppers.

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    GetCategories

eBay is one of the largest source of free content on the web.

You can also use the RSS Feed Generator from eBay, which has customizable feeds embedded in eBay Advanced Search technology appended with the affiliate tracking information.

Key Call:
-    GetSearchResults

o    Communications

Instant Messenger

Concept:

Search/Browsing
Alerts (Price, Listing)
Contextual

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    Instant Messenger API  (provided by the IM platform)

Email is already a huge driver of eCommerce Revenue…IM could be to.

Mobile Technologies

Concept:

Search/Browsing
Bidding
Alerts: Text/Call

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    PlaceOffer (Upcoming Pilot)

Takeaway:

-    Take advantage of the rapidly expanding mobile marke

o    Platform

eBay exposes the eBay platform, for free.

Concept:
-    eBay Widgets
-    Television Set Top Box
-    Desktop Search Tool
KeyCalls:
-    GetSearchResults, GetItem, GetMyeBayBuying

eBay is extending the reach of the eBay Platform to reach a broader audience in new/creative ways.

•    eBay Web Services Overview

eBay Developers Program started in 2001

Auction tools were already screen scraping, eBay wanted to standardize the data through XML.

47% of listings are through eBay Web Services (about half through 3rd parties)

30,000 members, who have created 2,200 live applications

Total number of calls in Q4: 8 Billions!!!

Buyer-oriented web services started in 2003

Features of eBay Web Services:

o    Search
o    Listing Items
o    Transaction/Order Management
o    My eBay
o    eBay Stores
o    Feedback management
o    Watch list
o    Anything that you can do through the eBay site

RSS:

Very low-tech API – search terms and options are specified in the feed URL
Similar to REST API , but with standardized schema (non-eBay specific)
Look at the bottom of any eBay search page for this.
RSS Feeds can be affiliate-enables too.

He also went into a lot of the stuff like AdContext from the eBay Developers Conference - so I’m not going to repeat that in this blog - just browse the categories on the right and look at the eBay category if you want more information.

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