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| Thursday, September 10, 2009 |
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Here at the eBay Developers Program, we know that we're only successful when developers are successful. You may be wondering, especially if you are new to the eBay API platform -- what does success look like? So, we're launching a new series featuring developers of all sizes who are creating cool apps and making money with the eBay API platform. Our eBay API Developer Success Stories are now live on the developer.ebay.com website.
We're launching our eBay API Developer Success Stories series with four success stories, focusing on Selling Manager Applications developers: ahTEXT, HostedSupport, MyShipRush & Terapeak.
Are you an eBay API Developer Success Story? Share it with us! We'll be publishing the ones our team likes best, then providing easy access to social media tools, so that your success story can be dugg, tweeted, blogged, facebooked, bookmarked & stumbled by your customers, staff & general fanbase.
Video interviews, seller testimonial quotes, and print versions of the stories have also been built in. Take a look, and if you have a suggestion or feedback, please let us know how we can make these even better.
Get acquainted to different business models and strategies developers have used to make money on the eBay API platform. Check out our Success Stories today.
- Delyn
Another eBay Ink-featured SM App of the Day: My.ShipRush Ship Center -- a Selling Manager application that helps sellers centralize and optimize the post-sale process, including that DSR-buster -- shipping!
Richard's put together a fantastic and comprehensive look at this useful tool -- read his write-up.
- Delyn
Our friends over at the PayPal Developer Network are throwing their platform launch event, PayPal X Innovate 2009, over November 3 and 4 in San Francisco.
 PayPal X Innovate 2009 is where you can learn how to leverage the new PayPal APIs to your advantage and easily monetize your ideas with more than 40 sessions
, keynotes from technology leaders, hands-on labs, partner exhibits, and special networking events. Conference session descriptions and speakers now live on www.paypal.com/innovate2009.
Special offer to eBay Developers Program members that expires Tuesday, September 15th -- $99 conference registration for eBay API developers. DON'T DELAY -- Use promo code 99EBAY915 and register now before this deal ends on September 15th.
For more information about the new open PayPal platform and the Innovate event – see the blog, news & announcements on www.x.com.
- Delyn
Starting with version 635, you will be able to create a list of the locations to where you will not ship items. Create your global Ship To Exclusion List in My eBay. When you list or relist an item, buyers who reside in the areas that you have specified in the Ship To Exclusion List will be blocked from bidding on your items.
If a seller's primary ship to location is a location which you have listed as an excluded ship to location (or if the buyer does not have a primary ship to location), they will receive an error message if they attempt to buy or place a bid on your item.
Specify locations to exclude using ISO Country Codes. The ExcludeShippingLocationDetails node in GeteBayDetils lists the valid ISO Country Code values that you can exclude for a given eBay site. Get a list of all ISO Country Codes.
You can override the settings in your Ship To Exclusion List using ExcludeShipToLocation fields in your item-listing calls. Use the ExcludeShipToLocation field to specify individual locations to where you will not ship. Including ExcludeShipToLocation in any AddItem family of calls disables the default Ship To Exclusion List you might have set up in My eBay.
Here is an example of using the ExcludeToShipLocation field within an AddItem call:
...
<ShippingDetails>
<ExcludeShipToLocation>FR</ExcludeShipToLocation>
<ExcludeShipToLocation>IT</ExcludeShipToLocation>
</ShippingDetails>
...
With this call, bidders in France (FR) and Italy (IT) will be unable to buy the associated item; buyers in all other locations are eligible to buy the item, regardless of any settings in your global Ship To Exclusion List.
Alternately, use a value of NONE in the ExcludeToShipLocation field to disable the Ship To Exclusion List and allow buyers from all locations to bid on or buy your item:
<ShippingDetails>
<ExcludeShipToLocation>NONE</ExcludeShipToLocation>
</ShippingDetails>
You can use GetUserPreferences to review the default set of ExcludeShipToLocations that you've set up in My eBay:
<GetUserPreferencesRequest xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents">
<ShowSellerExcludeShipToLocationPreference> true </ShowSellerExcludeShipToLocationPreference>
</GetUserPreferencesRequest>
In researching buyer satisfaction, eBay has found that the shipping insurance option in item listings causes many negative experiences for both buyers and sellers alike. Buyers are confused as to why they need to purchase shipping insurance, especially in light of PayPal's Buyer Protection service (which applies whether or not a seller uses shipping insurance).
Beginning with version 635, sellers will no longer be able to list shipping insurance as an optional service for domestic or international items. This restriction affects the following eBay sites:
| BEFR |
BENL |
CA |
| CAFR |
HK |
IE |
| MY |
Motors |
NL |
| PH |
PL |
SG |
| UK |
US |
|
While you do not have to update existing listings, you will be unable to add shipping insurance as a separate cost to new, revised, and renewed listings. If you attempt to add a shipping insurance option to an item listing on one of the above-mentioned sites, the item listing will succeed, however, the insurance option will be removed from the item listing and a warning will be generated.
Sellers are responsible for safely delivering an item into the hands of the buyer. Sellers may wish to work with bulk shipping insurance providers for low cost insurance that they can include in the item price. Also 3rd party developers of listing tools may find an additional revenue stream by providing bulk shipping insurance to their customers.
The eBay API team is considering changing the case of the appinfo tags found in various wsdls—specifically, changing from upper to lowercase on the first letter only. For example, CallName could become callName, RequiredInput could become requireInput, and MaxLength could become maxLength.
The eBay API team would like to hear from anyone who would be affected by such a change: characterize, if you would, the impact of such a change on your tools, etc.
Please contact developer-relations@ebay.com
Thanks
John Darrow
API Tech Docs and Tools
As published on eBay Ink this morning, eBay has announced it will sell Skype to receive approximately $1.9 Billion in Cash, while retaining an approximate 35 percent stake.
eBay announced back in April that it planned to separate Skype from the company with anticipation of an IPO in 2010. According to a press release issued by eBay this morning, an investor group led by Silver Lake, that includes
Index Ventures,
Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board,
will purchase Skype giving them 65% ownership of the communications.
- Delyn
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