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EBay Drops Charges for Developers Network

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the free-does-seem-to-be-more-popular dept.

Rob writes "Seeking to make its presence in third-party rebranded commerce applications more ubiquitous, eBay Inc is lifting all of its API and transaction charges for developers. It's the latest action a series of moves to expand the eBay developer community. Last summer, the company opened up a collaborative website, the eBay Community Codebase, to provide a hosted project developer site for anyone willing to open source their code."

28 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. A huge win for everyone, just one more thing... by Shayde · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a huge plus for everyone involved. Much of eBay's usefulness as a remotely accessible database resource has been nullified due to these annoying charges. Without having a fee associated with access to their very own information, eBay is really opening up for third party developers to generate decent applications, rather than hav eto depend on scraping the HTML to get functionality. I've used JBidWatcher a lot for sniping, which relies on HTML scraping, and I'm glad we can move away from that.

    And before folks start going on about sniping, eBays very own policies make sniping the -only- way to do business on ebay with any effectiveness. Becaused they won't implement the simple policy of extending an auction based on most recent bid (a very simple solution to the problem of sniping, and one that would be an elegant, simple, and beneficial solution to eveyrone), sniping is now 'de rigeur' for any auction.

    --
    Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
    1. Re:A huge win for everyone, just one more thing... by ergo98 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Without having a fee associated with access to their very own information, eBay is really opening up for third party developers to generate decent applications, rather than hav eto depend on scraping the HTML to get functionality.

      Shouldn't these "decent applications" have enough of a revenue model to pay for the access fees? I don't know what sort of coin Ebay was charging, but such a "barrier to entry" often keeps the standards high - every dimwit that knows how to call a webservice can toss together some piece of junk to waste everyone's time. Instead it's usually built around even a marginal business, and it's just a cost of doing business in that market.

      If Ebay is doing this, it's likely because they're worried about auction competitors, so they want to lock as much of the development community in.

      and before folks start going on about sniping, eBays very own policies make sniping the -only- way to do business on ebay with any effectiveness. Becaused they won't implement the simple policy of extending an auction based on most recent bid (a very simple solution to the problem of sniping, and one that would be an elegant, simple, and beneficial solution to eveyrone), sniping is now 'de rigeur' for any auction.

      Totally offtopic, but all of this sniping nonsense just proves how ridiculous people treat an auction like ebay (which usually leads them to grossly overpay). I've bid, and won, a couple of Ebay items through the magical technique of deciding how much it's worth to me, and putting that amount in their little autobidding system. If someone exceeds my amount - well that's more than I would have paid anyways, so it's no skin off my back. I'm certainly not going to get into any competitive BS and overpay just to win an auction. There is no logical explanation for last-second bidding except for irrational competitiveness undermining rational valuation.

    2. Re:A huge win for everyone, just one more thing... by Shayde · · Score: 4, Insightful

      RE: the sniping argument. What you said is totally accurate, but in reality doesn't work quite that way.

      People like buying things for less than they're willing to pay. That one fact alone is why sniping works. "I'm -willing- to pay $50 for this item, but damn I'd be excited as git out to pay $35." - if that $35 bid holds, I'll be a lot more interested in getting the item than I would be if it were $50. That's why sniping works. The difference between 'willing' and 'excited about'.

      If sniping were removed, this dynamic would change, and things would work as you suggest. Prices would walk up to the comfort level and stay there. I'm comfortable paying $50, you're comfortable paying $45. Things end, I win.

      --
      Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
    3. Re:A huge win for everyone, just one more thing... by mopslik · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In fact the snipers are often shooting themselves in the foot with their technique ... - an item unnaturally low up until the end

      Again, this is why sniping works. With a few exceptions, other snipers aren't putting in their max bids. They're putting in bids a few bucks more than the current price, trying to get the best deal. The one or two people that put in the max bids at the last second are the winners, barring any overly-competitive bidders as you suggest.

    4. Re:A huge win for everyone, just one more thing... by Misch · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've looked through their web services API specification and there's no automated bidding possible.

      FAQ
      We currently don't allow bidding through the general API. Although it is possible to look into that on a case by case approach. If you are interested contact [cut address] with some background information on your company and what you want to build.

      --

      --You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
    5. Re:A huge win for everyone, just one more thing... by Teddy+Beartuzzi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The reason sniping works is that bidder's idea of the max they will pay varies over time. For example, I am resolute, and do enter my max of $50 on day 1. Current price is $10.

      Some guy comes along with the same max in mind, thinks "hey, good deal, I'll try $20". They bid, price goes to $21, I'm still the leader. They think "Well, I'm willing to go as high as $50", so try again. They bid $40, price goes to $41, I still lead. Now it's "Damn. Ok, I'll go my max, $50..." They bid $50, I still lead because I was first, price is $50.

      And here's the problem. The guy's next move is invariably "Son of a bitch. OK, I REALLY want this thing, I'll go $55." Auction fever sets in, and he raises his high beyond where it was initially.

      Ok, in this case I didn't win the auction and can try again on a different item, but it's also just as common that a guy had an initial max of $40 in his mind, but lets the fever drive him up to $45 or $50, and I end up paying more. If I had sniped my $50 at the last second and the auction had been sitting at $10 all week, he'd have at best only put in his max of $40 (and likely would have put less hoping for a deal), and my snipe of $50 wins the item at $41 tops, because he never had time to consider raising his bid.

      That's why the snipe is effective: ultimately it works because it doesn't allow time for second thoughts. It also doesn't allow any time for shill bidding.

    6. Re:A huge win for everyone, just one more thing... by Teddy+Beartuzzi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nope, not true. If there's not enough to go a full increment, the item gets raised by whatever the difference is.

      For example, if you bid $21 on something early, and the current bid is $5, and I snipe with 2 seconds left and happen to outbid you by pennies, say $21.12, I win the item for $21.12, even though the next bid increment was $22.

      Which really is the way it should be, I was willing to pay more than you, I get the item. The alternative would be for eBay to award the item to you for $21, but those lost cents are going to add up in the long run with millions of auctions. And eBay wants their cut of those pennies.

  2. Where was this a year ago?? by 0110011001110101 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Dammit, where was the FREE API and whatnot a year or so ago when I was deciding between paying their outrageous fees or developing my own custom solution (using ugly screen scraping techniques and whatnot) in order to grow my eBay based lingerie business...

    My custom solution worked fine, but nothing near as streamlined as it could have been using their API... too little too late eBay, you're allready on a downward spiral IMHO, and this won't save you from the fall. Oh well, at least I still have a box full of sexy outfits and vibrators in my closet somewhere gathering dust... someday I'll find a way to lure that sexy woman on the corner into my house and use them, but until then Mom will just have to stay on the corner.

    --
    Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
  3. Re:They were suing? by Red+Flayer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    RTFA.

    Not civil charges, not criminal charges. No lawsuit. Usage charges, you know... fees. What it costs you to access, use, or purchase something. In this case, FTA: "Its now-discontinued fee schedule ranged from $1.25 to $2.90 per thousand calls to the eBay engine, and annual membership fees ranging from $500 to $5,000"

    As opposed to Amazon.com, FTA: "Amazon does not charge for use of web services interfaces to its core merchant site. Instead, it incentives such as customer referral commissions."

    Though it should be noted that Amazon does charge "$0.00015 for each hit to the search engine beyond the 10,000-free transaction per month threshold" via Alexa Internet Services.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  4. Great news! by slowhand · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think this is a wonderful opportunity for some innovative but underfunded folks to develop cool apps to "enhance" my moneymaking schemes. I may start by developing a mechanism to auction off "first post rights" on specific slashdot articles.

    I, for one, welcome our new ebay developer overlords.

    --
    Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.
  5. Does anybody use Ebay anymore? by 0110011001110101 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I seem to remember in 1998, I made my first eBay purchase, and it was a fantastic deal. Great stereo receiver, fantastic price, easy transaction and no headaches... it still works great to this day.

    Anymore if I happen to hop on eBay, all I see are hundreds (if not thousands) of the same HOT TICKET, LIMITED AVAIL, CANT FIND THIS ANYWHERE regurgitated items being sold over and over again to the public and over-inflated prices (dont even get me started on shipping at ebay).

    It's less and less a viable place to do business, as a consumer or a retailer, as the site is flooded with the same crap, mostly imitations, be hawked as hard to find, rare items that are actually useless junk. I don't even want to start talking about all the dam *FAKE* items out there, where you can buy INFORMATION leading to a purchase...

    I'm done with you eBay.

    --
    Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
    1. Re:Does anybody use Ebay anymore? by slackmaster2000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah I don't buy on eBay anymore. Last time I used it, several years ago, it was definately a seller's market. Items were going for prices that were *higher* than regular online retail. So, a great place to sell something, but not a great place to buy something.

      That said, eBay can be a good resource if you know specifically what you're looking for. That way you can specify a good search and not be hit with so much clutter.

      I wish they'd make a "private seller only" version of eBay. None of this ebay merchant crap. When I use eBay it's to find second hand goods from real people at fair prices....not new stuff at retail prices from shady businesses.

    2. Re:Does anybody use Ebay anymore? by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've been using eBay since it's inception and watched it go from a site for collectors to a dumping ground for overstocked/bulk items. What they really need to do is crackdown on sellers like this prick who insists on crap flooding entire catagories with the same item instead of using the bulk option.

    3. Re:Does anybody use Ebay anymore? by duffbeer703 · · Score: 4, Informative

      EBay doesn't give a shit. I discovered a scam, which is still going on two years later, where theives would build webs of bogus accounts and buy/sell stupid shit like $0.99 recipies and similar items between accounts. I found one account that was buying 50-60 <$5 items a day for a few weeks. They leave comments like "Great TV, supar ebayer A++++++" and "Laptop shipped on time A++++++ ASSET TO EBAY" for rolls of yarn or supermarket coupons.

      Then they stop all eBay activity.

      And then the thief doesn't do anything for about 3-4 months. At that point a regular user cannot get any details on the users history... Then the guy starts selling nonexistent laptops, iPods, etc.

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
    4. Re:Does anybody use Ebay anymore? by pclminion · · Score: 4, Interesting
      And then the thief doesn't do anything for about 3-4 months. At that point a regular user cannot get any details on the users history... Then the guy starts selling nonexistent laptops, iPods, etc.

      A friend of mine got jacked for $4000 trying to buy a PowerMac and various accessories. The seller had spent 15 months building up a huge positive feedback (and she WASN'T scamming, but actually selling real items to real buyers!), then decided to "cash out" and skip town. She ripped off over a dozen people to the tune of about $250,000.

      Unfortunately, she wasn't that good at hiding, and she got caught. She got a suspended sentence and was ordered to pay back the cash, which has never happened. Almost four years later and my friend still hasn't seen a dime of the 4 grand.

      What baffles me is that this seller was running a successful eBay business and actually making a profit! Instead of scaling up her business and making a legitimate killing, she decided to steal people's money. Even if she'd gotten away with it, it is unlikely she could have repeated the performance without somehow giving herself away. It just doesn't make any sense. Some people just suck.

  6. EBay Drops Charges for Developers Network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!

    Oh, wait...

  7. Preemptive strike against Google? by GreggyBUIUC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I seem to remember reading somewhere last week that Google was thinking about opening their own E-Bay similar marketplace (a move deserving of FARK's "obvious" tag). I wonder how much of the decision to open the API has to do with the fact that Google will certainly open theirs when it gets up and running.

  8. I'll stick to scraping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Do I still have to get my app "approved"?

    I'm not going to waste my time testing my app with their engineers, regardless of whether its free or not.

    Their API restrictions and fees were such a turnoff that I no longer care about them anymore. I will circumvent them as long as possible.

  9. Codebase Link by GreggyBUIUC · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since its not in the headline:

    https://www.codebase.ebay.com

  10. Sniping simplified (one opinion) by mopslik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    all of this sniping nonsense just proves how ridiculous people treat an auction like ebay (which usually leads them to grossly overpay).

    While a good number of people do indeed overbid because they get drawn into the competitive spirit of winning the auction, there's a simple reason why sniping is still effective: savings. Sure, you can enter your maximum bid straight away. But there's also the psychological advantage of deferring your bid until the end, for items with no bids on them. As a simple example, let's say that I see some widget for which I would pay up to $20. I place that $20 max bid right away, starting at $1. Somebody else sees that there's action on the item, and places their max bid at, say, $10. Instantly the bids increase to $11. Is that someone else going to get caught up in the action and bid $21 or more? Possibly, and in that case, I simply walk away because my max was exceeded. Or I could win it at $11. Or at $12. Or up to $20. Whatever.

    On the other hand, I know that a great majority of eBay bidders are into sniping themselves. If there's no bids on that widget with only 30 seconds to go, that other person might try to snipe it for $5. Having sold a few items, and bought quite a few more, I know that the most activity usually comes in the last minute, and usually for fairly low amounts. Me, I'll be entering my $20 maximum in the last 10 seconds. In this case, I'll walk away with my widget for a paltry $6 after bids. I seldom get outbid by someone who has the same strategy as this -- everyone else puts in a low bid, and maybe one more marginally higher bid before the time expires.

    Sure, this is all relatively unknown info -- there's no guarantee there will be another bidder, there's no knowledge of what the bids will be, etc. But it's a pretty good approximation of how a lot of eBayers purchase items, so I'll try to use that past behaviour against them to get me the best bang for my buck.

    The only way bidding before-hand benefits you is if a second last-minute sniper enters the same or a lower amount as you have previously bid. If you enter your max right at the last minute, you're guaranteed to get the same results as early bidding, but with a greater potential to save a few bucks.

  11. Re:Don't have the patience for it either... by sydb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ever heard of Buy It Now? You don't have to wait. Also, if you have special interests (crafts and hobbies, exotic computer equipment) eBay is sometimes the only place you can find certain items. So maybe you have no use for eBay but other people do, and they don't need to be cash poor or time rich to make it so.

    --
    Yours Sincerely, Michael.
  12. Can you actually BID yet? by lorcha · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Can you actually BID through the eBay API yet?

    If not..... <YAWN>.

    --
    "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
  13. Ebay Developers Contest by hagrin · · Score: 3, Informative

    In tangential news, Ebay is sponsoring a developer's challenge. Information can be found here:

    Ebay Developer Challenge

    The text from their release:
    ***eBay Developer Challenge 2006*** November 14, 2005 | 10:33AM PST/PT The eBay Developers Program, in conjunction with O'Reilly and Associates, is offering a contest for software developers. Winners will be selected in the Best Original Application and Best Open Source Collaboration categories. Prizes include $5,000 in cash, Xbox 360(TM) game consoles, iPod Nano(TM) music players, and the chance to demonstrate winning applications at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego from March 6-9, 2006. To learn more about the eBay Developer Challenge, please see our information page. To learn about the eBay Developers Program, please visit http://developer.ebay.com./

    --
    Hagrin.com
  14. There's actually just cause for this... by HerculesMO · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because Google has been rumoured to be releasing an eBay competitor, as well as a PayPal competitor into the marketplace. Combining their ad program with a simple and easy to use auction site can only increase their ad revenue because of the way the content is generated and who's viewing -- all by end users. Thus the AdSense program can adopt and learn market behaviors, as well as track buying habits, and only create more targetted ads.

    And since Google has released damn near everything (tm) for free -- including Picasa, WiFi, and today the Web Analyitics tools (which are awesome by the way) -- eBay is going to have to make their preemptive move against a Google entry. Google's name recognition and sheer dollar value will allow them to muscle their way into the market on this. But developers know that Google's API is lacking, especially compared to Yahoo and others, and eBay is already trying to capitalize.

    Either way, I look at this as a precursor for eBay to lower their auction rates and PayPal rates. Win-win for me. If Google does release what they are 'rumoured' to, then there's only more competition for my money and since I have good history with both companies, the lower price will probably win.

    --
    The price is always right if someone else is paying.
  15. A start, but not enough. by Crispix · · Score: 2, Insightful

    EBay is rapidly turning evil. Their fees are simply too high. Between the listing, final value, and PayPal fees, they're cleaning up, and not in a good way.

    They make it so damn hard to use anything other than PayPal for payment, and PayPal is a carefully-designed system that forces users to pay high credit-card rates on all transactions, even cash/echeck. Their "free" limits are so low they are a joke.

  16. I snipe because by lorcha · · Score: 5, Interesting
    of the phenomenon that you mention. That people don't enter their maximum price when they bid like they are supposed to.

    Instead, they follow one of the following models:

    1. The emotional bidder: Bidding is war to this person. He bids and each time he is outbid he bids some more. He gets so caught up in the bidding that he doesn't realize he's paying 150% of retail for a used item and 200% of what he thought he was willing to spend on the item at all.

      Sniping helps deal with this problem by not allowing an emotional bidder to raise his bid once he is outbid. If he had truly entered his max bid like he was supposed to, and if his max bid is more than my snipe, then he's winning the auction anyway. But if he failed to correctly identify his max bid and my snipe is higher than what he entered, then I win and he can't get emotional about it. He should have bid properly to begin with.

    2. The minimum bidder: This person bids the minimum, gets outbid by the proxy system, bids the minimum again, and again, and again... then gives up. This drives up the price of the item unnecessarily, because the bidder was never serious to begin with.

      Sniping helps deal with this problem by not revealing my bid until it is too late for the minimum bidder to do his minimum bid cycle. He should have bid properly and entered his maximum bid into ebay, if he wanted to win. Instead, he just raises the price for me, which is not preferable.

    However, the biggest advantage to sniping has nothing to do with other bidders at all.

    Let's say that I want to buy a commodity item like a 1GB SD memory card. There are many auctions for such an item, which retails for about $60. Let's assume that I want to pay no more than $40 (~35% discount), but most auctions close for $45-50. Realize that there are hundreds and hundreds of auctions for 1GB SD cards, most of them end within one or two minutes of each other.

    How do you expect me to get my $40 SD card? I can't bid on one auction with 3 hours to go because I'll miss hundreds of auctions that close before the one that I bid on. And I can't bid on any of those hundreds of auctions that close earlier, because how will I know if I won the first auction? It hasn't closed yet! And I certainly do not need 2 SD cards. Just one. I can't even bid on an auction that closes in 10 minutes for the same problem.

    With sniping software, I group all the 1GB SD card auctions together, give it a maximum price including shipping, and then let it bid for me in the final seconds. It can see whether I won or not and if I won, it will quit bidding. If I lost, it will bid on the next one, and the next one, and the next one... until I win or realize that my price is too low and bump it up.

    I'm sorry if you think that I should sit in front of the ebay website all day and compulsively bid on each SD card auction, but I'm too busy compulsively hitting reload on the slashdot homepage, trying to get the coveted first post.

    --
    "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
  17. What a litigious society we live in... by daVinci1980 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Was I the only one who read the headline and then tried to recall who EBay was sueing?

    --
    I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
  18. Lately, I've been using by lorcha · · Score: 2, Informative
    Lately, I've been using JBidWatcher. It has a multi-tab interface like firefox, so you can group auctions that way, automatic periodic searches, and the multisnipe functionality that I was describing. It'll even warn you if you attempt to do a "dangerous" multisnipe where the software wouldn't be able to determine if you won one auction before it had to bid on the next for you.

    Oh, and it's OSS, of course. I run it on Linux, but I'm told it works fine on Windows as well.

    I'm sure there are many other good ones out there. You may want to do a test snipe to make sure the software is actively maintained (ebay changes their HTML pages from time to time) and see how quickly your software can reliably do a snipe over your internet connection. You'll feel pretty stupid if your software and connection takes 3 seconds to execute a snipe and you set it to snipe with 1 second remaining. :-)

    --
    "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent