|
|
|
eBay 2008 Announcements from eCommerce Forum
Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America, made several announcements at the recent eCommerce Forum in Washington DC.
More details on exactly how these changes impact the API are coming soon. Subscribe to the RSS feed to find out as soon as it's posted.
|
Flex/Flash Toolkit 2.1 Now Available!
If you're gearing up to join the Widget Design Challenge and earn that big payoff, we now have some ActionScript 3 modules that you can plug into your design and finish even faster.
The Flex/Flash Toolkit provides you with ActionScript 3 libraries that you can use in either Adobe's Flex Builder 2 or Flash CS3 development environment. The toolkit also provides you with Developer Guides for each platform and working widget samples that include methods that you can re-use or re-purpose in your own designs.
Visit the Flex/Flash Toolkit web page within the eBay Flash Developer Center to get more information. »
|
Developers Program 2008 Survey Coming Soon
In a few days we will be sending you an email with a link to our Developers Program Online Customer Survey. It is short, sweet and to the point. Essentially we want your feedback on "What you do" and "What you want from our Program."
Your opinions are extremely valuable, and will help us to improve your eBay programming experience! The survey should take less than 10 minutes. As a token of our appreciation, we are offering the chance for 50 randomly selected respondents to win $100. All you have to do is complete the survey and you will be entered to win.
Keep an eye out for the email and let us know what you think.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
Technical Alerts and Product News |
 |
 |
|
Upcoming improvements for eBay Giving Works sellers
As many of you know, eBay Giving Works is the program that facilitates charity listings on eBay. In a continued effort to make the program easier for more sellers to use, we will be rolling out several product improvements to the program at the end of March. Below is a high-level summary of these changes:
- No separate registration required: First-time eBay Giving Works sellers will no longer have to complete a separate registration with MissionFish, the nonprofit that eBay selected to administer the program
- New Donation Account in My eBay: Because separate MissionFish registration is no longer required, sellers will manage the donations that result from their eBay Giving Works sales in My eBay
- Featured nonprofits in Sell Your Item: As part of the enhanced eBay Giving Works module in the Sell Your Item form, we will automatically show the nonprofit organization they have previously chosen to benefit from a past eBay Giving Works listing. In addition, we will feature a second nonprofit organization they may also find of interest, as well as continue to give them the choice to select one of over 12,000 other certified nonprofit organizations in the nonprofit directory.
- Cross-border listings enabled: Sellers from any eBay site will now be able to list an item with eBay Giving Works in the U.S.
Details of these and other changes will be available in the API documentation.
|
Widget Build-Off Contest Update
Time flies when you are having fun. We are now two weeks into the widget build-off contest, and many enthusiastic developers certainly are cooking up some serious masterpieces! Thanks to the wonderful feedback from Doug and a few devoted Flex developers, we've made a couple modifications to the contest terms to better accommodate the needs of the Flex community.
First, we are adding exceptions to the open-source clause to allow the use of any open source under MIT or the new BSD license in addition to open source published by eBay under CDD license.
Secondly, we are raising the maximum SWF file size limit from 200 Kb to 400 Kb. That should give you enough room to have some fun!
In addition to updating the rules to make life a bit easier for our developers, we are thrilled to announce the following distinguished individuals who are all very committed to the vitality of the developer community, as part of our judging panel:
| Niall Kennedy |
Producer of the Widget Summit and renowned web technologist |
| Mike Linton |
Sr. VP, eBay Marketplace Adjacencies |
| Matt Ackley |
VP, eBay Internet Marketing |
| James Barrese |
VP, Systems Development (Architecture) |
| Max Mancini |
Sr. Director, Product Management, and Head of Disruptive Innovation |
|
Logic Changes for Business Seller AddItem Calls
We have recently made slight changes in the call logic for the AddItem family of calls, to make it easier for developers to comply with European Union restrictions for business sellers.
In the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Belgium (Dutch and French), users who have sold more than a certain number of items will have to update their account type from 'personal' to 'business'. They will receive an error message if they try to use one of the item family API calls if their account is not defined or if it has been flagged as 'business required'.
In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the logic for the AddItem family of calls, including AddItem, VerifyAddItem, GetItem, RelistItem, and VerifyRelistItem has changed so that a return policy must be specified for items sold by business sellers.
If you are develop applications for sellers in any of the countries affected by the new AddItem logic changes, please see your local website's online help for information about the new rules for business sellers.
|
Early February 2008 Category Changes
The category structure will be updated in early February based on feedback received from the eBay Community and from experts in the affected fields. A complete list of the new category structure can be found on Seller Central here.
COLLECTIBLES
We're making changes in a number of sections, including:
Advertising
Autographs
Banks, Registers & Vending
Bottles & Insulators
Militaria
CRAFTS
In Cross Stitch, we're adding a section for Hardanger.
DOLLS & BEARS
In Bears, we're consolidating our Boyds and Care Bears sections, and adding a category for Brass Button Bears. In Dolls, look for updates to our OOAK & Art Doll section, a brand-new section just for Reborn dolls, and lots more.
HOME & GARDEN
In Building & Hardware, we're upding the Doors & Door Hardware section.
MOTORS
Check out the 14 new models we're adding in Cars & Trucks.
EVERYTHING ELSE
We're removing a category for Knuckle Dusters under Personal Security.
We appreciate your input on how we can make categories better for everyone. Please submit categories suggestions here.
|
February 2008 Item Specifics Changes
The following changes to Item Specifics are planned for February:
- Addition of eBay Item Specifics to Cards categories in Sports Mem., Cards & Fan Shop Cards. Early February.
- Updates to eBay Art Item Specifics (Drawings, Folk Art, Paintings, Photo Images, Prints, Posters and Sculpture). Late February
- Updates to Men's, Women's and Children's Athletic Apparel and Athletic Footwear eBay Item Specifics. Late February/Early March.
Please refer to Seller Central for more details.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
