Sit down with the Shopping.com Strategic Partnership Team
Blog entry from the eBay Developer Conference - Day 3: The Unconference
The majority of this day was spent with the Shopping.com team. It was great to finally sit down and chat with the Shopping.com team to discuss the future of the Shopping.com associate program, the Shopping.com API, and the effects of integrating into eBay.
Previously (Day 1), I had attended a session called: “Leveraging Shopping.com to Create New Revenue Streams.” The presentation was performed by Rob Goldman, the Chief Revenue Officer. His presentation gave a very high-level overview of Shopping.com, the API, and some example websites which had integrated the API. Some interest was seen in the program, and some good high-level questions were raised.
I had a 1:1 meeting with Ryan Doughan and Kristy Troup. Kristy is in charge of organizing and keeping tabs on the all of the partnerships. Ryan seems to be one of the major people behind the API development. After some chit-chat we exchanged some ideas about the future of the API. Finally, I had a sit-down with Josh Wetzel, director of strategic business development. He’s a great guy and really gave me a sense of where Shopping.com was headed, especially in regard to the whole Shopping.com to eBay integration.
Here is a summary of things I picked up from my own questions and those of others in the session as well as my 1:1 meeting. I put them in a Q & A format, although these weren’t the exact question and answers.
- Are there plans to push the program towards a more open developer community?
They seem fairly eager to open up the partner program and API to a more widespread developer community. Suggestions were to first start with a blog and forums to allow developers to connect with each other.
- What is the major reason for holding up opening up?
Basically since the model is CPC click-fraud is a major issue since merchants only can afford to pay for quality clicks. My personal thought here is that also comparison companies in the past have been protective of their data.
- What about functions for the API from a seller standpoint?
This is something Shopping.com maybe interested in doing in the future if there is interest from sellers. An example would be insertion of new products or pricing information from the Merchant.
- Ability to access Merchants’ review data?
No immediate timeline to implement this function for various reasons.
- Are there plans to change the structure of the API?
Yes, at some point. Consideration is for REST format, but also for SOAP format if there is interest (both would be great!).
- Shopping.com Australia just launched. Is this available to access via the API?
All the locales (US, UK, France, Germany, and Australia) should now be available through the latest API.
Shopping.com has plans to enhance the support of their developers in the future. The main initial idea was for a blog to allow better communications for developers and the team. In the meantime, if you have other questions or suggestions in regards to the API / Partner program you can leave comments on this post.
Technorati Tags: Shopping.com, Shopping.com API, ebay, ebay devcon, ebay developers
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Another interesting question for the team that I’ve been wondering about is whether they have an affiliate / referral program for merchant signups. Merchants must come to secret prices and want to make sure they are listed on the site. Making some additional affiliate revenue for helping shopping.com signup merchants isn’t a bad idea for them and partners either.