eBay Developers Program
If you’re a software or web developer looking for a way to tap into the eBay world with your own special skillset, the eBay developers program may be right up your alley. Designed to provide technical solutions providers with a way to engage with eBay through a standardized API, the developers program provides the potential for:
- Leveraging eBay API functionality through .NET, ASP, Java, PHP, XML, SOAP, Perl, and other standards-based formats and platforms
- Developing products and platforms to facilitate buyers’ or sellers’ use of eBay and its features
- Targeting and integrating eBay features and listings into your own platforms for added value
It costs nothing to join the developers program and access eBay SDKs and APIs. Once inside you’ll find development tools and testbeds, sample code, forums, knowledge base articles, and everything else you’ll need to comfortably and quickly leverage eBay through your platform of choice. If coding is what you love to do, then the eBay developers program may be precisely the eBay angle for you.
Certified Providers
eBay’s certified providers help to keep eBay’s business class and their ventures humming and growing. Rather than buying and selling directly on eBay themselves, certified providers offer various kinds of products and services to eBay buyers and sellers, including, but not limited to:- Technical services (software, platform, template development)
- Auction management services
- Customer service and other “offsite” services required for end-to-end e-business
- Financing, leasing, marketing, and other marketplace services
If buying and selling isn’t your thing per se, but you are able to professionally provide services or solutions of various kinds that eBay buyers and sellers might need, becoming a part of eBay’s certified providers network might be your best ticket to the eBay party, particularly given the marketing advantage that eBay gives to its certified providers.
Go Independent
Of course if working directly with eBay isn’t your cup of tea, there’s no rule that says you can’t provide services to clients independently, acting as a “middleman” between eBay, buyers, and sellers. One of the hottest business models in recent years has been to offer drop-off consignment services using eBay. In this business model, customers drop off items for a nominal up-front fee expecting the provider to sell these items on consignment through eBay on their behalf. The provider takes photos, lists the auction appropriately, takes a percentage cut of the eventual sale price, and returns the rest to the consignment seller. One such service, iSOLD It, has grown incredibly quickly as a franchise.Other common types of eBay-related services include packaging and shipping services, photo-related services, and eBay search services. If you’ve got a decent amount of entrepreneurial spirit and a network of contacts that like to use eBay, the next indispensable eBay business model or product could well start in your workshop.
