posted on June 16, 2008 11:02:50 AM new
eBay lets third-party devs sell directly to its users By Robert Mullins
June 16, 2008 — eBay will launch Project Echo, a new program intended to attract third-party developers and allow them to sell their software applications directly to eBay buyers and sellers via the auction site, at a developers’ conference in Chicago today.
Although 70,000 developers write and offer applications intended to help eBay sellers with marketing, inventory management or customer service, they don’t have direct access to those sellers to promote their software. The eBay Selling Manager subscription service available at eBay.com, before now solely for eBay-developed applications, is opening up as part of the plan. Under Project Echo, third-party developers will be able to sell through Selling Manager.
“Developers [will] have direct access to that seller community, something they have never had before,” said Kumar Kandaswamy, senior manager and developer platform strategy at eBay.
eBay will launch a pilot of Project Echo with a few developers in the fourth quarter of 2008, Kandaswamy said. A public beta will be released in the first quarter of 2009, with general availability scheduled for sometime in mid-2009.
Project Echo is welcome news to application providers such as Hosted Support. The Los Angeles-based company offers monthly subscription services for eBay sellers, including e-mail management and the creation of FAQs to help buyers at their sites. It’s been difficult for Hosted Support to reach the disparate community of thousands of eBay sellers, said Jerad Schempp, COO of Hosted Support.
“It’s like the problems of any company trying to reach [a] small-business market. Where’s the watering hole where all these small businesses gather? There really is nothing like that for the eBay community,” Schempp said.
eBay is also offering new APIs for developers to use when creating new applications that use eBay data, said Kandaswamy. For instance, a developer could access eBay’s information about how frequently a particular buyer purchases something from a seller. The seller could offer frequent buyers a toll-free number or other priority service. Also, eBay is offering developers access to seller inventory data, to help sellers develop marketing strategies that are tuned to the kind of merchandise on hand, Kandaswamy.
The developers’ conference in Chicago precedes eBay Live, the company’s annual conference for buyers and sellers, scheduled for later in the week in the same city.
