First, let me introduce myself. My name is David Shere, and I work with
Walter Vaughan at Steele Rubber Products. I attended the conference in
Ephraim this past fall. I've posted here before, but only a few times.
One of my duties as we transition to Ofbiz is to get the integration
with eBay working. This would be where the business using Ofbiz also
has an eBay account on which they sell the same items. I'd love to
contribute my results. Along those lines, I have a few questions, and
points to ponder. The exchange of information between Ofbiz and eBay can
be accomplished through API calls. I currently use the "XML API" on
eBay, and use Perl to interact with it. Here is some sample code
http://raptor.davidshere.com/ebay.txt
That's the "base" I wrote that allows me to make API Calls from within
other scripts with a one-line function call. In it I use Perl's
HTTP::Request package (and others) to send the API call via HTTP. eBay
requires that the HTTP header be built in a special way, and has other
requirements, to ensure security. Does Java have a similar HTTP Request
class or set of classes that we can use to interact with the eBay API?
eBay has a Java Web Services package, but it's not for us. It's way too
much overhead for what we need to do and it is about as many classes as
Ofbiz. It's mainly intended for developers making web-based software
written for Jane-Doe eBay users.
Here's a very short summary of what I'd like to do:
1. Ofbiz listens at a URL (which can be set at your eBay account) to
which eBay will send a platform notification when a sale is made.
2. The information from the sale is entered into Ofbiz.
3. System checks to make sure that the amount paid on PayPal is the
same as the order total arrived at in Ofbiz
4. The order awaits human approval.
5. Human approves, and the item is shipped.
6. Item is marked as paid and shipped on eBay, and feedback is left.
One big question would be how would we best handle the need to "flag"
eBay orders, such that we can do things like "What eBay items shipped
today?" and "How many overseas eBay orders do we have?", and most
important: "How many customers who found us on eBay returned and bought
something again through our catalog or through the website?"
--
David Shere
Steele Rubber Products
eBay Programming and Sales
http://stores.ebay.com/Steele-Rubber-Products
