eBay Stores are a way to provide a more durable presence on eBay. Rather than listing in a conventional format (which lets you list an item as an auction or at a fixed price for 1, 3, 5, 7, or 10 days), an eBay Store lets you list items for up to 120 days or more. Your store can also have a customized look, logo and easy-to-remember URL, as well as some other goodies like promotion and monthly reporting. If you’re serious about selling on eBay, having a Store is a great way to carve out your own niche.
The other day somebody asked me if there’s a way to get your eBay Store inventory into XML format. As it happens, that feature is built in. Here are step-by-step instructions to get your Store data automatically converted to XML:
1) If you haven’t already, set up your store. Do this by going to http://www.stores.ebay.com and click on the "Open your store now" link in the upper right corner of the page. (If you’re not a U.S. user, replace ebay.com with your localized site name; for example, UK users go to http://www.stores.ebay.co.uk, etc. Note that in the UK and elsewhere, "stores" are called "shops" because most people around the world don’t speak fluent American yet. Also note that this feature only works for U.S. users today; it will work for international users after January 6, 2004.)
2) Go to Store Builder (the configuration form you used when you first set up your store). Scroll down to the bottom of the page and check the appropriate boxes that correspond to the data you want to export. Here’s a screen shot with a giant red arrow (added by me) to show you exactly what to do.
3) Within 12 hours the big eBay XML-o-matic will find your store and painlessly convert all your listings into XML format. You can then get to this XML data by navigating to the URL http://esssl.ebay.com/GetListings/MyStoreName, where ‘MyStoreName’ is the name of your eBay Store.
The official eBay Help page for this feature is here. You can find a document type definition (DTD) for this export format here.
Updated to clarify that the XML dump is for stores inventory only and that international users can’t get to this until 6. January 2004 (thanks Katie!).
Related posts:
Jeff,
you’re a legend! thanks so much!
Alex
happy new year!