Developing an eBay-Enabled Application

This chapter provides some advice on how to plan ahead. Several practices for your application are recommended. This chapter also describes resources for helping you test your application. This chapter also describes very important requirements your application needs to adhere to before we will allow you to send real data to the eBay Web site.

An eBay-enabled application that is sending real data to the eBay Web site is sending calls to the Production environment (also called the Production site). A user who views the eBay Web site through a browser is viewing that data in the Production environment.

During the development of your application, you will probably simulate various tasks related to buying and selling on eBay. The test environment is called the Sandbox. You can create one or more users and set them up as sellers to simulate listing items to the Sandbox. You can create users to act as buyers to bid on items via the Sandbox (see PlaceOffer). You can even expand your own test suites by combining your efforts with those of other members of the eBay Developers Program and testing each other's listings. See The Sandbox and Production Environments for important information about working in these environments.

In the Sandbox, you can make as many calls as you need. However, in the Production environment, your application needs to meet certain requirements. Please be aware of the requirements and the process in advance and design your application accordingly: see Planning Ahead and Prerequisites for Going Live.

To access the Sandbox, you need a set of Sandbox Keys. These are a set of IDs that are issued to you when you first join the eBay Developers Program. The Sandbox Keys cannot be used to access the Production site.

Planning Ahead

Following Best Practices

Selecting Fields to Retrieve

Testing Applications

Prerequisites for Going Live

Sandbox and Production Keys

User-Contributed Notes