As a puzzle collector, I am an active user of eBay. eBay is invaluable source of rare and difficult to find things, including puzzles. I am also a user of sniping tools as they, on one hand, allow me to place my bids while I am away from the computer, and on the other hand, help me to place the bids at the very last moment, thus leaving little chance for someone else to outbid me. One tool that I used before was JBidWatcher, but then I switched to Biet-O-Matic, for it’s a more lightweight, yet capable enough tool.

Until now, due to the eBay’s pricing scheme for the use of their API calls, the sniping tools I’ve been using employed the strategy of scraping the content of the site. Not only did not that conform to the eBay’s User Agreement, it also had the tendency to break once in a while due to changes in the pages layout that eBay made routinely. Starting today, eBay dropped all fees it charged for the use of the API (when you use their new unified scheme), as well as the fees for the membership in the Developers Program. The programs and tools developed by people still require certification, but it’s free now as well, see Member Benefits and Fees.

Anyone who has been using sniping tools knows the feeling when a bid did not go through due to the tool being broken because eBay changed the page layout. Hopefully with the use of the eBay API these tools can reach a higher level of realibility that I’ve been looking for. I also had an idea for an interesting tool that I called “Concise eBay” about a year ago. After careful calculation, and reading the eBay forums, I decided against it. The idea still stands, and I might even get back to it sometime now, who knows!