Fuck Yeah!!!

[amy]

After a few years of extreme pain using Marketworks to list to Yahoo:  API integration for launches is actually on the horizon 

***Changes to Yahoo Account Settings***
In anticipation of Yahoo officially releasing their new launch API, we will be updating several Yahoo-specific areas of the site:

Yahoo Account Detail page:
(1) Removed the Yahoo Security Key as a field - currently it is listed as a required field, but it is no longer used in auction launches or updates.
(2) Added PayPal as an available payment method - removed Yahoo!Paydirect as an obsolete payment type. 
(3) Removed the checkbox for International Shipping, as it is no longer applicable.
(4) Added a new launch default for Default Condition, similar to what we have for eBay accounts, except this one only shows those values to which we can map at launch: New, Used-Like New, Used-Very Good, and Used-Good.


Inventory Detail page:
Added support for Yahoo Condition fields that map to our system. We are able to map our condition values into Yahoo's EXCEPT for (a) Used, (b) Not Working, and © Refurbished. Yahoo also has two conditions that don't map to ours: (a) Acceptable and (b) Collectible (which arguably is not a condition. Supposedly they will also have some category-specific condition values, but we don't know what those are and don't plan to map any of those at this time.

Yahoo ClickLaunch, Bulk Launch, and Bulk ReLaunch:
(1) Added Condition (defaulted from Inventory (first default, if available) or Account (if available, and if no inventory value was found).
(2) Removed Help text about Yahoo charging extra for Reserve Price.
(3) Removed checkbox for International Shipping, as no longer applicable.
(4) Removed the options for Highlight, Boldfaced Title, and Featured Amount, as these are no longer applicable. Removed the entire Optional Features section - move the remaining Buy Now Price field to live under the Minimum Bid price in the Auction Settings section.


Yahoo LaunchBots:
Removed the options for Highlight, Boldfaced Title, and Featured Amount, as these are no longer applicable. Removed the entire Optional Features section - move the remaining Bid or Buy field to live under the Launch Quantity in the LaunchBot Settings section.

Also, as part of this change we'll be pushing the Optional Inventory fields for ISBN or UPC, if applicable, to Yahoo during launch. 

Note that The changes that have been made are NOT yet supported at Yahoo. These changes will not go into effect until Yahoo officially makes its API for launches available. What this means is that if you select PayPal as a payment option it will not show up in ads launched prior to the API roll-out on Yahoo's side. It also means that we will NOT be sending condition, UPC or ISBN until then.

Once Yahoo officially supports launches through the API, these features will be available and an additional announcement will be made.

The Marketworks Team

[amy]

1 month later  :

this just in from MW Support today:

As an update, Yahoo had several weeks of unexpected delays and issues on their end getting their new launch API system up and running, but it looks like they may be close to having things ready. Assuming everything works as expected on Yahoo's end, we hope to do some final testing on launches this week and be using their new system soon thereafter. We'll update this thread again when we're fully up and running on their new launch API.

[amy]

Over the past few months we have been working with Yahoo to develop a new auction posting method (API) to launch auctions to Yahoo more reliably. The old method required us to do form posts and parse the returned HTML in order to launch auctions, which was constantly having issues anytime that Yahoo changed fields on their launch page or made other site changes.

After QA on both Yahoo's end and ours, the new launching method was implemented last night and is now in use for all of our Yahoo launches. We are experiencing issues with about 10-20 percent of our launches using this new system, but are working with Yahoo to resolve them, and from what I've seen virtually all of the auctions having launch errors are actually getting to Yahoo, and as such they would be picked up by either an automatic or manual auction update. While that error rate is higher than I would like, frankly it is not any lower than what we might see on bad days under the old system, so at this point I don't see a need to roll back to that system, particularly since most of the auctions in question are actually getting to Yahoo.

Since we are still resolving a few things I don't recommend opening the flood gates yet if you've been waiting to launch auctions under this new system, but I would expect that the issues in question should be resolved within the next few days at the most. In the meantime I wouldn't hesitate to try a few launches and post back if you see anything unusual. Note that the new system supports some options that we didn't have previously, such as item condition, PayPal, etc. You'll find an earlier post about those new features here: http://forums.marketworks.com/viewtopic.php?t=79