Shopping.com Partners Resource Center Developer Blog

Hello, and welcome to the Shopping.com Partner Network. My name is Ryan, and you will be hearing quite a bit from me in the future as I will be working with the Shopping.com community of Partners to provide information, answer questions, and generally act as a community lead, especially around technical subjects. As mentioned in the previous post, we'd like to use this site to create an open dialogue with you, our Partners, and I'd like to begin that dialogue with a discussion on the flagship of our Partner facing products, the Shopping.com API.

Many of you may not realize this, but the SDC API is actually an evolution of one of the first 'search listing' type CPC ad networks. Initially released in mid-2002, the precursor to today’s API was called the DealTime 'MagicBox'. Its main purpose was to serve snippets of Javascript code which rendered predesigned HTML containing SDC data, including store offers. Calls to this service were embedded in Partners websites, resulting in 'Magic Boxes' of SDC product and offer data appearing on their pages.

The service is quite useful, and is still in existence today, in the form of the Shop Widgets program (check them out in the Partner Account Center.) For simplicity and an extremely quick time to launch, the Shop Widget solution can't be beat. A Partner can have SDC content in the form of banner or tower ads up on their site within minutes.

However, some of our Partners wanted more, from different designs, to more data, to more engaging experiences. As a result, and through countless hours of cooperation with our Partners, we've pieced together the SDC API as you see it today - a REST type service which produces XML allowing for complete freedom of presentation, while allowing access to almost every piece of information available on our own site. If you think you could use the SDC API, or already are and just want more info, check out the API Documentation.

In my next post, I will be talking about the future of the SDC API. In the meantime, we'd love to use this venue to get your thoughts on the API, both in terms of what is working well, and what could be made easier.

Stay tuned!