Hack #112. Automatically Keep Track of Items You've Sold

Retrieve and store completed listing data without typing.

As explained in "Keep Track of Items You've Sold" [Hack #83] , it's vital for every seller to keep permanent, off-site records of every single auction he or she has sold.

This script, when run daily [Hack #21] , does it all:

	#!/usr/bin/perl
	require 'ebay.pl';

	$today = &formatdate(time);
	$yesterday = &formatdate(time - 86400);

	my $page_number = 1;
	PAGE:
	while (1) {
		my $rsp = call_api({ Verb => 'GetSellerList',
					  DetailLevel => 8,
					       UserId => $user_id,
			     	   EndTimeFrom => $yesterday,
					   EndTimeTo => $today,
					   PageNumber => $page_number
   });

   if ($rsp->{Errors}) {
    print_error($rsp);
    last PAGE;

   }
   foreach (@{$rsp->{SellerList}{Item}}) { 
     my %i = %$_; 
	 ($id, $enddate, $title, $currency, $price, $highbidder) =
		 @i{qw/Id EndTime Title CurrencyId CurrentPrice HighBidder/};
     if (! -e "$localdir/$id") {
	  open (OUTFILE,">$localdir/$id"); 
	  print OUTFILE "[Details]\n"; 
	  print OUTFILE "enddate=$enddate\n"; 
	  print OUTFILE "itemnumber=$id\n"; 
	  print OUTFILE "title=$title\n"; 
	  print OUTFILE "price=$currency$price\n"; 
	  print OUTFILE "bidder=".$highbidder->{User}{UserId}."\n"; 
	  print OUTFILE "bidderemail=".$highbidder->{User}{Email}."\n";
    close (OUTFILE);
	}
   }
	last PAGE unless $rsp->{SellerList}{HasMore Items};
    $page_number++;
 }

This script works similarly to the one in "Automatically Keep Track of Auctions You've Won" [Hack #110] , but it retrieves a list of auctions by seller that have ended between the specified dates. Here are a few important things to note about this script:

• Unlike the GetBidderList API call, which is limited to only 200 results, GetSellerList supports paging, and when used properly, will continue to retrieve results until you've got them all.

• Since the DetailLevel input field [Hack #109] is set to 8, the GetSellerList retrieves all relevant information about an auction so you don't have to issue separate GetItem calls. This means you can retrieve the auction details for hundreds of listings with only one or two API calls.

• The fields saved correspond to those listed in "Keep Track of Items You've Sold" [Hack #83] , with the exception of the shipping charge (see the following bullet) and any fields you'd normally enter manually (such as whether the bidder has yet paid).

• If you've specified a fixed shipping charge in the listing or are using the Calculated Shipping option, you can retrieve this information with the GetItemShipping API call. Also of interest is GetShippingRates, a non-item-specific function that helps determine the shipping rates for different combinations of destination Zip Codes, package types, weights, and shipping services.