Experimenter's Discount Warehouse Maintained by:   exdwh( 13285) We sell new & surplus components in small lots & full-reel quantities at blowout prices. We try to provide photos, datasheet links & some technical review whenever possible. Our advice: Resist the urge to stockpile. Buy what you need today. Build your prototype first. There's always more surplus! Large Selection Blowout Prices Worldwide Shipping Be sure to review our sales policies. Once you've purchased all the items you want shipped together, please request an invoice.

We're currently working on a database problem that affects our images and datasheet links!

We take all USPS packages directly to the regional sorting plant at 7:20 PM ET Monday-Saturday. Most simple orders can ship the same day if paid early enough.

We get many requests for advice, additional item info or photos, quantity discounts or different lot size, assortments, or other items that are not currently listed for sale. We respond to these types of inquiries as time permits. However, our priority is always invoicing and shipping existing orders.

Back to previous page  Custom eBay Programming After 100,000+ transactions and years of battling the eBay website and eBay-provided tools like Turbo Lister, File Exchange and Selling Manager, I started searching for a better way to conduct business on eBay. Most eBay sellers complain about high fees and problem buyers. While those are certainly annoying, my biggest frustrations were bugs, lack of documentation, and general inefficiency. There's nowhere on eBay to report a bug and track its status. Evidently, bugs can only be entered by a 'technician' and it seems technicians are rarely available. Otherwise, your problem will not be recorded. It's like you never even called. System Announcements are reserved for extreme cases where eBay cannot possibly hide the issue. Most known problems remain private-- not even support personnel  have access. Instead, eBay support uses phrases like 'I think', 'it should', 'try again later', etc.. This 'advice' is void of facts or reality. Ask the same simple question and you'll get a different answer each time-- often in direct contradiction. It's ultimately your 'opinion' against theirs. Without documentation, you can't really say if something is broken or just poorly designed. My one lucky break? I was granted a conference call with multiple eBay product managers. They denied any knowledge of the problems I had been reporting. They were also unfamiliar with the features of the products they 'managed'. Evidently, I was a 'power-user' using 'edge-cases' that had not been tested. They promised to follow-up, but I never heard from them again. Unfortunately, I fear those same managers still hold prominent positions at eBay. That's probably why nothing ever gets fixed. The eBay website is laden with client script that can delay the page for a minute or more. There have even been cases where eBay has coded an endless loop causing the page to freeze indefinitely. How about those extra-cost listing options that you never use and cannot disable? It's a minefield. Don't click or scroll too fast. How many times a day do you need to confirm your action or reenter your password? How about some popup 'help' to slow you down? eBay's website sell-your-item form can rearrange or drop options just by advancing through the pages and saving with no changes made by the user.   So, did I ever find a solution? Yes and no. I can't change eBay management or fees. I can't change the way eBay says their website should work. I can report bugs when something is obviously wrong. I moved from the front-end to the back-end of eBay. It's called the eBay Developer's Program. eBay has a programming interface (API) that supports most of the tasks required to create and maintain listings. Reportedly, 40% or more of all eBay listings are submitted through the API rather than the eBay website. Of course, that statistic includes services like Auctiva or InkFrog. The API documentation is very precise in terms of the expected input and output. Bugs are easier to reproduce because specific program code can be referenced. Best of all, unlike anywhere else on eBay, the staff and fellow developers do not assume that you're an idiot. I've spent the last 2 years automating our eBay business. I'm just now (December 2008) coming back online under the new system. All listings are created from our own internal database format and submitted/revised via the eBay API. Once an order is paid, I'm able to print individual labels for each item sold. These labels include the quantity, eBay item #, buyer ID, order ID and a brief description of the product. If a product has multiple components, then I can generate labels for each subassembly. I also generate a small label to identify the package once it's been sealed. The labels can be sorted by either order number or item number. This allows a volume seller to make a single visit to each warehouse location. It also allows expedited handling of a single order. For the curious, we currently use Avery #6570 (OL1905WX) which works very well for the products we sell. Cost is less than 1¢ per label. I'm able to pick/pack orders directly from the label sheets. I'm slowly working towards a grand system similar to ChannelAdvisor, Infopia or Vendio. In the meantime, I've begun using the pieces that I've already developed to assist other sellers. I believe the one-size-fits-all software model will always fall short. You risk disrupting 1000 clients in your attempts to satisfy 1. If your business is anything like ours, many of your products share similar characteristics. Most of your listing details (terms of sale, shipping methods, etc.) remain the same. You only stock certain types/sizes of shipping supplies. Making a few valid assumptions can greatly simplify a custom solution. For those familiar with CSS for HTML, I use a similar model for eBay listings. Each reusable bit of information (title, description, photo, return policy, payment instructions, shipping rates, etc.) is tagged with a comment and stored away in a database. When I want to create a listing, I combine all the relevant bits under a 'template'. Each template can inherit properties from a parent. Any duplicate information in a child overrides the parent. Using this model, I typically only have to tweak the title and description-- the sales pitch. The factual details (brand, model number, shipping weight, etc.) are entered once on the inventory side. eBay is constantly changing. It's naive (futile?) to invest time in eBay-specific listings. You need to step back and put some distance between your business and eBay's system. Postal rates are going to increase again in early 2009. You can no longer offer paper payments. The return policy will soon be mandatory. All JavaScript may eventually be banned. How many times do you want to manually revise your listings? When eBay has a listing promotion, can you react fast enough to take advantage? Things to consider for the new year...

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