Reading Time: 2 minutesIn what I would call a surprise move, Yahoo! is discontinuing the Yahoo! Shopping and outsourcing it to PriceGrabber. So, if you are currently using the Yahoo! Shopping API, I would start making plans to make sure that you’re integrated with PriceGrabber or at least have taken the necessary steps to start getting your products on PriceGrabber.
As you may recall, Yahoo! Search is going to be powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Microsoft’s Bing will now be the search engine on all Yahoo sites. From what I can tell, though, I have not seen anything in the search deal that details what is going to happen to Yahoo! Shopping. Now we know, though, as Yahoo! quietly announced it on the Yahoo! Developer Network Blog:
After careful consideration, we have decided to enter into a strategic partnership with PriceGrabber to power the Product Submit functionality of Yahoo! Shopping as of March 11, 2010. As a result of these changes, Yahoo! will no longer provide the Shopping Web Services API, including Shopping Results (the “Yahoo! Shopping Syndication Services”) to you as of March 11, 2010.
What does this mean to online merchants? If you’re an online merchant and your products are on Yahoo! Shopping, then you have to apply to PriceGrabber for shopping syndication services. Unfortunately, PriceGrabber does NOT offer a free API, though. So, you are now going to have to pay in order to use the API.
There is more information about PriceGrabber’s API and information about how to apply to their program here: http://www.pricegrabber.com/about.php/about=corporate/sub_opt=10. You’ll need to send them an email, so I suggest that you do that right away as there will definitely be a demand for merchants wanting to move over to PriceGrabber before March 11, 2010, the date when Yahoo! Shopping is ending support for their API.
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