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Need this made - total newbie

by Solvico
4 replies
Hi guys,

I am interested in starting my own dropshipping system where I list all of the items on my suppliers website on ebay, amazon and my own website. Once a sale is made, the order is placed to the supplier and the customer receives their item. (all automated)

I have asked the supplier if I will be able to have access to an API key (although not entirely sure what it does) as I need to have real time data on their stock so that I am not selling products that the customer cannot have!

I will obviously be hiring someone to do this for me but i'd like to know what you guys think i'm asking for here? Is it a web application that runs on the backend of my website or something totally different?

What do I need to run it? What kind of system is it? How much should it cost?

Any kind of info would be really helpful...

Thanks in advance
#made #newbie #total
  • Profile picture of the author Solvico
    Update: the supplier does not offer an API, can this still be done without it?? I need to keep track of stock in real time or at least once every 1 min!
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    • Profile picture of the author David B
      If the supplier doesn't have an api how are you planning on getting real time information on their inventory? If they just have a website you could probably screen scrape the information. That would require some application coding to automate properly however.

      In the past I have used some Java libraries to capture data from websites and store it. The catch is that you need to update it whenever the websites change so it is harder to maintain than when a site provides a direct api.
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      • Profile picture of the author ritah
        Originally Posted by David B View Post

        If the supplier doesn't have an api how are you planning on getting real time information on their inventory? If they just have a website you could probably screen scrape the information. That would require some application coding to automate properly however.

        In the past I have used some Java libraries to capture data from websites and store it. The catch is that you need to update it whenever the websites change so it is harder to maintain than when a site provides a direct api.
        ^ That. Plus, you'll really lose efficiency once your site starts getting decent traffic. API's are built to handle this stuff, scrapers are not.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christian Grey
    You need webapp for sure. It is really hard to make that because you need to login automatically at amazon and check if there is order. If order exist it needs to take info.

    Really hard to make and i think it will be expensive really much
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