Although it has not widely publicized the fact, eBay has a REST API that allows you to get XML-formatted search results through a simple HTTP request. Here is an example request for the eBay REST API:
When you click on this link it should load an XML document that indicates there is an “Invalid REST token” error. In order to get search results, you need to get an authentication token from eBay called a REST token. You then use this token and your eBay user name in the request URL when you make calls to the REST API.
When properly authenticated, this request returns an XML document containing the search results. You can see the format of the XML that is returned in the eBay REST API documentation (which I wrote). eBay provides samples in many programming languages that demonstrate how to apply an XSL transformation to the search results to render them as HTML.
The eBay REST API complements the eBay XML API and the eBay SOAP API. In these APIs both the request and response are formatted as XML, and are sent to eBay over HTTPS. These APIs support a much richer set of functionality, and the security requirements for using these APIs are much higher because in some cases sensitive data is either sent to or received from eBay. However with the REST API, only publicly accessible data is sent over the wire, so the calls can be made over normal HTTP instead of HTTPS. Since working with HTTPS can, in some programming languages, require the use of specialized libraries, the fact that you don’t need to use HTTPS helps simplify the eBay REST API. This and the simple request model make the REST API perhaps the simplest way to programmatically interact with eBay.
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