LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review is very important part of research because overall research relay on this part.
For doing research about web integration with multiple online marketplaces such as Amazon
and eBay, I need to explore the research gap and related studies. Literature review will give a
clear picture of already done work in this specific domain. I have selected some studies which
are related to the web application integration with Ecommerce stores and available methods
for implementing this kind of application. I have set a selection and rejection criteria for
research studies that provided me a limited number of research article which are related to this
research objectives. I have selected a criterion for paper selection on the basis of research
titles & objectives, I have selected research papers that implements or discusses the web
application integration with online marketplaces.
Selection & Rejection Criteria
Related research studies selected or rejected based on the research objectives. While
performing a literature review, I have selected journals, conferences, and blog articles
according to research objectives. I have selected 130 journal and conference research papers
and 50 blog articles at the start of the literature review. After analysing papers and articles on
behalf of the selection & rejection criteria. I have found 26 research papers and articles. All
the selected articles & research papers, I have discussed in the related study section.

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Related Study
Ecommerce store and online large-scale platforms such as Amazon and eBay are mostly used
by small & medium scale businesses for integration. Small and medium sized enterprises or
businesses used these online marketplaces to sell their products and hunt more customers
while using internet (Namroud, 2019). Namroud discussed different available methods of
integration such as EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), web services and XML. According to
author, there is not any specific method of integration, it depends on the expertise of the
development team and experience & knowledge of the experts. As a developer for integration
while implementing web application, you can use any available method according to your
expertise and requirements (Namroud et al., 2019).
In another study, authors discussed and compared different e-commerce integration
technologies and web services. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was used before Web
Services and they have noticed EDI technology had problems while using as an integration
with online platforms. They also compared other technologies such as file transfer,
Application Services Provider (ASP), and Web Scrapping. All these technologies have
reusability, information sharing, flexibility and cost issues as compared to web services. Now
Amazon offers E-Commerce Services (ECS) as a generic framework for small & medium-
sized integration (Kulkarni et al., 2005, p. 25).
Alex, Alexander and Walter contributed in the existing researches by analyzing different best
opportunities for small & medium-sized businesses while using eBay web services. eBay also
offers integration web services just like Amazon. eBay offers graphic web service for
graphical user interface with name graphic websurface. In the meanwhile, eBay also offers
XML/SOAP format API which businesses can use for analyzing statistics, accessing
information, searching for present offers, retrieving lists of sellers, handling & processing
buyers’ details. This API offers entire website functionalities which are almost 120
functionalities (Hochstein & Brenner et al., 2009).
With the adaptation of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT), today most of the
purchases conduct online and most of the consumers want to purchase fruit & vegetables also.
According to a research study, E-Commerce for the food sector increased and it is the most
demanded sector over the last fifteen years. Amazon Fresh introduced integration business
models with the aim of km zero and same time delivery of foods. So, there is a big
opportunity for small & medium-sized businesses to integrate their businesses with Amazon
Fresh (Sturiale & Scuderi., 2017).

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Amazon also provided security, flexibility, and high-performance services with the help of
Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing (Long. V., 2020). Amazon EC2 (Elastic
Compute Cloud) web integration framework which is more secure and supports workload.
EC2 web service is designed for small & medium-sized businesses and they can easily use
this web service interface for configuring their stores. “Amazon EC2 offers the broadest and
deepest compute platform with a choice of processor, storage, networking, operating system,
and purchase model” (Amazon EC2, 2020).
Young & Alawiya published research and they discussed the history of the Gmarket & eBay
merger in Korea. There was an electronic commerce platform that provided their services in
Korea with the name NASDAQ. With the development of eBay web services and demands of
online purchased customers, they have decided to merge their business and using eBay
integration web services. After merging and integrating with eBay web services, eBay
acquired Gmarket shares with 1.2 billion USD and introduced a new name which is “eBay
Korea” (Park, & Allui,. 2019).
eBay developed APIs which cover all the main functionalities of an e-commerce store. They
have developed and published Account, finance, analytics, logistics, recommendation,
inventory, marketing, and other APIs. Small & medium-sized e-commerce businesses can use
these APIs for increasing their sale and business (Ebay., et al. 2020). At the same time, eBay
also provided a trading API which businesses can use for communication, management calls,
listing calls, and others. These APIs useful for communicating with other eBay members,
accounts, and management and provided secure communication between business buyers,
sellers, and management (Ebay., et al. 2020).
While using Amazon Web Services in an online web e-commerce application, businesses
need to manage their store inventory. They can manage their store inventory with the help of
Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) service. When small & medium-sized businesses have not the
time & budget to take orders and deliver to the consumer. They can use Fulfilment by
Amazon (FBA) service which facilitates businesses to fulfil their orders (Amazon., 2020).
According to the author, Integration with eBay using eBay built-in APIs is not easy. eBay
integration is very time consuming, required high expertise, and required a lot of money as
well. eBay integrated application implementation and maintenance also a boring process. But
at the same time, eBay is very popular for online marketplace integration. There are multiple
solutions to this problem, API2Cart is one of them, with the help of this service small &
medium-sized businesses can integrate their inventory software with eBay without any issues
(Natalia kovalchuk 2020).

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This API very helpful because it also allows businesses to connect with Amazon, Esty,
Shopify, woo-commerce, and others. With the help of this API, businesses can generate
reports, update inventory, update order status, and get orders from the integrated marketplace
(Natalia., et al. 2020).
There is another platform that facilitates small and medium businesses with eBay integration
without any problems. SaaS App Providers manage orders processing, shipment, customers,
and marketing and connect web applications with eBay integration. According to the
statistics, eBay was the most popular marketplace for integration in the USA, UK, AUS &
China. In all these areas SaaS App provides integration services with eBay and it is most
popular among the small & medium-sized marketplaces (Api2cart., et al. 2020).
In another research, study the authors claimed that, if the development team working on a web
application while using the WooCommerce platform, they can use Codisto developed
Amazon & eBay integration extension. WooCommerce Amazon & eBay integration
extension can easily install based on the type of subscription. Codisto integration is very
simple, easy to install, and use. With the help of this technique, businesses can manage
pricing, list of WooCommerce products, spreadsheet, buyers’ orders, sellers, communication,
Amazon & eBay fulfilment rules (Sims, L. 2018).
Authors discussed the WebQual framework and analysed the different E-Commerce
marketplace's quality for integration while implementation of Web Application. According to
the research study, they have collected data from different communities based on the three
different domains which are E-Commerce website design, management, and quality.
Researchers designed a questionnaire and collected data according to the research criteria.
They analysed data and claimed that “Amazon to be perceived as better in all three
dimensions, and particularly so with regard to trust, which is part of service interaction
quality” (Barnes, S. J., & Vidgen, R. T. 2002).
Google developers implemented an integration web service for social media integration with
E-Commerce features. With the help of this integration, users can share purchases on social
media networks with their friends. Sellers can get feedback on their products from social
media users. Developers implemented this integration and published a complete web service
API design (Alderson, & Williams, D. 2011).
Shopify is another platform that facilitates with eBay and Amazon integration web services.
According to research, small & medium-sized businesses can increase 38% total revenue by
the integration of one online marketplace. At the same time, sellers or businesses can increase
120% revenue by integrating Amazon & eBay marketplaces. Now Shopify introduced another

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integration platform with Amazon which is home-green Amazon integration. While using this
web service API, small & medium-sized businesses can manage their sales, orders, inventory,
customer interaction, spreadsheet, and analysis (Liz hull., et al. 2017).
Another multichannel integrator is published by eBay which can integrate small & medium-
sized web application with multiple channels such as Amazon, eBay, Esty, Woo, Shopify and
others. eBay published this integrator with the name of channel grabber. While using channel
grabber integration, businesses can manage orders, design and send reports, manage
communication, spreadsheet reports, and visualization of analysis (eBay grabber., et al. 2020).
Expandly is a multichannel selling device intended for private ventures. The item was made
when author and CEO Alan Wilson perceived how baffling it was for organizations to oversee
items across various channels during his time as a product specialist. Expandly works with
major web-based business stages and permits you to sell on your webpage, eBay, Amazon,
Etsy, and Wish all the while (Ansari, S., & Zheng, Z. 2010).
According to the authors, one more platform with the name selro provides an extra
functionality which is order picking and packing while using eBay & Amazon integration. It
also provides other services such as order management, customer management,
communication, inventory, and others. Selro offers integration with multiple online
marketplaces which are Amazon, eBay, Esty, Tesco, Rakuten and Walmart (Lyn wildwood.,
et al. 2020).

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 STATE OF THE ART

State of the Art chapter provides and introduction of technologies, techniques, and platform
which are being used in the development of the Node JS and Agular web base E-Commerce
application. It will discuss the e-commerce platforms that integrates and connects connect
with Amazon and eBay using integrating APIs & web services. According to the literature
review and related study, there are many services available that can be used easily for
integration of Amazon & eBay such as API2Cart, Selro, Expandly, Channel Grabber, and
others. In this chapter, I will explain the tools, techniques, and technologies which can be used
for development of web-based e-commerce application.

Integration APIs & Web Services

eBay Sell APIs Description eBay Trading APIs Description

Account API Manage business Management Calls Manage calls and
accounts communication
between groups
Finance Manage financial Special Offer & Generate best offers
activities Listing for customers
Inventory Manage inventory Seller Manage
items and product Communication communication
offers on eBay between sellers
marketplace
Logistics Manage shipping and Buyer Manage
orders Communication communication
between buyers and
sellers
Listing Create and manage
sellers
Recommendation Show recommended
items to sellers and
buyers
Analytics Analysis of the

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 business

Amazon Web Services Functions

AWS Support Retail system

Recommend Offers plan and recommendation of the

products
Sell Provide environment to increase product
sales
Fulfil & Ship Order fulfilment & Shipment

Analyse Provide sell, order and other analysis

report
Deliver & Support Manage product delivery and support for
customer

Web Application Implementation & Configuration

The web-based application will implement using Node JS, Angular JS, Amazon Web
Services, and eBay APIs. Here I am going to discuss the state of art about how we will
implement web-based applications while using integration with eBay and Amazon for getting
eCommerce services. For integration with Amazon, first, we must need to develop packages
Jason file. A package JSON file will consist of all dependencies and configuration of the web
application. Next, I’ll discuss all the step of techniques which are mandatory for integration of
web application with Amazon.
 Create developer account for accessing Amazon services
 Configuration of account credentials
 Accessing Amazon Web Services & Packages
 Development of Packages Json file
 Installation of the Amazon S3 dependencies and packages
 Implementation of the Node JS, Angular Web Application
 Deployment of the Web Application

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For the integration of web applications with eBay, developers must need to connect
applications while using eBay eCommerce APIs. All the APIs, I have discussed in the form of
a table. For eBay integration, we must need to follow the following implementation steps.
 Create developer account for getting eBay APIs keys
 Installation of the eBay Connector
 In developer option, we will create a new application
 New Application will create application keys
 Connecting web application to the eBay Rest APIs keys
 Application will generate user tokens
 Get user tokens and use Production keys from user tokens
 Provide the URL of your web application in OAuth Application URL
 Developer account will generate an eBay table with different ID’s and OAuth Keys
 All the ID’s, OAuth keys will use in the configuration of the web application

According to the author, Integration with eBay using eBay built-in APIs is not easy. eBay
integration is very time consuming, required high expertise, and required a lot of money as
well. eBay integrated application implementation and maintenance also a boring process. But
at the same time, eBay is very popular for online marketplace integration. There are multiple
solutions to this problem, API2Cart is one of them, with the help of this service small &
medium-sized businesses can integrate their inventory software with eBay without any issues
(Natalia kovalchuk 2020).

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References

1. Namroud, P. (2019, Feb 28). What is the best method for eCommerce integration? |
EDI2XML. Edi2xml. https://www.edi2xml.com/blog/edi-xml-or-web-services-whats-best-for-
ecommerce.
2. Kulkarni, N., Kumar, S., Mani, K., & Padmanabhuni, S. (2005). Web services: e-commerce
partner integration. IT Professional, 7(2), 23–28.
3. Hochstein, A., Schwinn, A., & Brenner, W. (2009). Business Opportunities with Web
Services in the Case of Ebay.
4. Sturiale, L., & Scuderi, A. (2017). The marketplaces and the integration between physic and
virtual in the business models of fruit and vegetables e-commerce. In 8th International
Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture, Food and
Environment, HAICTA (pp. 79-90).
5. Long, V. H. (2020). Deploying web app using Jenkins and Amazon web services.
6. Amazon EC2. (2020, December 18). Amazon Web Services, Inc. https://aws.amazon.com/ec2

7. Park, Y. E., & Allui, A. (2019). eBay: Smart Entry Strategy into the Korean Market Through
M&A and its Post-Merger Integration. The Journal of Distribution Science, 17(1), 47-56.
8. Ebay. (2020). Buy and sell on eBay from anywhere online. Retrieved 4 January 2021, from
https://developer.ebay.com/api-docs/sell/
9. Ebay. (2020). Traditional eBay Selling.  Retrieved 4 January 2021, from
https://developer.ebay.com/Devzone/XML/docs/Reference/ebay/index.html
10. Amazon. (2020). Save time and help grow your business with FBA. Retrieved 4 January,
2021, from https://www.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon
11. Natalia kovalchuk. (2020, 23 January 2020). How to Develop eBay Integration with Your
Inventory Management Solution.  Retrieved 4 January 2021, from https://api2cart.com/api-
technology/ebay-integration-with-inventory-management-solution
12. Natalia. (2020, 31 December 2020). How to Automatically Add Tracking Info to e-Stores'
Orders. Retrieved 4 January 2021, from https://api2cart.com/api-technology
13. Api2cart. (2020). EBay API Integration for SaaS App Providers. Retrieved 5 January
2021, from https://api2cart.com/api-technology/ebay-integration-for-saas-app/
14. Sims, L. (2018). Building Your Online Store With WordPress and WooCommerce: Learn to
Leverage the Critical Role E-commerce Plays in Today’s Competitive Marketplace. Apress.

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15. Barnes, S. J., & Vidgen, R. T. (2002). An integrative approach to the assessment of e-
commerce quality. J. Electron. Commerce Res., 3(3), 114-127.
16. Alderson, C., Hui, A., Victor, N., & Williams, D. (2011). U.S. Patent Application No.
13/011,324.
17. Liz hull. (2017). Using Amazon & eBay Integrations with Shopify. Retrieved 6 January
2021, from https://www.merchantmaverick.com/using-amazon-and-ebay-integrations-with-
shopify/
18. Ebay channel grabber. (2020). EBay Multi-Channel eCommerce Integration. Retrieved 6
January 2021, from https://channelgrabber.com/ebay/
19. Lyn wildwood. (2020, April 6, 2020). Ways to Achieve a WooCommerce, Amazon
and eBay Integration. Retrieved 6 January 2021, from
https://storepro.io/learn/connect-ebay-amazon-to-woocommerce/
20. Ansari, S., Kohavi, R., Mason, L., & Zheng, Z. (2001, November). Integrating e-
commerce and data mining: Architecture and challenges. In Proceedings 2001 IEEE
International Conference on Data Mining (pp. 27-34). IEEE.

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