eBay woos developers with X.commerce

The Wall Street Journal notes.

eBay says X.commerce will draw developers to an open platform, and enable them to build new shopping and payment tools for merchants that will be used by eBay's marketplaces and PayPal units.

The move is reminiscent of efforts by Apple to entice developers into building apps for its iOS platform, and by Facebook to encourage the creation of tools for its social network.

“We expect technology to change commerce more in the next three years than in the past 15,” says eBay CEO John Donahoe, AFP writes.

“This creates a tremendous global opportunity for developers and merchants alike,” he adds. “With X.commerce, we've created an open ecosystem that is the most complete set of commerce capabilities on the planet.”

X.commerce is intended to match merchants with independent developers building innovative ways to handle checkouts at Web sites, inventories, calculating taxes, and other aspects of running shops with online outlets.

eBay already had tools for third-party developers through its PayPal and Magento properties, but the new X.commerce platform is a much broader platform move, Forbes says.

X.commerce is not designed specifically for eBay properties, but rather is open for any developers, says Matthew Mengerink, head of X.Commerce.

While other technology companies have platforms with developer ecosystems, from Facebook to Google to Salesforce to Twitter, eBay's platform move is significant because it enables commerce for merchants both online and offline.