[mrweasel]

So here is an API we would have paid for, and I assume many still will: A product catalog. They do exist, but they are expensive and aren't not that great.

What we where after and gave up on was an API that would accept an EAN-13 barcode and return product details, images, good descriptions, in multiple language (specifically NOT machine translated) and possible alternative EAN-13 barcodes for the same product.

As a side project to this: An API that will take a list of EAN-13 barcode, a price and a quantity (in stock) and transform it into a number of feeds for various price comparison sites. Again, it exists, but it's expensive, not all that good and it certainly doesn't automatically add product name, descriptions, categories and product attributes.

I think that issue here is, and it's almost bound be the same for most other APIs, it's the data that's interesting. So what data do you have access to that most others don't? My guess is that there aren't any large and interesting dataset that a random person on HN can easily sell, that isn't already readily available.

[patd]

Not exactly what you need but I think it may be close.

I’m running a SaaS turning affiliate platform content into an API which can be looked up by EAN13 : https://datafeedapi.com

Current users are publishers wanting to display affiliate links on their website but I could probably repurpose it for a more generic product search API without the affiliate links and different pricing. If anyone is interested, you can reach me at patrick_[at]_datafeedapi.com

Doc is here : https://datafeedapi.com/api/v1/redoc/

[pjc50]

> As a side project to this: An API that will take a list of EAN-13 barcode, a price and a quantity (in stock) and transform it into a number of feeds for various price comparison sites

From this: do the people who have the data have an incentive to make it available, or to keep it unavailable so that price discovery is harder? The more efficient the market, the smaller the margins.

This is a big factor in many things that don't have APIs or actively discourage automated access with anti-scraper tools.

[MrGilbert]

> I think that issue here is, and it's almost bound be the same for most other APIs, it's the data that's interesting.

I love building APIs. The biggest hurdle I see is that you need two active parties on both ends of the API to convince: There is a user, which needs to be convinced to use the API, and a supplier, which also needs to use the API. And there is no incentive to use the API for one or another.

[jasonjayr]

If you want to tackle this, make a Product Information manager or Product Experience manager(PIM/PXM) that is easy to use, very API friendly and sanely priced.

A lot of products in this space are priced crazy for small to medium manufacturers.

[mrweasel]

May ten years ago, at my former employer, where we would have loved to have this API, we also needed a PIM. At that time the commercially available ones was where all pretty terrible or way to expensive (mostly both) and a colleague was tasked with just building one. He did a much better job than any of the off the shelf solutions we had seen. It still needed data to be manually entered for new product and descriptions done for seven or eight language.

I still see a huge value proposition in an API that can lookup production information based on barcodes alone. Scan the item when it first arrives in the warehouse, or when a PO is made and just suck down the relevant information. You could even tier the offering: Tier 1: you get title and one image, Tier 2: Five images and product attributes. Tier 3: All images, attributes and product descriptions. Then add a fee for every language you need translations for.

If you could do this right, then it is my belief that it could change a number of industries. Technically it's not even that hard, but there's a ton of manual work involved, contract with every manufacturer on the planet and insane QA.