- Community >
- Announcements >
- Kiwi conquers auto-shopping on Trade Me
Kiwi conquers auto-shopping on Trade Me
Want to buy the cheapest, most random stuff on Trade Me and have it delivered for free? One enterprising Kiwi has found a way to do just that.
Developer Paul Hunkin saw that we’d unleashed our API in September, freeing up our code for developers to dig in and have a play with building applications for members to use.
Inspired by a web comic strip, Paul set aside a couple of hours to write a script that automatically searches the site and bids on cheap, obscure items with Buy Now and free shipping (he’s recently updated it to also bid on items that are closing soon, to nab a bargain).
Paul gives his script, or ‘bot’, an allowance of $1 per day, so every 24 hours it can purchase one thing on the site for $1 or less - or $2, if he saves the money for a couple of days. The bot then tweets its purchase updates on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Paul sits back and lets the oddball deliveries arrive at his door. So far, he’s received some 1955 stamps, some watch batteries (sadly, he doesn’t own a watch to put them in), and a Yu-gi-oh trading card.
Within the past few weeks, his invention has captured international media attention from the likes of Wired, Mashable, and Yahoo!, and his original blog post has received over 170,000 views.
Between interviews and blog updates, Paul’s still tinkering with his bot to make it pick items more “intelligently”.
But the obvious question is: Will he share his invention with the rest of us?
“I'm still deciding what to do with it,” says Paul. “Releasing the source would be simplest, but I do quite like the idea of a web app that people can use to do this kind of stuff themselves. I might do both - watch this space!”
For more details, here’s a video of Paul’s recent interview on Kiwi FM.