eBay

sghael · ‎03-04-2020

I am programmatically creating rover links using the eBay findItemsAdvanced API.

The resulting links created is this:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=2&toolid=10044&campid=5338659090&customid=&lg...

This rover link works fine in a desktop browser, but when launched from my App this does a few redirects in the Chrome (default) Android browser and ultimately lands on a "Android UL3.0" page. Watch the video (gif) below to see this happen.

What I expect to happen:

- User clicks link in my app. My app launches the default browser which hits the rover.ebay.com page which then redirects to the item page (after registering me as the affiliate that sent the customer to eBay).

Tested:

at 2020-03-04 12:37pm EST
Android 29
Pixel 3a emulator
Chrome (default) browser

Please advise!

eburtonlab · ‎03-04-2020

@sghael

If I understand correctly, whether a qualified eBay browser link opens in a browser or in the app depends on a setting in the user's eBay app.

If you have an Android device, then using the device manager, under Settings: Apps: eBay: Open by default -- there is a setting called "Open supported links" holding that down gives three choices: "Open in this app" "Ask every time" and "Don't open in this app". Choose "Don't open in this app". Changing that setting prevented browser links from opening up in the app automatically for me.

When I use your link in a Chrome browser on my Android phone, the link is opened in Chrome, because of the way I have previously altered that setting.

Unless you can convince all of your users to change their settings, it seems that you will have to make your link compatible with the eBay app if you want those users to be able to see your link, or else change the link so that it is not qualified to open in the eBay app, and thus remains in the browser.

sghael · ‎03-04-2020

hi eburtonlab,

Thank you for the prompt reply.

I'm not sure I quite understand your solution. In my scenario, the eBay app is NOT installed on the device. I have no expectation of the eBay app being present on the device.

I would expect the https://rover.ebay.com link in my app to trigger an Android intent. The intent would understand what apps could open this given link based on the protocol handler. Since the protocol is "https", it opens in the default browser (Chrome). All this works as expect, as you can see in the gif the browser does indeed open properly to the "rover.ebay.com" page.

However, it's at that point that things go awry, since you can see the browser do some page forwarding to a "www.ebay.com" page, and then browser loading end abruptly and the page closes.

I didn't understand your comment about "make your link compatible with the eBay app". I'm simply using the rover links provided by the eBay find API which have my affiliate information in the url params, with no expectation that the user has the eBay app installed. I could revert to using the non-affiliate link, which DOES work, but then I miss out on the affiliate opportunity.

Googling for "eBay rover android" brings up many discussions of this failure, so this seems to be a widespread issue.

Hope that explanation helps, but happy to discuss more. Thanks in advance for your help.

eburtonlab · ‎03-04-2020

It is entirely possible you are encountering some other issue, not related to the eBay app at all. You issue sounded similar to a previous issue I have had with links attempting to open in the app rather than in a browser.

I decided to change my settings and see if your link would open in the app -- and it appears to work. So at least for Chrome on my particular Android 7.1.1 phone, your link delivers the item page.