How We Use Best Buy APIs: A Conversation with CowBoom

We provide plenty of evidence in this space of all the cool things we’re doing on the back end of the Best Buy APIs, but what are folks out in the real world doing with them? We recently got in touch with General Manager Robert Biles and Marketing Specialist Chelsea Osoling from CowBoom, a Best Buy brand dealing in refurbished, pre-owned and other discounted Best Buy merchandise, about how their company puts our APIs to use.

Can you explain a little about what CowBoom does for Best Buy?
CowBoom is a business-to-consumer site responsible for selling Best Buy’s revalued inventory, especially Open Box, Refurbished and Pre-owned goods. As a part of Best Buy’s Secondary Markets division, CowBoom specializes in testing and reselling trade-ins, customer returns and end-of-life inventory from our big box stores.

How does CowBoom employ Best Buy APIs on a daily basis?
The API implementation is simple enough that CowBoom has one dedicated resource responsible for Merchandising. Daily activities include viewing inventory, maintaining product descriptions, loading product data into our system and product placement. We particularly appreciate that the system is easy to use and doesn’t require a lot of manpower to operate.

Do you mainly use our Products API or are there others that come in handy?
In addition to the Products API, we also use the Commerce API to facilitate transactions. We leverage the Products API for information about most products sold on CowBoom, whether fulfilled through the API or CowBoom’s regular inventory. That includes titles, descriptions, specs, images — all the vital information we need to be able to merchandise products for CowBoom.

How do Best Buy customers feel the impact of our API partnerships?
The API partnership enables us to offer a broader assortment of inventory. For example, we’re able to offer complementary accessories like laptop chargers and gaming controllers with certain purchases, without the inventory risks associated with stocking accessories. Without the APIs, it wouldn’t be cost effective for us to keep our customers’ most desired accessories in stock.

Thanks to the good folks at CowBoom for taking the time to talk with us. We’ll be looking at different uses of Best Buy’s APIs in the weeks to come. Do you or your company employ Best Buy APIs? Drop us a tweet at @bbyopen and we’d love to share your story.