The GroopBuy API for Developers

The Public GroopBuy API

The GroopBuy API is designed as a simple set of REST API calls that can be called directly from third-party applications. Responses can be in XML or JSON format and can be specified in realtime with the API request being made. For now, access is public and so no API key is required.

How Our API Works

At this time, there are two API calls that work together to retrieve active deals for a given city.

Getting Cities
To get a list of cities currently tracked by GroopBuy, use the call below:

http://api.groopbuy.com/get/cities?format={json,xml}&v=1.0

The default response format is xml so if you intend to use the xml format, you can just leave the format parameter off. The v parameter which specifies the version of the API (currently at 1.0) is important and required.

The response will be in the following format:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <response> <city> <cityname>Austin</cityname> <citycode>AUS</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>Boston</cityname> <citycode>BOS</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>Chicago</cityname> <citycode>CHI</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>Houston</cityname> <citycode>HOU</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>Los Angeles</cityname> <citycode>LAX</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>New York</cityname> <citycode>NYC</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>San Francisco</cityname> <citycode>SFO</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>San Jose</cityname> <citycode>SJS</citycode> </city> <city> <cityname>Washington DC</cityname> <citycode>WDC</citycode> </city> </response> If you specified the json format, it would be represented in structured JSON.

Getting Deals
You can get the active deals for a given city using the following API call:

http://api.groopbuy.com/get/deals/{cityCode}?format={json,xml}&v=1.0

The cityCode value is populated by parsing and retrieving the appropriate cityCode value for the desired city from the response to the Cities API call as described above. For example, the cityCode for San Francisco is SFO.

The response (if the XML format is passed) will look like the following: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <response> <deal> <dealheadline>Pay just $10 for $20 worth of rollable, portable ballet flats from Rolleez</dealheadline> <dealurl>http://www.groopbuy.com/deal/more/414/9013994b774cb6f95db153d511da10fd</dealurl> <dealsource>Eversave</dealsource> <dealsourceurl>http:///www.eversave.com</dealsourceurl> <dealamount>10.00</dealamount> <dealvalue>20.00</dealvalue> <dealsavingsamount>10.00</dealsavingsamount> <dealexpirationdatetime>2010-05-16 23:59:00</dealexpirationdatetime> <dealexpirationdatetimezone>CST</dealexpirationdatetimezone> </deal> <deal> <dealheadline>$7 for $15 Worth of Texan Cheesesteak and More at Texadelphia</dealheadline> <dealurl>http://www.groopbuy.com/deal/more/471/436ff886c21ef473a7a1353795fc0b0b</dealurl> <dealsource>Groupon</dealsource> <dealsourceurl>http://www.groupon.com</dealsourceurl> <dealamount>7.00</dealamount> <dealvalue>15.00</dealvalue> <dealsavingsamount>8.00</dealsavingsamount> <dealexpirationdatetime>2010-05-12 00:58:00</dealexpirationdatetime> <dealexpirationdatetimezone>CST</dealexpirationdatetimezone> </deal> </response>