Shipping software is a necessary and helpful tool for eCommerce companies. It includes tasks related to order fulfillment, generation and printing of shipping labels, tracking shipments in real-time, etc.
As a shipping software vendor, you should provide the best experience to your customers. In order to make your solution easier and work with a large number of retailers, it should be connected to the shopping cart platforms. When a developer integrates an eCommerce API for shipping software providers, they will be able to access all the data about products, customers, and orders from online stores.
Are you still unsure about establishing a relationship with several shopping platforms? This article will assist you more in knowing about the eCommerce API integration for shipping software.
What is API, and How Does it Work?
There is always some form of medium that links a sender and receiver to communicate with each other. The same medium is an Application Programming Interface (API). In other words, an API is a facilitator that enables two applications to talk to each other. It is an interface that takes the request of one application and delivers it to another — followed by its response along with returning to where it was asked. It generates connectivity between the two systems, thus making it easy to pass data from one system to another.
Using an API is also good in the sense that developers do not always have to write code. It allows them to easily reuse the complex elements of processes without much coding. This, in turn, increases the speed of application development and establishes its connection with different shopping platforms.
The Importance of eCommerce API Integration for Shipping Software
For the shipping software providers, eCommerce API integration is crucial. It enables integration with various shopping platforms and marketplaces through their APIs.
Vital operations of shipping software are facilitated by its access to order, product, and customer data located in the online stores. The process of shipping involves certain operations, such as order fulfillment, stock control updates, and order status shipment monitoring. None of them can be feasible by the shipping software without an API connection.
If the shipping software incorporates shopping cart platforms, it makes accessing and processing orders smooth.
Like a shipping software vendor for you, it is essential to guarantee the success of the software for your customers. The base of a powerful system is API integration from the shopping platform into your shipping software, allowing automation of operations for retailers. Also, the quality of integration determines how uniformly data from online stores is synchronized. Since most functions of a shipping handling system rely on data from e-stores, it is essential to access such information.
There are many eCommerce shipping software vendors who seek a solution to connect their systems with shopping platforms and marketplaces today. API2Cart easily solves all the integration issues.
Steps to Easily Avoiding API Integration Troubles
Integrations are the most boring part of development because they are so complicated and technical. API integration is associated with a lot of difficulties. Have a look at the list:
It will take at least 4-12 weeks to perform a single integration. As a shipping solution vendor, you also need to have an interface with several shopping cart software in order to give customers the best experience. Thus, you can approximate the overall time of development for several integrations.
It is very expensive to develop each integration. You will need to spend a few thousand dollars for the qualified developers in order for them to help with their investigations and development work related to building API integration and its further maintenance.
Shopping platform versions update continuously. So, you should be prepared to get an additional amount of your budget for the improvements of your integrations.
The most important issue of interest is the ability of a developer. You will need to find a group of developers who have working experience in connections with building integrations with the most popular platforms like Magento, Shopify, OpenCart, and so forth since it’s not an easy task.
Using API2Cart, you can avoid all the pain points of integration.
API2Cart offers a unified API that allows your shipping software to connect simultaneously with over 40 shopping platforms and marketplaces. You will be able to work with data from e-stores that operate on Wix, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, Shopify, and 3dCart, as well as popular online marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, etc.
In short, if you integrate your shipping software with API2Cart and use all the required API methods for your business needs, you can leverage the following benefits:
- Import orders from multiple sales channels;
- Gather information about orders, customers, products, tracking numbers, and shipping addresses;
- Update tracking information and order statuses;
- Create shipping labels.
If you have any issues related to the shopping platform API integration for shipping software via API2Cart, contact us to get a free month trial.
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