The eCommerce industry is constantly growing. Though the competition is fierce, a lot of merchants create an online presence for their stores. As a result, many software appear that allow automating some business processes for online retailers.
If you are one of such software, you know that to be able to propose your functionality to online store owners, you need to integrate with the eCommerce platforms on which the stores are built. Namely, sooner or later, you will need to investigate how shopping cart REST API works and how to develop an integration with it.
The fact is also that the more platforms your system integrates with, the higher the chances of covering most of the market.
Though, more connections also entail certain difficulties during the integration development process. That’s why you need to be more aware of developing such integrations to avoid the pitfalls.
In this article, you will discover some popular shopping cart REST APIs. Also, you will explore a unified API that allows to connect to various eCommerce APIs at once.
What is a REST API?
A REST API stands for Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface. It is a web API that conforms to the REST architectural style constraints and allows to interact with RESTful web services.
REST APIs perform standard database functions via HTTP requests, such as creating, reading, updating, and deleting data within a resource. For instance, the HTTP GET method allows retrieving the data, the POST method is used to create one, the PUT method enables to update data, and the DELETE method is used to delete one. All standard HTTP methods can be used in API calls.
Information can be sent to clients in various formats, such as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), HTML, XLT, Python, PHP, or plain text. JSON is the most popular file format because it is both human- and machine-readable and language-agnostic.
What is Shopping Cart REST API?
Shopping cart REST API provides access to different types of store-related information via a REST architectural style. Such type of API allows developers to GET, ADD, UPDATE and DELETE information from stores like orders, products, customers, categories, etc.
Shopping cart REST API integration means the process of establishing a connection between an application or software and an eCommerce platform. As a result, software providers can offer online store owners a range of valuable features. These include order and inventory management, product sync, customer management, etc.
Let’s see some of the popular shopping cart REST APIs in detail and find out about their specifics.
Shopping Cart REST API Examples
Today the eCommerce market is full of shopping platforms that allow retailers to build an online store according to their requirements and possibilities. That is why eCommerce software needs to integrate with as many shopping platforms as possible to be competitive and cover the needs of a large number of online merchants.
To help you understand what it takes to build an integration with shopping platforms, we’ve gathered some specifics of certain shopping cart REST APIs.
Popular shopping cart REST APIs:
Magento REST API
The Magento REST APIs contain many functions to send requests and receive responses. All the interactions or tasks of receiving and sending data are performed using the HTTP protocol.
OpenCart REST API
OpenCart API provides a way to connect with OpenCart stores in JSON format. Users can get and update data from an Opencart store using the HTTP protocol.
BigCommerce REST API
The BigCommerce REST API provides a uniform interface for easy work with it.
Such type of API allows managing various types of data, such as orders, products, coupons, account data, etc.
WooCommerce REST API
WooCommerce platform also has REST API and enables to work with related data to products, orders, categories, and more. Developers can create, read, delete, or update such data with the help of this API. Moreover, it allows to add and remove stocks, filter orders, and many more such activities.
Ecwid REST API
The Ecwid API uses a REST architectural style that helps to access data related to store profiles, categories, products, etc. Additionally, it allows the connection of other applications in a way that makes them available as native features of the Ecwid app.
Squarespace REST API
Squarespace Commerce API provides Orders API to access active and completed orders, Products API to get and manage product lists and images, and Transaction API to access transaction history data.
All Squarespace Commerce APIs are built on HTTPS, and REST principles are used for their design.
How to Develop Integration with Various Shopping Cart REST APIs
It can be challenging to integrate with a single shopping cart REST API, let alone multiple APIs. API integration involves the following processes: onboarding, exploration, education, authentication, code samples, testing, monitoring, and sandboxing. An average API integration project involves discovering APIs, creating and testing services that communicate with those APIs, adapting the application to communicate with those services, and then implementing the finished application.
As the number of APIs used by eCommerce application grows, the need to integrate them efficiently will increase. The rise of API integration services and tools has occurred in response to the needs of developers.
API2Cart uses the REST API to ensure transparent data interaction. It provides a single API to perform integration with 40+ shopping platforms simultaneously, including such leaders as Wix, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, and others.
API2Cart can improve your SaaS (Software as a Service) application's effectiveness if you provide software in the following spheres: inventory and order management, email marketing, mobile commerce, dropshipping, repricing system, etc. Integration with shopping carts via API2Cart will bring you the following advantages:
a unified API that enables access to the various shopping platforms and marketplaces;
a high level of technical support to all customers;
security guaranteed as the service uses an SSL certificate together with a 32-symbol API key to access the software;
extensive documentation and code samples are provided to help you get started quickly.
API2Cart provides 100+ API methods that allow to get, add, update, delete and sync various store data like orders, products, customers, shipments, etc. We also take care of all the connections, so you will not need to worry about upgrading your eCommerce integrations.
You can test API2Cart for 30-days for free. All you need to do is to register your free trial account now.
If you have any questions, concerns, or special requests, we're ready to help you. We're here to answer all your questions.
