eCommerce platforms are by far the most effective and easiest ways to sell goods online. Thanks to SaaS software, online merchants can seamlessly manage all operational tasks. That is why connectivity with various shopping platforms turned out to be the biggest need for your system.
Each eCommerce software provider must have a robust integration to perform all the critical functions for online stores in real-time and allow them to track changes for orders, customers, products and manage other store information.
In this article, you will see how the unified API developed by API2Cart can be used to access various types of store data and how it can benefit your SaaS software solutions.
Which B2B SaaS Vendors Need to Have Real-Time Store Info
All functionalities offered by SaaS software can not be accomplished without real-time monitoring of orders, products, customers, etc.
For example, product information management software provides a centralized location for handling and organizing product data services and sales via eCommerce channels. PIM software is extremely helpful for dropshipping and multichannel retailing, where product data must be updated in real-time via various shopping channels. Handling retail product data involves accessing in real-time every specific piece of data in the online store like: details of products, images, categories, prices, variants, inventory levels, customers, etc.
If you are a localization software provider, you must guarantee that all details can be properly gathered, processed and integrated, such as product details, categories, images, currencies, date, time. That includes identifying many connections, even those with online platforms where online retailers run their online shops. Your localization application needs to focus on connectivity with shopping platforms to automate most translation operations in real-time.
For marketplace website vendors it is also necessary to offer product functionality in real-time. Seamless integration of your marketplace website with shopping platforms enables continuous data exchange with your clients’ online stores.
If you are a warehouse management solution provider, then providing real-time store data for your clients is quite important. Tasks like order delivery, shipping control, stock level monitoring, order status checking, and more need to be included in your warehouse management solution. Your warehouse management system must focus on connectivity with many shopping platforms, as core features include the ability to receive and process orders, customers, and product details from online stores.
eCommerce Integration Challenges
As you've seen above, if you'd like to gain additional superiority in the eCommerce business sector, real-time data integration is fundamental for all categories of SaaS software vendors. However, each system has its own logic and unique challenges.
Integration of one eCommerce website is complicated, but it gets even more frustrating when we talk of connectivity with multiple systems. That is why most vendors of eCommerce applications have chosen to work with just a few shopping websites and miss potential clients and revenues.
Integration with shopping platforms creates a lot of issues, and some of them are listed below:
Integrating on your own isn't a smart idea, as you may not be aware of all the technical complexities of certain shopping platform. You should get a highly qualified development team to do such a task.
Integration is a complex process requiring continuous struggle, knowledge, and expertise. Completing a particular integration might take at least a few months. You can then assume how long it would take for programmers to develop several integrations with various eCommerce sites and platforms.
Perhaps the major obstacle for different integration with the multiple shopping platforms is the implementation of new versions. Your programmers may have developed integrations that depend on previous versions of eCommerce platforms. Consequently, you might have some issues while trying to get updated versions of online store data.
As we've seen above, developing data synchronization between different systems involves plenty of technical effort. All these aspects make the integration with shopping platforms quite challenging, so it is necessary to figure out how to make things easier.
How API2Cart Can Help in Tracking Changes for Orders, Customers, and Products
The best way to integrate successfully is to try a ready-made integration solution that allows integrating with multiple shopping platforms via only one API.
API2Cart makes it easy to connect your SaaS applications with different eCommerce sites and shopping platforms. It provides a unified API for connection with more than 40 eCommerce platforms, such as Magento, Shopify, OpenCart, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, as well as many others. As it offers a single form of integration, you will be able to integrate your system once and get connected to as many shopping websites as you need. The main advantage of this type of connectivity is that you do not need to create multiple integrations for your SaaS application or take care to develop new implementations for various shopping platforms.
Via API2Cart you will be able to track changes for orders, customers, products and manage all related store info.
Let’s see in details how it can help you with that.
There are two ways to get to know about new changes in orders. The first way is by using webhook for order.update event, the second is by executing order.list method.
To track changes in products you can via webhook for product.update event or by executing product.list method.
The same logic is with customers. You get customer.update webhook notification with new customer details or execute customer.list method once in a while.
The detailed documentation makes API utilizing easy and a dedicated, tech-savvy 24/7 support team is always ready to help with any matters. API2Cart protect clients’ personal and store information from unauthorized access, so their customers can be assured about their data security.
You can test all of the available API2Cart API methods by creating your free API2Cart account. If you would like to get more details about API2Cart, feel free to contact us.
