In today's competitive market, businesses that provide eCommerce apps or software need to connect their systems with third-party marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay to stay competitive.
In this post, we’ll examine how your company can benefit from secure marketplace integration and take a look at some of the available types of marketplace APIs. We’ll also explore how to use these APIs and integrate with them easily.
How Does Marketplace Integration Work?
The eCommerce market has grown exponentially in the past few years, and it continues to grow. Today, more and more people are choosing to open up their online stores. To remain competitive in the market, online sellers need eCommerce software or apps that automate processes related to their businesses. This is where you come in as an app or software provider. You must ensure that your solution is able to automate different processes and make e-retailers' activity more efficient.
Marketplace integration is the process of developing an API connection between your system and various marketplaces, including eBay, Walmart, Amazon, and Etsy. When the connection is up and running, you can retrieve, add, synchronize, delete, and work with marketplace data related to products, prices, orders, shipments, inventory, or taxes.
The marketplace integration development process includes several stages:
Stage #1: In the first stage of integration, you must research the peculiarities of each marketplace and study the documentation. You must know that each marketplace has a different API structure and traits, so each integration is unique.
Stage #2: Developing the integration between your software with the API of the required marketplace.
Stage #3: When you connect with a marketplace, the next step is to transfer data between parties. This involves managing marketplace products and orders as well as accessing shipping, taxes, or basket information.
Stage #4: The final stage of a project is ongoing support and maintenance of the integration.
The Specifics of Various Marketplace APIs
An application programming interface (API) acts as an intermediary between two applications, enabling them to communicate with each other and exchange data. Such an interface is used in eCommerce to enable shopping cart software and online marketplaces to be integrated with different third-party software systems.
To service your clients across multiple places, you should connect with as many online marketplaces as possible. Four online marketplaces that every eCommerce software provider should consider connecting with are Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart. These are major marketplaces with tens of millions of sellers on their platforms, so you can extensively grow your business by connecting with them.
Let's take a look at the specifics of these marketplace APIs.
Amazon API: Amazon is undoubtedly the largest online marketplace in the world. Its API enables one to access data on listings, payments, and orders. However, Amazon API is quite old. As a result, changing data on Amazon listings, payments, or orders can be a tedious task even for experienced developers who know how to integrate with it properly.
eBay API: eBay API powers more than 800,000 online stores and services, serving 170 million users on a monthly basis. With unrestricted access to a myriad of unique features and capabilities, eBay API offers many opportunities for developers; however, the system is not without its flaws.
Walmart API: Walmart is the largest chain of physical stores in North America and also has a popular eCommerce marketplace. It uses a smooth REST infrastructure for its API, making it easy to work with data.
Etsy API: This rapidly expanding marketplace, which supports the OAuth method of user authentication and offers a user-friendly API, combines the reliability of RESTful interfaces with the utility of a lightweight JSON format.
How to Develop the Connection with Marketplace APIs Easily?
In the next years, it will be crucial for companies in the software industry to grow and expand their businesses. To ride the wave of eCommerce growth and capitalize on the huge number of e-stores being opened during the pandemic, they need to connect with as many marketplaces as possible.
To save time and effort and avoid manual integrations, you can choose a service that offers automatic connection to 40+ shopping platforms and marketplaces. API2Cart is one of the solutions that allow you to get connected to them within a few days and use more than 100 API methods to manage various store data.
This service provides a single integration solution for multiple marketplaces, reducing the total cost of ownership and maximizing your ROI. Currently, it supports connections with Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, and MercadoLibre.
It is possible to test all API2Cart features for a month totally for free by simply registering an account on the service. It provides detailed API Docs that allow you to use all the features easily.