Why It's Worth Investing In An API Integration Platform

eCommerce SaaS apps have long been an integral part of online store owners. Such popularity of these tools is quite justified since they greatly facilitate and help in managing various data from the store. 

Behind all this is the integration with the eCommerce platforms that allows Saas apps to extract, transfer, and synchronize data across different sales channels. To be competitive such software should have integration with more than one or two shopping platforms. It is also essential that the integration is well established, as lost or poorly transferred data can affect both SaaS apps and online store owners. 

That is why API integration platforms appeared on the market making it easy to connect with many eCommerce carts and marketplaces at once, avoiding all integration problems.

In this article, you will learn more about why such solutions are so important for your B2B SaaS company and how your integration with the eCommerce platforms will work with them. 

API integration is the process of linking your B2B SaaS to the APIs of various shopping platforms. API integration platform is based on this type of connection and allows to push, pull, sync information between your eCommerce application and shopping websites.  

There are two ways of how it is implemented: through webhooks or APIs. The main difference between API calls and webhooks is that the former works on a request-based output mechanism, while the latter uses an event-based output mechanism. That is why webhooks are sometimes referred to as reverse APIs. The best is when these two components work together and complement each other.

API integration platforms allow to avoid many integration challenges, as each eCommerce platform has its specific architecture and logic. Let’s see below what issues it can solve and how you can benefit from it.

API integration platform helps to connect with various retail websites in a short amount of time. As a result, you will have a connection to many online store owners that can become your future customers, which will further boost your revenue.

For example, more than 1,500,000 online store owners have built their websites on the Shopify platform. The connection with this shopping cart can significantly increase your customer base and expand your market share.

Integration with Magento allows to reach out to more than 240,000 potential clients. This eCommerce platform covers 26% of all online stores around the world.

The more integrations with shopping platforms and marketplaces you will have, the better are the chances to increase the number of your clients. API integration platform can assist you with it.

As mentioned above, poorly written integration with eCommerce platforms can become a big problem. Even when the integration is successfully implemented, it requires further upgrades and support.

API integration platform takes care of everything. It adds the support of the latest cart version and works on improvements. Thus, you will provide your clients with the proper functionality and even offer more new features, not limited to just basic.

eCommerce integration via API integration platform will encourage you to embrace new market opportunities by generating new sales potentials and business concepts. 

Such type of connection allows your business to grow, encourage creativity and meet a larger audience.

When you choose to develop integration with eCommerce platforms on your own, you will have to find developers with expertise in writing integration with multiple shopping carts. Moreover, each eCommerce website has its unique API framework, so programmers need to identify how to remove particular problems and solve challenges with the integration process. 

The extra cost and time for integration is another challenge you can expect. Setting up just one connection will take at least 4-12 weeks or even months at best. For instance, developing basic integration with eBay takes around 3 months for experienced developers. 

When you use an API integration platform, you forget about developing separate integration with eCommerce platforms. Your developers will need only a couple of weeks to integrate with an API integration solution that will provide you with multiple integrations. This not only saves your precious time but also allows you to get focused on the core business idea and processes.

Developing API integration with shopping platforms is quite a challenging process. A lot of expertise and time is involved in integrating a correctly operating API integration module. Further changes and repairs are expected until the API integration is finished, which would take money and time on an ongoing basis due to the requirement for IT personnel to manage the implementation. 

All these variables make API integration very difficult, so the smartest thing you could do is to choose a ready-built API integration platform. For example, API2Cart allows to connect to more than 40 eCommerce platforms at once. When you integrate your software with API2Cart, you can get quick access and the option to manage store-based data from all of the supported platforms. 

Therefore, if you choose to focus on improving your main products rather than on complicated API interfaces it will be better to use an API integration platform.