15 Top eCommerce APIs

15 Top eCommerce APIs

An application programming interface (API) is a set of functions that allows two applications to interact with each other so that they can communicate and exchange information. APIs make it possible for applications to perform their specific functionality seamlessly.

An eCommerce API works on the same principle. Its use, for example, allows software developers to connect their systems to different shopping platforms, transfer and manage data from e-shops built on them.

This article presents 15 such eCommerce APIs to which high-volume eCommerce software vendors should connect their software:

1. eBay API
2. Amazon API
3. Shopify API
4. Magento API
5. WooCommerce API
6. Walmart API
7. BigCommerce API
8. Etsy API
9. Ecwid API
10. Squarespace API
11. Salesforce Commerce Cloud API
12. CommerceHQ API
13. Lightspeed API
14. 3dcart API
15. Neto API

eBay API

eBay is among the most popular eCommerce marketplaces with approximately 177 million active users and 1 billion active product listings. Its operations are localized in more than 30 countries.

eBay API is an eCommerce API that allows software vendors to access various features along with buying, selling, searching, and other eCommerce-related tasks. With the eBay API, developers can create multiple programs to display eBay listings, get eBay categories, retrieve the list of items, view all items, and many more such tasks.

eBay API has its specific features. It is not uniform. Different resources (like products, customers, orders) have different data formats. Somewhere it can be XML, somewhere - JSON.
Sometimes it's hard to find all the information you need in the eBay API Docs. Developers have to search for the answers to their questions in eBay Developer Forums. Usually, this is very time consuming.

Amazon API

Amazon is a popular eCommerce platform. With 310 million monthly users and 90 million paid (Amazon Prime ) users, Amazon enjoys great popularity when it comes to the best eCommerce marketplaces.

The Amazon API acts as a programmatic interface that allows the exchange of data related to listings, products, orders, payments, reports, and more. It even allows to retrieve product reviews, seller profiles, seller feedback, and other important information. It only supports CSV files or XML for communication and requires a certain skill to interact and exchange information.

Shopify API

Shopify has around 1 million active users around the world. It powers over 3,600,000 websites across the web. With such an immense customer base, the Shopify API is an ideal eCommerce API for many software vendors.

Shopify API allows developers to create tools that interact directly with Shopify. It also allows you to work with methods like Category, Customer, Product, Order, etc. with support for JSON and XML. All you need is to work with the latest version of API as Shopify updates its API regularly.

Magento API

Magento is the next big platform in the eCommerce world.

The Magento API allows developers to manage eCommerce stores using appropriate calls to work with data related to products, orders, customers, and categories. It also supports JSON and XML with four primary HTTP methods, namely: POST, PUT, GET, and DELETE. The highlight is that Magento has a SOAP API along with REST API and uses the XML-RPC clients for communication.

This eCommerce platform powers more than 757,000 websites around the globe. Currently, 250,000 merchants are using Magento as a reliable eCommerce platform.

WooCommerce API

As one of the largest eCommerce platforms, WooCommerce powers more than 4 million websites, and its API is considered more stable than others.

This WooCommerce API allows developers to work with WooCommerce databases. It allows creating, reading, updating and deleting products, orders, categories and other information. It has a REST API and lets you work with adding and removing items, reserving inventory, filtering orders, and a variety of other tasks. However, you have to deal with increasing API versions, complex PHP modules and lack of native documentation.

Walmart API

The Walmart eCommerce API is the simplest and most straightforward API built on a REST structure that a developer can work with. It has become as popular as the eCommerce platform itself shortly after it went online. The API helps in building applications that manage items, orders, promotions, inventory, pricing and reports easily. It has two groups - Item API and Transaction API.

Walmart is an emerging eCommerce giant with more than 140,000 actively operating and popular stores in 27 countries. It does more than $514 billion in sales worldwide and aims to surpass Amazon in the coming years.

BigCommerce API

More than 150 thousand merchants worldwide use BigCommerce to run their online stores. It offers merchants some cool and scalable features that can take their business operations to the next level.

BigCommerce eCommerce API of this amazing platform also provides multiple SDKs for the developers so that they can increase their application capabilities manifold. BigCommerce has a REST API. It supports all CRUD actions through HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE). The developers can retrieve product catalogues and create new products easily.

Etsy API

Etsy is an American eCommerce marketplace that features 91,157 websites offering handmade items and accessories. Vintage items include clothing, jewelry, bags, home accessories, furniture, and many more.

The Etsy eCommerce API is as efficient as the eCommerce platform. It offers a simple RESTful interface in conjunction with lightweight JSON formatted entities. With the Etsy API's OAuth method, developers can read and write information and collect data from stores using the GET (reads a resource), POST (creates a new resource), PUT (updates a resource), and DELETE (deletes a resource) methods for output.

Ecwid API

Ecwid is an emerging eCommerce platform that enables small and medium businesses to easily create bold and easy-to-use online stores. With Ecwid, you can even sell online or in person. It powers 961,866 websites around the world.

The Ecwid eCommerce API is a straightforward RESTful API that uses the OAuth2 authentication method. It allows developers to manage store data, customize the storefront from external applications, and add new interfaces to Ecwid's Control Panel. Best of all, adding applications directly into Ecwid's Control Panel user interface is a native feature of this eCommerce platform.

Squarespace API

Originally an American website creation and hosting company, Squarespace has grown into an excellent eCommerce platform that powers around 2,600,000 websites worldwide. Creating and modifying websites with Squarespace is easy, requiring only pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop elements to do what's needed.

The Squarespace eCommerce API is also excellent. Designed with simple and straightforward REST principles, the Squarespace API allows developers to easily read and customize inventory information, manage physical products, access order history, and access financial transactions. It uses HTTP authentication methods and ensures private and secure transmission of the merchant's website data.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud API

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based B2B commerce solution that aims to transform the digital shopping experience of its customers. It powers around 8,347 websites for its loyal clientele. It also offers a variety of features like content, marketing, promotions, customer service, merchandise and more.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud eCommerce API is a complex API, including the Inventory API for reading and customizing inventory information, the Orders API for accessing order history, the Products API for managing physical products, Customers API for managing customer information within a customer list.

CommerceHQ API

CommerceHQ is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that offers easy-to-convert online stores with many other features including apps, abandoned cart software, one-click up-sells, advanced reports, free themes, a visual store builder, and more. Three thousand ninety seven customer websites run on CommerceHQ.

The platform's eCommerce API makes it easy and fast to retrieve the data you need by sending requests to GET. You can even search for anything and filter your results with any field or use relational or specific arrays, operators, etc.

Lightspeed API

Lightspeed was originally a POS system software that then evolved into a full-fledged eCommerce platform. It powers 29,214 customer websites on its platform and provides them with full support for software that integrates with the platform.

The Lightspeed eCommerce API allows developers to leverage the platform's retail API endpoints. It uses the OAuth2 method for authentication and access to the API. You can read items using the HTTP GET method, create items using HTTP POST, update items using HTTP PUT, and delete items using HTTP DELETE methods. You can even choose between XML or JSON.

3dcart API

From real-time shipping to payment choices, 3dcart has everything to start an online store. It powers 29,872 customer websites.

The 3dcart eCommerce API is based on the REST structure and supports the two authentication methods for accessing the API - the Basic HTTP and OAuth methods. It retrieves information via the HTTP GET method using standard OData functionality with queries including SELECT and ORDERBY. There is a limit to the maximum number of records that can be retrieved in a single request.

Neto API

Neto is an Australian B2B and multi-channel eCommerce platform providing one-stop solutions for all order management, inventory management, POS, eCommerce, and shipping labeling. It powers over 5,000 customer websites.

The Neto eCommerce API allows the software providers to interact with the merchant’s Neto Control Panel data. The data is related to products, customers, and orders. There are two ways to build with Neto’s API - using Add-ons or with custom development. It uses an HTTP POST request to perform all the transactions with Neto’s API on a merchant's domain.

How to Develop the Integration with eCommerce APIs?

You might have noticed that it is a quite complex task to integrate any software or app with the eCommerce APIs. A significant amount of time, money, and resources need to be invested in every integration you develop. Further, eCommerce APIs keep updating and with every release you need to update your integrations and look after their maintenance.

The easiest way is to develop all the integrations in one go without having to manage separate costs and resources for each of them. It is possible only with API2Cart, a unified API that connects your eCommerce software with more than 40 eCommerce platforms and marketplaces at once. Using API2Cart you can retrieve, add, and delete data from the multiple e-stores easily.

With API2Cart Enterprise On-Premise Solution, you can integrate with multiple eCommerce platforms and control who can manage your API2Cart server infrastructure by using the functionality provided by Amazon Web Service (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, make all requests over HTTPS protocol, supervise all connections with your clients via your software and use a unique key to get necessary store data.