As an eCommerce application and software provider, you are probably still searching for ways to make your business more successful. The need for digitalization has sent many new clients that opened their eCommerce stores your way. However, you can’t count on this alone, especially if you have big plans for your company and want to outsmart your competitors.
Real long-term success comes only by performing API integrations with multiple shopping cart solutions. One of these integrations you should definitely consider in 2022, and beyond is a Magento integration. Below, we want to show you how you can successfully tie your software to this large platform step by step. Let’s begin by looking at some Magento API specifics.
Magento API: Specific Features
Magento is one of the most famous shopping platforms today, powering over 26% of all online stores. According to Builtwith, Magento powers more than 62,000 online stores in the USA, 14,000 stores in the United Kingdom, 11,000 stores in the Netherlands, 10,800 stores in Germany, and approximately 7,000 stores in Brazil. Being integrated with the Magento API can allow you to capitalize on a certain number of benefits and gives you exposure to millions of potential clients from all across the globe.
To integrate your software or app with this shopping platform, you need to work with an Application Programming Interface (API). API is a set of definitions and protocols for building and integrating application software. API allows two or more applications to interact with each other.
Magento is a modern platform that provides two types of API. More specifically, it has SOAP API and REST API.
The REST API enables you to seamlessly manage data related to customers, orders, products, or inventory. It supports JSON and XML and works by the following HTTP methods: POST, GET, PUT, and DELETE. To make API calls using the REST method, you’ll first need to authenticate and obtain all the necessary permissions.
Three main types of users can gain access to Magento data using the REST structure:
- The admin using the backend
- The customer using the front end
- The guest as a non-logger user
The SOAP API, on the other hand, is considered to be quite tricky. This is the reason most developers prefer using the REST API. Nevertheless, SOAP is the default protocol for Magento, and it enables you to make some fancy calls, such as returning a list of available resources, sessions, IDs, or fault messages.
Magento Connection Issues
While we strongly advise you to connect your software with Magento API and perform stable, secure Magento integrations, we also want to make you aware of the pitfalls of developing your manual connection.
The truth is that Magento is an intricate shopping platform that has its own way of working. Magento eCommerce
integration development requires specific programming skills to provide meaningful information. At this point, it’s worth noting that good Magento developers are pretty rare. Very few software engineers have worked before with a complex, enterprise, object-oriented solution such as Magento.
In addition to finding a good Magento developer with proven skills in this, which is not cheap at all, you need to consider the platform’s anatomy. Magento works with an EAV (Entity-Attribute-Value) database model and includes over 40 SQL tables with information about categories and products. Setting up the right connections and importing the correct data is difficult for most developers, including well-versed ones.
To top it all, Magento API documentation lacks the accuracy necessary to perform even the most basic tasks. In addition, sometimes, it returns unexpected errors that require specific workarounds.
How to Start to Develop Magento API Integration on Your Own
Creating your own Magento API integration takes time and requires a lot of effort and money. However, experienced developers can definitely help you out on this daunting task. The process can be split into 5 main steps:
Step #1: Create a skeletal module with minimal configuration: create the file structure, define your config file, add the composer.json to the file, create a registration.php file, and set up an install class.
Step #2: Create specific integration files: define the required resources and pre-configure the integration
Step #3: Install the Module
Step #4: Double-check the integration
Step #5: Integrate the module with your application
You can read the entire Magento API development guide here.
As you can probably notice, developing a Magento integration on your own is a highly tedious and complex task that needs to be tackled by professionals. Additionally, once the integration is completed, you also need a team of people to maintain the integration, fix bugs, add new features, and bring in enhancements.
How to Develop Magento Integration Via Third-Party Service
Setting up your own manual Magento eCommerce integration is a complicated procedure that can take up to 6 weeks and usually costs over $10k in the short term. In the long run, which involves constant monitoring, improvement, bug fixing, and feature updating, you might spend over $30k. A much better alternative to manual integration is integration via a third-party service.
With API2Cart, you can avoid all of the Magento connection issues you may experience. You can leave the integration development in the hands of experts and focus on other essential tasks, such as growing your business or diversifying your range of products and services.
This service works by connecting any eCommerce software with 40+ shopping platforms, including Magento, PrestaShop, X-Cart, Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart, etc. This integration solution offers you an advantageous unified API that enables your software or app to access millions of potential customers using 40+ marketplaces and platforms.
It also offers a vast range of supported API methods for Magento integration and webhooks for counting, updating, or deleting events, carts, bridges, accounts, and product updates.
API2Cart comes with flexible pricing and offers a 30-day free trial. During this time, you can test all of its features for free and discover how your business can grow with us by your side. If you want to know more, contact one of the company's managers.
Conclusion
Developing Magento third-party integration is a must in 2022. Such a connection setting allows various kinds of software and apps to access and manage the data from Magento online stores. It includes the data on e-store orders, products, prices, customers, shipping details, and many more. Without such access to Magento data, different software cannot be used by e-merchants who have their stores on this platform.
While it’s essential to be aware of Magento REST API and SOAP API and be mindful of the Magento connection issues, what’s even more important is choosing between a manual integration and an integration via a third-party tool. In-house manual integration development can give you more control over the process. On the other hand, usage of Magento integration services can help you to save your money and time and eliminate the need to look after further connection updating and maintenance.
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