ECommerce technology has evolved tremendously since its early days in the 1990s. While Amazon notably put online shopping on the global map, a lot has changed during the past 30 or so years. And what would it all be without underlying integrations — read on.
What was then, isn't now
Many of us remember shopping online on clunky oatmeal-colored desktop computers during the 1990s over slow dial-up and later DSL connections. Back then people often waited until they were home from work or until the weekend to get online to purchase the items they needed — books, shampoo, furniture, etc.
Fast forward to today — somewhere in New York City, Jane wakes up and realizes she's almost out of toothpaste. She grabs her smartphone and shops for a tube of toothpaste on her shopping app of choice, places the order with a single click, and is promised delivery within two hours. While the toothpaste purchase takes place within seconds, what occurs behind the scenes is invisible to Jane. "What is invisible?" You might ask. Integrations, that's what.
A little more detail
In its infancy and even in the mid-to-late 2000s, eCommerce relied mostly on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Integrations where an eCommerce platform informed the warehouse of an order using EDI or some type of database connection. The warehouse worker then connected to a carrier's online portal, generated a shipping label and printed it. While EDI is still very much in use in global supply chains, healthcare, and many more industries, the advent of APIs and webhooks has made connecting to systems much more straightforward, all while ensuring data security. Today, integrations are used by -
- Travel booking platforms (Booking.com, Expedia) who connect with airlines and hotel partners to display availability based on your search.
- Managed Healthcare Insurance companies such as (UnitedHealth Group and Aetna) to receive and process claims submitted by doctors and pharmacists.
- Even ChatGPT's API integration allows developers to incorporate advanced conversational AI capabilities into various applications and services.
Think About It
If Jane's toothpaste purchase experience above was interrupted by an error message of some sort, the blame would likely fall on an integration issue. Given that there are multiple touchpoints in most eCommerce purchases, the root cause may lie in one or more areas. Let's look at the following image showing the different pieces of the eCommerce puzzle, each with arrows going in both directions.
The arrows represent the two-way integrations needed to keep things visible for all parties in real-time. For example, if a seller lists their products on three shopping platforms (Walmart, Amazon, and eBay) and has 100 units remaining of a certain fast-selling product, the seller will need to ensure that each shopping platform has accurate inventory availability so that the product does not oversell across the three platforms. Overselling would result in an undesirable situation of disappointed customers.
Below are some of the many integrations that will be needed for eCommerce integrations -
- The fulfillment center running a Warehouse Management System (WMS) will have to pull order information from the eCommerce platform (Shopify, eBay) and constantly inform them of remaining stock.
- The fulfillment center would also need to integrate with the package carrier (UPS, FedEx) to print labels, then provide the eCommerce platform with a tracking number (so that Jane above can track her toothpaste order).
- The seller who runs an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application needs to manage listings on the eCommerce portal and must also pull order information for tracking, invoicing, and replenishment.
- The package carrier would send its invoice to the seller's ERP to get paid and would also integrate with the eCommerce platform to provide them with real-time status of packages.
You get the idea from the above what goes on behind the scenes for a single eCommerce order. Yet, the above does not consider any external data tables or scripts that may be needed as part of an integration — e.g., convert value A to value B, or concatenate values A & B, or pull value A from database and add to value B.
Conclusion
"eCommerce is not an industry; eCommerce is a tactic." -Tobias Lutke (founder of Shopify)
When building an eCommerce integration solution, all the components shown above and their integration requirements would need to be thoroughly analyzed, tested, and included in a detailed process flow. As best practice, this flow should be reviewed and signed off by all stakeholders before development can begin. In many cases, iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) providers such as Boomi and Mulesoft have existing connectors to major eCommerce platforms, thereby reducing the effort needed to build new integration.
There are also SaaS platforms like Pipe17 and Feedonomics that make it easy to connect to major online marketplaces. With planning, those integrations can make order orchestration and product management much easier.
As with any software development or integration project, great focus must be placed on timeliness and accuracy of data — any one of these is incomplete without the other. After all, what good is a notification saying 'your package is on its way' after the package has been delivered!
The next time you place an order online, perhaps you'll take a second to acknowledge all that invisible magic that occurs in the background, all within seconds to provide you with the status of your order. In the end, that is the part that is gratifying — when you know that you'll have toothpaste the next time you brush your teeth.