Great customer service has long been a competitive advantage for any business. But for online merchants, that can take up valuable extra time, as customers wonder where their packages are. Amazon’s massive online retail business has done many things, such as famously upended the book industry. It’s also changed customer expectations–free shipping (or shipping by subscription), fast delivery, giving customers the ability to track with a click of a button. It puts the mom-and-pop online stores–and many other large operations–at a disadvantage. Aftership provides the Aftership API to help level the playing field.
I thought the social network space was filled up by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, kind of like how online bookstores have been dominated by companies led by Amazon. Sure, there are new social network competitors, but we grok the beast. But just when LinkedIn seemed to define the boundaries of social networking, Instagram comes out of nowhere and suddenly we understand less than we thought. Far from set in its ways, of social networking is being rocked by waves of game changers. In an article in Fortune, HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes serves up 7 contenders to watch in 2013.
In this first of a series of articles about encouraging API adoption, I talked with Blair Beckwith, Developer Advocate and App Store Lead from Shopify. Shopify is an e-commerce platform for selling just about anything you can think of from 50 Cent’s headphone collection to fancy, leather laptop bags. There are two kinds of “developer” on Shopify: 1) those who create templates that dictate the look and feel of a site, and 2) those who create add-ons that are available in the shopkeeper add-on store. In this article, I’m going to concentrate on the second one, the add-on developers.
iDreamBooks, book review aggregator, deems itself the “rottentomatoes.com for books.” iDreamBooks searches reviews across media outlets and compiles the data to a single, comprehensive repository of review. iDreamBooks offers developers access to the reviews through the iDreamBooks API.
The Mobpartner API allows this global affiliate marketing platform to monetize you unfilled traffic in over 200 countries. Working with advertisers, marketers and publishers, Mobpartner has both REST and S2S HTTP APIs. Mobpartner uses as CPA model that allows for CPS, CPL and CPI actions. Responses are XML, JSON and XHTML, or directly through an XML feed.
They don’t call it ‘the big day’ for nothing. Everything about it is big, especially the price tag. Most bride-to-be’s know the challenge of trying to force everything they’ve ever dreamed of into an unsympathetic budget. The good news is, there are ways around this problem, and with a bit of clever thinking and planning it’s amazing how much money you can save. That’s where New Zealand based, Bridal Fashion World’s Wedding Perks comes in. It’s a site that offers a carefully selected range of wedding service and product deals. Wedding Perks also provides the Wedding Perks API that allows developers access to deals through various HTTP calls.
Myna specializes in A/B testing of websites, using multi armed bandit algorithms to learn on the fly. This means fewer page views are required for testing, which means faster learning, faster ROI. The result, Myna says, is increased conversions. The RESTful Myna API returns JSON and JSONP responses. It uses basic access authentication. On the API website it shows how to implement the API in HTML, Javascript and other languages, as well as how experiments are identified by UUIDs (universally unique identifiers), which show up on your testing dashboard and are needed by the API.
The Continental Clothing API handles HTTP and SOAP calls returning XML or JSON, according to its documentation. It allows its retailers to import the catalog line onto their sites. Continental designs and manufactures eco friendly largely organic clothes, including blank hoodies, Tees, and other garments. These are then sold to retailers who add their own silk screen designs. Among its most interesting customers is HeavyEco, that uses prison labor (and pays for it) to put tattoo impressions on shirts in Eastern Europe, and who donates 50% of profits to NGOs helping orphanages and homeless children. Other customers include the music touring business, and fashion companies looking to create a global presence.
Stage of Life, loyalty marketing agency, has launched its Coupon API. The API pulls from the Stage of Life Merchant Network. The network includes hundreds of national brand merchant offers, coupons, and discounts. Access through the API gives developers the flexibility to enhance current loyalty programs, or build stand alone applications.
PayOnDelivery, online payment platform that doesn’t charge until delivery, has announced the PayOnDelivery API. Third party apps and websites may use the API to integrate payment processing. Developers have full access to the PayOnDelivery platform, including its keystone feature that refuses to release funds until the product lands in a consumer’s hands.
©ProgrammableWeb.com 2013. All rights reserved.
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy
