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Top 2024 resources on developer

Best developer resource in 2024.
Learn more about developer to improve your e-commerce strategy.

  • 5 Ways Working Remotely Changed the Way I Think About Teamwork - For the last three years I’ve been an architect on the Hipchat team working remotely, with the rest of my team working far, far away from me in San Francisco and Austin.
    Topics: working, way, remotely, chat, remote, developer, member, ways, atlassian, changed, think, teamwork, work, onboarding, team, code.
  • Amazon aims to inject new life into Alexa with release of developer tools and features - Amazon is giving its Alexa voice platform a shot in the arm after seeing further declines in skill growth over the past year, indicating lagging interest from third-party voice app developers. At the company’s Alexa Live developer event today, the company announced a slew of new features and tools for the developer community — its […]
    Topics: purchases, release, customers, features, amazon, alexa, techcrunch, skill, skills, devices, aims, inject, developers, tools, developer, life.
  • Behind the Scenes with Addify — a Growing Marketplace Developer - How do you go from one sale to $100K per month? Go in-depth with Addify about their process, strategies, and why they sell on the WooCommerce Marketplace.
    Topics: marketplace, really, development, scenes, growing, addify, developer, extensions, products, developers, good, support, product, develop, woocommerce.
  • Braintree Integration for Progressive Web Apps with Magento Helps Merchants Quickly Expand Their Payment Experience - From the very beginning, developer experience has been a priority for Magento in an effort to lower total cost of ownership and time to market. Progressive Web Apps give shoppers app-like, highly personalized cross-channel experiences that were once reserved for native apps.  Learn more here. 
    Topics: web, card, progressive, pwa, conversion, quickly, experience, payment, helps, magento, merchants, developer, developers, integration, mobile, shoppers, expand.
  • Choosing the Best Magento Developer and Solutions Partner  for Your eCommerce Website - Whether you have a small business or a larger organization, there exists a workable solution for your web development needs. The information in this article will help you choose a Magento developer or solutions partner to aid your eCommerce business.
    Topics: solution, partners, web, website, ecommerce, developers, solutions, business, best, magento, help, developer, choosing, partner.
  • Developer Diaries: Aheadworks - How to build a great theme: A conversation with Dmitry Shatkov, Chief Content Officer of Aheadworks 
    Topics: developer, marketplace, shopping, ultimate, magento, aheadworks, themes, provided, easily, store, diaries, customers, theme.
  • Developer Diaries: Amasty - We interviewed Andrei Vashkevich, CEO of Amasty, to tell us about one of their most popular extensions, Free Gift, and their future plans
    Topics: marketplace, extension, free, amasty, customer, merchants, gift, developer, diaries, extensions, magento, commerce, offer.
  • Developer Diaries: MexBS - Interview with Sveta Oksen, CEO at MexBS, about the company’s wide range of Magento extensions.
    Topics: promotions, extension, customers, diaries, marketplace, create, magento, developer, merchants, coupons, extensions, mexbs, market.
  • Developer Diaries: Webkul - Interview with Vipin Sahu, Director of eCommerce at Webkul, about the company’s popular multi-vendor marketplace extension
    Topics: tools, diaries, commerce, product, extension, developer, vendor, webkul, add, merchants, marketplace, multivendor, magento.
  • Developer Experience Enhancements Improve Performance and Productivity - In addition to significant merchant experience advances, the latest release of the Magento platform makes available powerful new tools designed to enhance the developer experience. There are over 300,000 developers, designers, and engineers who create, build, deploy and innovate on top of the Magento platform every day. A superior developer experience (DX) is essential to their ability to deliver on merchant expectations in a timely and efficient manner.
    Topics: improve, performance, developers, magento, scalable, developer, pwa, apis, enhancements, open, experience, source, faster, productivity, platform.
  • Evolving Tech Stack Enables High Performance Ecommerce - The technologies powering the web and mobile applications never stop evolving. Each new phase creates opportunities for businesses. The latest iteration is the expansion of so-called edge network capabilities, which help online merchants improve performance and user experience. Both are fundamental to Google's new "web vitals" initiative.
    Topics: enables, performance, rauch, frontend, react, product, high, stack, developer, edge, ecommerce, tech, web, evolving, page.
  • How Elastic Path Empowers the Developer Community - In the world of e-commerce, Elastic Path has been driving technology forward. Providing amazing API-first solutions, and leveraging modern development techniques from microservices to edge computing, Elastic Path empowers developers to build robust websites and applications. Elastic Path's success is driven by adoption from the developer community. Let’s explore how Elastic Path fosters a vibrant ecosystem of passionate developers, providing the tools, resources, and support they need to succeed in the ecommerce space. By nurturing a strong developer community, Elastic Path not only stays at the forefront of ecommerce technology, but also helps shape the future of digital commerce. So, let's dive in and discover how Elastic Path is championing developers and enabling them to bring their best ideas to life. Just read the docs! At this point, “Just read the documentation”, has become a meme within the developer community. There is nothing worse than having no documentation, incomplete documentation, or unintelligible content auto-generated from the source code. This is why proper and complete documentation is at the heart of Elastic Path's developer resources. Elastic Path has a team of full-time documentation writers constantly augmenting and improving the content. This is crucial for developers to get up to speed with the platform and maximize their productivity. One of the key aspects of the documentation is the comprehensive collection of guides and tutorials available. These materials cover everything from getting started with Elastic Path to in-depth explanations of advanced features and use cases, ensuring developers have the information they need. Documentation needs to go deeper than surface level information. Elastic Path's API documentation is meticulously crafted, offering clear and concise explanations of all available endpoints, parameters, and expected responses. The documentation also covers business requirements and non-API aspects including data modeling. This makes it easy for developers to understand the capabilities of the platform and seamlessly integrate Elastic Path into their applications. Elastic Path also offers an online learning portal that contains both developer and architect courses. These courses allow developers to get up to speed quickly with comprehensive technical content. With a combination of videos, hands-on exercises, and interactive content, it’s a great place for developers to learn the products and tools available. SDKs and Tools While it’s possible to call an API directly through code, having a set of tools and SDKs simplifies both experimenting with the APIs and the final code. Elastic Path has a comprehensive JavaScript and Typescript SDK available. There is also a host of language-specific SDKs available on GitHub to help simplify the development process and ensure developers can work in their preferred programming languages. These SDKs cover common tasks, reduce boilerplate code and allow developers to focus on specific business functionality instead of re-inventing the wheel. Recognizing the importance of practical examples, Elastic Path’s GitHub also provides a collection of samples and starter projects that demonstrate how to leverage the platform's features. These resources serve as a valuable reference for developers, helping them to quickly grasp key concepts and apply them to their own projects. By learning from real-world examples, developers can gain a deeper understanding of best practices and avoid common pitfalls. Integration with popular development tools is another critical aspect of Elastic Path's support for the developer community. A full Postman collection is available to help navigate the API in familiar software. This postman collection is compatible with Insomnia. In addition, examples are provided on GitHub for calling the APIs through the VSCode REST extension for even more flexibility in testing and experimenting with the Elastic Path Commerce Cloud API. These options not only enhance productivity but also enables developers to leverage the full range of tools and services they are already familiar with, further reducing the learning curve. Developer communication and support A key aspect of Elastic Path's commitment to empowering the developer community is providing active spaces for communication and support channels where developers can engage with each other and with Elastic Path experts. Elastic Path is launching a dedicated Slack Community for developers. In this community developers can ask questions, share knowledge, and collaborate on challenges they encounter while working with the platform as well as gain guidance from Elastic Path employees. For live content, Elastic Path hosts frequent webinars and workshops. These events cover a variety of topics, ranging from new features to best practices, ensuring that developers stay informed and up to date. Elastic Path also offers highly skilled technical support to assist developers in resolving any issues they may face. Furthermore, developers can benefit from collaborating with experts working in Elastic Path's Global Services department, who possess deep knowledge of the platform capabilities and digital commerce industry knowledge as veterans in the space. To extend its support beyond individual developers, Elastic Path has established a robust partner program that supports agencies and solution integrators. This program gives partners the support they need including resources and training to help them deliver amazing ecommerce solutions. Get hands on with an Elastic Path Free Trial Start building the commerce experience your unique business demands with a free Elastic Path Commerce Cloud account. Get in touch with us and we will setup a Free Trial store for you for six weeks. Sign up for a free trial Open source Every developer loves and relies on open source, that includes the developers at Elastic Path. The company recognizes the value of open-source development and actively supports the community. One of the ways Elastic Path fosters community-driven development is by promoting and participating in open-source initiatives related to its platform. This approach not only helps to improve the overall quality and functionality of Elastic Path's offerings but also provides developers with a broader range of tools and capabilities to enhance their e-commerce solutions. This includes the 30+ repositories on Elastic Path’s GitHub page as well as community created projects. To further acknowledge and celebrate the vital role developers play in the Elastic Path ecosystem, the company is launching a new Most Valuable Professional (MVP) program in 2023. This program will recognize key contributors who make significant impacts in the developer community, especially around open source. By offering recognition and rewards to these outstanding individuals, Elastic Path aims to inspire more developers to contribute and collaborate within the community. Expect to hear more about recognized MVPs later this year. Elastic Path's developer outreach programs Elastic Path actively engages with the developer community through various outreach programs designed to inspire, educate, and facilitate knowledge sharing. One such initiative is the recent Hackernoon Writing Contest, where developers are encouraged to share their experiences, insights, and success stories related to ecommerce and web development. This contest not only recognizes and rewards outstanding content but also fosters a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration within the community. Elastic Path also sponsors DZone surveys and roundtables, funding valuable input on industry trends. These roundtables bring together experts from different companies and backgrounds to share their unique perspectives on technology. The Elastic Path blog is an excellent place to learn about ecommerce and contains a wealth of knowledge. Elastic Path also contributes information content to the places developers frequent most, including Hackernoon, DZone, dev.to. By contributing articles Elastic Path can share valuable insights and practical guidance on a range of topics beyond ecommerce. Developer feedback Elastic Path believes that developer feedback is key in creating the best possible digital commerce solution. By gathering input from the developer community, Elastic Path can quickly identify areas for enhancement and stay abreast of the changing tech landscape. This feedback loop drives continuous improvement, innovation, and allows the product roadmap to tightly align with the needs of its users. There are multiple ways for developers to provide feedback or submit feature requests. These include support, customer success, and developer relations. Developers have multiple ways and options to voice their opinions and contribute to the platform's development. Elastic Path also participates in developer events and conferences. This includes speaking on various topics, sponsoring a booth, or simply attending to interact with the event. These events provide even more opportunities for developers to connect with Elastic Path employees, share their experiences, and discuss what is happening in the ecommerce technology space. Looking forward Elastic Path has developers at its core, success is tightly coupled to ensuring developers succeed in building exciting new digital shopping experiences. Extensive documentation, robust tools, communication channels, open-source collaboration, and valuable outreach programs, make up the actions, but this developer-centric mindset funnels through the culture of the entire company. Expect Elastic Path to double down on developers and invest even more in the developer community. The company's vision for the future includes expanding its offerings, enhancing its platforms, and making it even easier for developers to learn and build. As the ecommerce landscape continues to evolve, Elastic Path and its developer community will play a crucial role in shaping the future of digital commerce. This tech-forward, developer mindset is what keeps Elastic Path at the forefront of ecommerce technology and leader in the space. Having already pioneered API-First and Composable Commerce, it’s exciting to see how Elastic Path will shape the industry in the future.  
    Topics: support, ecommerce, elastic, developer, paths, developers, path, tools, documentation, community, empowers.
  • How to Hire a Freelance Web Developer - So your company is growing. Things are exciting. Everyone is motivated and ideas are coming in from left and right. Then it happens. You say something along the lines of, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could build [revolutionary idea here]? It would cut costs/generate a ton of new leads/change the way we operate.”
    Topics: youre, web, know, work, developer, hire, need, freelance, project, scope, freelancer, pay.
  • How to Insert a Checkbox in Excel in 4 Easy Steps - Adding a checkbox to your workbook may sound simple but it can expand the possibilities of what you can do in Excel.
    Topics: format, checkbox, tab, easy, true, false, displays, insert, steps, click, returns, developer, select, excel.
  • How to prepare for the expansion of voice commerce - Voice is the future and you need to take the first step to be there before your competition in order to have a first mover advantage. Amazon and Google are launching voice SEO and we all know how important SEO is, to be found. This article addresses the key reasons a voice-first strategy is imperative and how to build an Alexa skill.
    Topics: pay, store, need, commerce, account, google, voice, alexa, expansion, prepare, developer, amazon, skill.
  • How, Where, & When to Find an App Developer for Your Business - A few years ago, I was on the myVEGAS app playing the slot machines. This is one of my favorite apps because I can play a game for free and redeem rewards like free hotel rooms and free buffets in one of my favorite places — Las Vegas. As I was getting some free spins, I thought to myself, "I wonder how this app was made … "
    Topics: team, understand, app, developers, business, important, looking, youre, work, process, developer.
  • Instagram Has Limited (or Cut off) API Data Available to Developers. Here's What That Means. - Late last week, it was discovered that Instagram had lowered the rate limit for its Platform API for some developers and completely removing access to it for others -- without warning.
    Topics: means, changes, developer, instagram, available, api, data, app, rate, information, facebook, heres, developers, limited, cut.
  • Magento Enterprise: Is It the Right Choice for Your Ecommerce Business? - Businesses launching their first ecommerce site have a lot of concerns to juggle. But, businesses outgrowing their ecommerce platform and…
    Topics: business, enterprise, ecommerce, work, magento, option, site, platform, developer, need, costs.
  • Magento Innovations Lab Teams Up With Amazon Web Services (AWS) - We are excited to invite developers and partners to imagine new possibilities on Magento by embedding AWS innovations into their Innovations Lab submissions.
    Topics: innovations, aws, developers, developer, services, innovation, web, community, lab, teams, partnership, amazon, magento.
  • Magento Masters Spotlight: Andreas von Studnitz - Get to know Magento Master Andreas von Studnitz, Co-Founder at integer_net
    Topics: games, von, doing, masters, thing, spotlight, stuff, magento, developer, studnitz, andreas, really, community, think, things.
  • Magento Masters Spotlight: Miguel Balparda 2018 - Get to know Miguel Balparda, Community Developer at Nexcess
    Topics: miguel, balparda, know, really, thats, nice, developer, talk, spotlight, actually, magento, community, dont, masters.
  • Magento Masters Spotlight: Riccardo Tempesta - Get to know Magento Master Riccardo Tempesta, CTO at MageSpecialist
    Topics: riccardo, masters, think, technical, community, im, spotlight, say, know, developer, magento, best, tempesta.
  • Magento Masters Spotlight: Vinai Kopp 2018 - Get to know Vinai Kopp, Freelance Magento Developer and Trainer
    Topics: developer, say, master, spotlight, vinai, know, masters, im, work, really, right, kopp, magento, community.
  • Magento U at Imagine 2019 - Magento 2 courses, certifications, special discounts, and more!
    Topics: professional, certified, imagine, solution, lead, developer, developermagento, magento, cloud, joseph.
  • Meet the 2019 Magento Masters: Movers - Movers are Magento’s top advocates and ecosystem thought leaders 
    Topics: magento, meet, community, developer, working, technical, movers, masters, ecosystem, selected, github.
  • Microsoft opens Africa developer centers in Kenya and Nigeria - Last year, when Microsoft executives were doing their due diligence ahead of paying $7.5 billion for GitHub, the software engineer marketplace, they might have been surprised by one unexpected data point.
    Topics: github, kenya, africa, microsoft, yearthat, nigeria, insight, centers, opens, center, software, developer.
  • Pre-Employment Testing: How VerifyWP are Making it Easier to Hire The Right WordPress Developer - Do you know how to hire the right developer? This is the question VerifyWP shines some light on, with regards to technical WordPress developers. A Problem That Hit Close to Home The problem of finding and hiring really great WordPress developers dogged Jonathan Martin for years. In his decade of running an agency, he’d found […]
    Topics: wordpress, developer, right, developers, sample, verifywp, hire, candidates, woocommerce, tests, job, process, hiring.
  • Salesforce announces new tools to boost developer experience on Commerce Cloud - Salesforce announced some new developer tools today, designed to make it easier for programmers to build applications on top of Commerce Cloud in what is known in industry parlance as a “headless” system. What that means is that developers can separate the content from the design and management of the site, allowing companies to change […]
    Topics: experience, site, help, tools, commerce, cloud, boost, announces, developers, need, announced, salesforce, techcrunch, systems, developer.
  • Setting Yourself Up for Success with Page Builder - Best practices to ensure that your teams are taking advantage of the full potential of Page Builder
    Topics: design, builder, elements, success, variations, page, developer, magento, system, setting, content, work.
  • Shopify buys warehouse automation tech developer 6 River Systems for $450 million - Shopify, the shopping technology developer that’s quickly becoming the anti-Amazon, has taken another step up the sales supply chain with its $450 million acquisition of the warehouse automation and management technology developer, 6 River Systems. The acquisition will serve to boost efficiencies among Shopify’s Fulfillment Network service, which launched in June. The acquisition gives Shopify […]
    Topics: robotics, shopify, systems, developer, technology, million, including, automation, acquisition, partners, buys, techcrunch, warehouse, tech, river, statement.
  • Shopify drops its App Store commissions to 0% on developers’ first million in revenue - Following similar moves by Apple, Google, and more recently Amazon, among others, e-commerce platform Shopify announced today it’s also lowering its cut of developer revenue across its app marketplace, the Shopify App Store, as well as the new Shopify Theme Store. The news was announced today alongside a host of other developer-related news and updates […]
    Topics: drops, developers, shopifys, commissions, platform, shopify, developer, revenue, techcrunch, app, store, million, updates.
  • - For ecommerce web design, two paths stand before you, each promising unique experiences for building an online store. On one side, there's Shopify, the renowned platform that offers a seamless and user-friendly experience for ecommerce web design. On the other… Continue reading Shopify vs Custom Website: How Should You Build an Online Store?
    Topics: customer, developer, shopify, support, website, vs, online, build, custom, maintenance, store, control, site.
  • Storetasker revamps its Shopify developer marketplace - Storetasker is an online marketplace focused on connecting Shopify merchants with developers and other experts who can help grow their business. The product is now owned by the startup previously known as Lorem. Co-founder and COO Charlie Fogarty explained that while Lorem originally had a broader mission of connecting small businesses and developers, “We realized […]
    Topics: customer, project, developer, weve, revamps, talent, shopify, techcrunch, marketplace, fogarty, experts, network, storetasker, product.
  • There’s nothing Automattic about balancing commercial growth with an open source developer community - The tech industry has made a full 180-degree turn with regard to open source in the 16 years since Matt Mullenweg founded Automattic, the commercial backer of open source CMS, WordPress.
    Topics: contributors, projects, community, automattic, balancing, techcrunch, source, theres, growth, project, wordpress, developer, companies, open, commercial.
  • Unriddled: Facebook's Big Executive Shake-Up, Microsoft Build, and More Tech News You Need - We all have a favorite time a year. For some, it's the winter holidays. For others, it's the entire duration of summer. And for tech nerds (including yours truly), it's developer conference season.
    Topics: need, build, microsoft, big, developer, feature, facebook, users, instagram, shakeup, facebooks, app, product, unriddled, twitter, executive, tech, week.
  • eCommerce 101: API for eCommerce and Why it's Important -   Today, virtually anyone is able to launch an eCommerce instance to appeal to the rise of online shoppers. However, if you are a business that is committed to your digital strategy and outpacing the competition, you are very much aware that not just any regular eCommerce instance will be sufficient. To be successful in these competitive markets, businesses will need to ensure: Their website is beautifully designed and mobile friendly. Their product catalog is clear and relevant. Their customer shopping flow is simple and seamless. Their shopping experiences are personalized to their unique customers. But most of all, the #1 criteria to success in the eCommerce industry is speed. And we’re not just referring to the speed of your website load, but also to the: Speed to launch your eCommerce instance. Speed to customize your eCommerce frontend and backend logic. Speed to make changes and optimize your eCommerce solution. Speed to adapt to new technologies. And the speed to respond to customer demands and expectations. Your ability to execute with speed will be determined by how well your software and/ or technology communicates. And it’s no secret that traditional legacy platforms have been lacking in this area for a while. Businesses that have continued to excel and exceed expectations in this area have employed an API-based ecosystem with their Composable Commerce Solution. The term “API” has been commonly used throughout the eCommerce ecosystem and has set a precedent for itself. However, many are still unaware of what it really means and how it could enhance their eCommerce strategy. In this post we will dive into an overview of eCommerce APIs and the benefits of adopting them.   Definition of an API eCommerce 101: At a higher level, it may help to understand what an API is before we narrow down on what an eCommerce API is. The official description of what an API is: "An application program interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. Basically, an API specifies how software components should interact. Additionally, APIs are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components." Put simply, an API declares an interface for you to interact with its logic without you having to know what is happening under the hood, masking the complexity and making it easy to consume and use. What is an eCommerce API? Now we’ve defined an API at a high level so let’s get down to what an “eCommerce API” is. An eCommerce API is a collection of eCommerce functionality exposed via API. To break down the specific eCommerce functionality this includes at the very minimum, cart, checkout, payments and orders - or in other words a way to transact on your eCommerce sites. In headless commerce architecture, eCommerce APIs act as the connecting tissue between the frontend (head) and backend (body). Why use an API for eCommerce? As previously define, APIs allow you to interact with the logic without needing to know what is happening under the hood. This is great for eCommerce websites because there is a ton of logic that you need to access but at the same time you don’t want to have to handle the complexity that supports all of this logic. An API is the ideal delivery mechanism for eCommerce because eCommerce logic and functionality can be inherently complex. This creates a natural split between your frontend and backend operations and the underlying commerce engine. This turns ordinary developers into super-charged developers thanks to increased efficiencies and productivity. No longer do you need an expensive full-stack or proprietary eCommerce platform developer. This allows you to deploy new commerce solutions and get to market faster whilst enjoying access to a wider developer talent pool. Top Considerations for Evaluating an eCommerce API Not all commerce APIs are created equal. Below you’ll find some key areas to consider and explore when you come to evaluating an e-commerce API that will fit your business and/or project requirements.   Looking to implement a headless approach? Our comprehensive guide to getting started with headless commerce will teach you more about the architecture, how to work with the front-end of your choice, and how to choose a platform that fits your needs. Read the Guide Location & Response Times Whether this be for legal, security, or compliance reasons the location of the eCommerce API and it’s databases is something else you will likely need to consider. While edge caching can certainly ensure your content & data is located close to your end customers, the types of data that can be pushed to the edge can be limited for eCommerce use cases and data and only really works for GET requests (retrieving data). When it comes down to commerce logic and interactions (e.g. the critical purchase path through cart and checkout) this can not be cached. If an eCommerce API is located halfway around the world this can impact latency, your application performance, and ultimately the conversion rate of your online store. Milliseconds Matter You’ll ideally want to ensure the location of your eCommerce API is within or close to the location of your customers and the response rates are below 200-300ms for the most part, although there are some exceptions for more complex queries.  By default the Elastic Path multi-tenant public API is hosted in EU west. If you would like an instance located closer to you and your customer base, please reach out and we would be happy to explore a path forward with you. API-first or Retrofitted API Enabled There is another key difference to be aware of when evaluating eCommerce APIs and that is to go back to understand how the API first came to be. Many traditional eCommerce platforms did not start out with an eCommerce API design and instead built APIs as a bolt on to their core platform, which we refer to as retrofitted API enabled, primarily to enable an ecosystem of third-party integrations. This key difference affects the feature/functionality coverage area of the API in terms of what is available and also how the API fundamentally works as it has to interact with this more closed, restrictive platform core. On the other hand, API-first means exactly that, the entire product has been designed from the ground up to be consumed via APIs (as Elastic Path has been). This leads to 100% (or close to) coverage in feature functionality. We usually find that those that adopt an API-first eCommerce service implement their projects far faster than with a solution that uses bolt-on APIs, as there are less workarounds and hacks required to achieve your desired results. Feature / Functionality As previously mentioned, a commerce API is consists of a few core elemental products, shopping carts, checkout, payments, and orders. Outside of this core functionality, there are multiple other services that you may need to call upon. Sometimes these may exist inside the eCommerce API itself. A drawback here is that this feature/functionality might be tightly woven into the core services meaning you'll be back to hacky workarounds when you’re looking to branch out to other best in class providers or writing your own logic - for example, you want to replace the tax functionality inside the commerce API with a best in class vendor like TaxJar. Feature functionality (or the lack of) leads onto the next and arguably one of the most important things to consider when evaluating an eCommerce API. Interoperability & Extensibility Most eCommerce APIs tend to enable custom data in two different ways. The first is as simple key value pairs which is great if you’re just storing some simple data but can fall short for more complex scenarios as the onus on validation rests entirely with the development. The second way that traditional eCommerce platforms handle customization is on a case by case, specific feature/functionality basis. I.e. How you extend the product catalog is completely different from how you extend the customer record or an order. This greatly increases the learning curve of the platform and slows down development time as you find yourself hopping from one dashboard page, directory, file, or line of code to the next. Beyond extensibility of the schema comes interoperability, or in other words the way in which the API integrates with other providers and vendors. With structured custom data as part of the puzzle you also have to look towards how the events and communication work between other best in class services. The standard here is webhooks, and just like API-first vs retrofitted APIs, the coverage and types of webhooks available can vary wildly. The other more traditional approach is a rigid plugin driven system design which can again lead to hacky workarounds. Webhooks pair up well with a more open and modern integration pattern that revolves around serverless functions. Here at Elastic Path we have bundled up the concept of structure data, real-time events/webhooks, and serverless functions into what we call Data Model Extensions. For more on Data Model Extensions, you can explore here. can check out our flows overview page or for more hands on experience explore our documentation. Developer Experience & Documentation Quality The quality of the developer experience is another important factor to consider when evaluating APIs for eCommerce. A poor experience can negatively impact your time to market, significantly increase maintenance and ultimately development cost. A few key considerations you should explore & questions you should ask when it comes to the developer experience include: Is the eCommerce API consistent, standardized and human read-able to requests and response objects across all endpoints or is each API endpoint different and require it's own learning curve? i.e. Can a developer read the documentation in a couple of minutes for one endpoint and re-use that knowledge across all API endpoints. Has the eCommerce logic and complexity been well abstracted or are there multiple endpoints and features spread across multiple requests? i.e. it takes several API requests to process an action that could be handled in a single request. Having to make several round trip calls can slow down implementation and your web application performance. Are there examples and SDKs in your language available and supporting high-quality accurate documentation to help you onboard quickly? How easy is it to navigate and browse the documentation to find answers to your questions? Is there a change log and status page? Knowing when something has changed or when services encounter issues is critical to the smooth operation of your eCommerce business. Is there a community forum or ticket-based support system for questions, best practice advice or for when things go wrong? Is there a high-quality Postman or Paw collection that covers the entire breadth of the commerce API that you can download to rapidly test drive the API? All of the above questions outlined above around the developer experience will directly impact implementation time and ultimately the development cost. In other words, a positive developer experience will lead to faster implementation times and lower costs whereas a negative or sub-par developer experience will lead to longer implementation cycles and higher costs. Conclusion As you can see, when it comes to understanding what an eCommerce API is and how to evaluate what makes a great eCommerce API there are many things to consider. This article is in no way an exhaustive list and is simply some of the top areas you should consider when evaluating an eCommerce API. Hopefully, this article gave you some insights into how you should approach and think about eCommerce APIs. If you would like to learn more about the Elastic Path API, head on over to our API reference and get started with our Postman collection.             i { -webkit-transition: color .25s ease-in-out; -moz-transition: color .25s ease-in-out; -o-transition: color .25s ease-in-out; transition: color .25s ease-in-out; color: rgba(68, 68, 68, 1.0) !important; } .subscribe--bar.module_15628520315781867 .btn:hover > i { color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1.0) !important; } ]]>
    Topics: functionality, experience, path, important, data, logic, commerce, api, apis, ecommerce, developer.
  • - If you're after a detailed signNow review, you're in the right place. However, if you don't have time to trawl through this entire blog post, here's the bottom line up front: In short, signNow is a popular document management and… Continue reading signNow: Here’s All You Need to Know About the eSignature Platform’s Developer API
    Topics: platforms, fields, signnow, need, api, signnows, esignature, heres, create, free, documents, signature, sandbox, developer, know.