How To Get Order Data From Shopping Platforms?
Tags: api, programming
Published: 2022-12-29 13:34:36

The eCommerce software industry is intensely competitive. B2B software vendors differentiate themselves from their competitors in various ways. As an eCommerce software provider, you can differentiate yourself by producing exceptional software and coming up with valuable features.

Many online store owners struggle with the task of managing their order data. If you can provide an all-in-one solution that automatically collects, organizes, and analyzes orders from multiple shopping platforms, you will attract a lot of potential customers.

To be effective, multichannel systems, inventory management software, order management software, ERP solutions and warehouse management systems must have access to and be able to manage e-store order data.

This article will provide you with information about how to connect your software with various shopping platforms and retrieve order data from them.

## Why do eCommerce Software Need to Get Order Data from Shopping Platforms? 

Many eCommerce software programs, such as multichannel systems, order management solutions and inventory management systems, require order data from shopping platforms to perform their specific functions.

Some of the common use cases are described below.

- Multichannel eСommerce systems need to access order data to track and manage customers' orders across various sales channels. They can also synchronise inventory across all shopping platforms, update order statuses, and generate order-related reports.

- Inventory management systems are used to track and manage the availability of e-store products. Order data, which includes customer orders placed by e-stores and processed by such solutions, is used to update the availability of each product in stock. This data also enables such solutions to synchronise inventory levels across different platforms.

- [Warehouse management systems](https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/warehouse-management-systems) use order data to provide functionality related to organizing warehouse operations, increasing the speed and accuracy of order fulfilment.

- Similarly, [eСommerce shipping management systems](https://www.trustradius.com/shipping) use order data to create shipments, generate shipping labels and keep customers informed of their orders' status throughout their purchase journey.

Software vendors can obtain order data from shopping platforms through integration with them.

## How to Develop API Integration with Shopping Platforms?

There are two ways to integrate with shopping platforms to get order data.

**- In-house integration development**
The first option is to hire an in-house development team to develop API integrations. While this may seem like the simplest option, it can prove difficult depending on the nature of your business.

You will have to integrate your software with multiple shopping platforms on which your clients have built their e-stores, so you can imagine how much time, money and resources you'll have to invest in developing those integrations in-house. These costs add up with regular maintenance and upgrades.

**- Integration development via external solution**
The most effective way to integrate your eCommerce software with shopping platforms is through third-party services like [API2Cart](https://api2cart.com/how-it-works/?utm_source=dev.to&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=getordersn.kov).

API2Cart is a unified [API](https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/api/) that connects various eCommerce software systems to more than 40 shopping platforms and marketplaces at once. With API2Cart, you do not need to build a separate infrastructure for each integration.

## How to Get Orders from Multiple Shopping Platforms?

API2Cart provides a set of API methods that allow you to retrieve all order information from online stores built on various shopping platforms:

- _order.list method_
The order.list method returns a list of all orders placed in online stores. The method can return up to four orders at once, along with the order ID, order count, order status, order currency, shipping address, and other information about each order.

- _order.info method_
The order.info method retrieves detailed information about a specific order placed in the online store. This method returns all the details about that order.

For an alternative to the order.list and order.info methods, you can use a webhook for the order.add event to retrieve order data from shopping platforms.

Having access to order data, you can propose the following features to your customers - e-store owners:

- Retail store owners can use your software to view all order-related information in one place. Examples of such information include order status, stock availability and payment status

- You can provide functions to filter orders by status, such as new, shipped, and paid

- Your eCommerce software can update order status across different shopping platforms either individually or in bulk
You can help your customers manage their inventory and automate shipping processes

- Your software can organize order data into reports for analysis and decision-making purposes.