Benefits of Using a Unified API for PrestaShop Integration

To meet the demands of their customers, e-merchants are trying to do everything to make their shopping experience seamless. Software providers like you play a crucial role in providing them with solutions that give them the required functionality to streamline their online businesses.

E-retailers often use shopping platforms such as PrestaShop to build their online stores. But in order to get real-time information about their operations, they need to use special software like yours. However, your solution requires access to the e-store data. Without it, you cannot provide your software functionality to e-retailers. This can be done by developing the integration between your software and the platforms where those shops were built.

This article will explore how to use a unified API for PrestaShop integration development. Also, we will show you how to get access to all the necessary data from your clients’ stores.

Main Reasons to Develop Integration with Prestashop

By performing integration with a platform like PrestaShop, you can provide your clients with a wide range of business solutions and also get a lot of additional benefits for yourself. Some of the advantages of such integration include:

1. PrestaShop is a platform that features more than 700 000 online stores. It is widely used across 200 different countries in the world. If you are planning to invest in PrestaShop integration via a unified API, you can get access to the eCommerce platform’s large customer base, where you can get new leads or clients.
2. PrestaShop global recognition means your software business can also be exposed in different countries worldwide. Undoubtedly, developing integration with PrestaShop may help you introduce and establish your solution on a global level.
3. More clients and exposure implies an expansion in the income. Working with PrestaShop users and reliable integration with this platform can get you a critical increase in the revenue and profit of your business.
4. Integration with PrestaShop can likewise assist you with serving your clients in a better way. For instance, it helps to retrieve PrestaShop store information and empowers your software to perform its core functionality.

How PrestaShop API Works

It is crucial to know more about PrestaShop API before performing the integration with this platform. In addition, this information will help you to understand better how to connect your software with PrestaShop.

PrestaShop API has REST architecture. It supports both XML and JSON as formats for data interchange. For data transfer, PrestaShop API uses HTTP requests. Also, the API features four primary HTTP methods that help software vendors and developers in getting access to the e-store data. Those are GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. With their help, you can retrieve, create, update, and delete data respectively from the stores that are based on PrestaShop. These methods make it possible for the software to work with the important data and perform its functions correctly.

Main Difficulties of PrestaShop Integration

There are many problems you may face in the integration process if you don’t use the unified API for PrestaShop. If you are trying to develop integration on your own, you may spend a lot of resources, including your time and money. Meanwhile, you can use all of these valuable resources to pursue your own business goals and invest them in your own business. Some of the challenges of PrestaShop integration include:

1. Integrations usually require a lot of money. Developing an integration may cost you around 4000 dollars, and you may spend a considerable amount of money on just integrations.
2. Integrations take a lot of time, and your prospective clients may not have the patience to wait for 8 weeks to start to use your software features. Moreover, your clients have their online stores on multiple platforms — you need to integrate with more than just one platform. It is hard to imagine the time it would take you to do so.
3. Besides that, integrations are complex. For example, PrestaShop API has a different logical architecture than other eCommerce platforms’ APIs, which creates additional issues. If you are going to integrate your software with various platforms, it is an even more technologically hard task.
4. Because eCommerce platforms update their APIs periodically for security reasons, PrestaShop integration may require continuous maintenance and upgrades. As with other integrations, the cost and time needed for upgrading or maintaining an integration can be substantial.

Why Use a Unified API for PrestaShop Integration

To avoid the hassles of in-house PrestaShop integration development and the challenges associated with it, you should use a third-party service like API2Cart. With the unified API that API2Cart provides, you can connect your eCommerce software with more than 40 other shopping platforms and marketplaces at once.

API2Cart provides more than 100 API methods to software vendors, who can use them to work with e-store data. Using API2Cart API methods, it is possible to import orders, sync inventory levels, manage e-store customers’ info, and update products on PrestaShop within minutes. API2Cart also eliminates the need for separate integrations and enables the vendors to integrate their software with any desired platform instantly.

Conclusion

PrestaShop integration development is vital for every eCommerce software business. For its performance, nothing works better than a unified API for PrestaShop and other shopping platforms that is provided by API2Cart.

This service will help you avoid the overheads and save time you would otherwise spend on in-house integration development.