Most brands these days that offer online shopping carts to their customers understand the importance of implementing an application programming interface (API) within their shopping experience.
Through APIs, the instant a customer clicks “purchase” in your online store, signals are sent directly to the proper warehouse and the delivery process officially begins.
APIs speed up the logistics experience and make standards like two or same-day deliveries possible. However, setting up an API can create multiple problems that don’t allow your plans to work out.
Here’s a look at some of the most coming API mistakes and how your brand can avoid them by partnering with a logistics firm that has already perfected API integration with its client’s needs.
Starting Without a Plan in Mind
Goals are always the number one priority when it comes to implementing a new system into your business. An API is no different, and without knowing what goals you want to meet, it can be difficult to add the right bells and whistles into your application.
From goals like increased revenue to giving your brand a greater competitive advantage, you and your team must settle down and really look at some of the following needs before moving forward:
- Data and access capabilities you’ll need
- Private vs. public cloud migration
- Synchronization capabilities with your legacy system
All of these and other planning considerations can leave any experienced business owner with their head spinning. With the help of a team like GFS Logistics that specializes in API integration, you can make informed decisions quickly, and get your API started off on the right foot.
Poor Traffic Estimation
A solid infrastructure during an API build is essential for handling the amounts of live traffic that will eventually come through your shopping cart. Ignoring the possibilities of high demand and not planning out your API can be disastrous for the success of your venture.
Poor traffic estimation and poor planning commonly result in issues like:
- Lost data
- Lost revenue
- Service disruption
- Lost customer trust
At GFS Logistics, we understand the industries of our clients from the inside out. Trust us to guide you through the implementation process and ensure that your API performs smoothly under any amount of traffic and demand.
Ignoring Security Risks
Security is one of the biggest challenges of implementing a new API into your system. Since most security checks in your legacy systems may slow down the performance of your API, it can be tempting to get a little security lax for greater performance.
Doing so, however, leaves your business’s data exposed to prying eyes.
API integration help from a professional team guarantees that your system works quickly while not compromising the security checks your brand already has in place.
Prioritize Your API’s Success With the Help of GFS Logistics
If you’re considering developing an API for your online shopping cart, it’s obvious to see there’s a lot that can go wrong. However, at GFS Logistics, we specialize in helping our partners implement APIs into their shopping experience and regularly update our applications to keep the brands we serve up to speed with consumer expectations.
Contact us today to learn more about how our logistics services can help make your total supply chain an industrial powerhouse.
