Enhance Your eCommerce with Shipping APIs
Ecommerce emerged years ago and went on to become one of the central pillars of modern shopping. Whether customers are shopping on their desktops, laptops, phones, tablets, or any other device, it is all ecommerce. Ecommerce is only growing as technology continues to spread around the world rapidly. A few years ago, it was easier to skate by in the ecommerce market without putting in all the new essential features. However, the ecommerce market is far more crowded today, and to stand out among the crowd, you must employ all the modern tactics customers have come to expect. Many of the features now expected as standard are all powered by APIs. Delving into the ecommerce realm without APIs is foolish, as there is no reason to skip these powerful tools that will easily enhance your efforts. Use APIs to make your life easier and improve your ecommerce experience for customers, which helps everyone in the long run.
What Are APIs
APIs, in simple terms, are programs that bring new features to an existing program. Many of the tools we use online every day are only possible because of APIs. The ability to share a post to social media, use Google Maps within a website, compare prices, and estimate shipping costs is possible because of APIs. Shipping APIs are some of the most common and useful APIs, especially in today’s current situation. Millions of people rely on shipping APIs to track their packages and know with confidence when their orders will arrive; these types of APIs are even called shipping tracking APIs, and major carriers will offer their own API like the ups time in transit API. APIs bring a variety of features to the table, benefiting both the company and the customer.
Address Verification
One of the most useful, but unseen APIS is address verification. There are hundreds of millions of addresses in the United States alone, and ecommerce sites must take extra care to ensure the right order is shipped to the correct address. Typos happen, and customers might enter an invalid address, but an address verification API will check the address before confirming the order to ensure the customer corrects their errors. By double-checking addresses, you can cut down on mistakes and headaches down the line before the shipping process begins.
Live Price Comparison and Tracking
High shipping prices and a lack of shipping options are two of the most commonly cited reasons that customers abandon shopping carts. No one wants to pay an excessive amount to ship their order, especially if there are no other options. Amazon has standardized fast and cheap delivery, so you must give customer shipping options to compete. Live price comparison APIs let customers see the current shipping prices for different carriers so they can choose the option that suits their budget and timeline the best. Tracking APIs let customers see where their order is through every step of the shipping process from label creation to distribution center sorting and out for delivery. These API capabilities give customers a feeling of control in the process; they feel like partners rather than bystanders, relying on a faceless company to deliver their items.
Better Returns
Customers nor companies want to deal with returns. Ideally, no one would ever want or need to return an order, but it is inescapable. However, undesirable returns might be, they should be easy and cheap or free for the customer. A returns-focused API will generate a return label and might let you pair with major carriers for a discounted rate. Offering a free return label and cheap or free return shipping makes the return process much more palatable. Making the return process more comfortable for the customer makes the entire experience more positive, so returning an item isn’t a negative association. Ensuring the return process is positive protects the customer’s impression of your brand and increases the likelihood the customer will purchase from your company again. APIs are responsible for many of the features we use every day while browsing online. Within APIs, shipping APIs offer many services that make life easier for customers and companies. Address verification reduces shipping errors and ensures the right order is paired with the correct delivery address. Live price comparison and tracking APIs let customers control more of the shipping process to suit their budget and timeline. Free return labels with free or inexpensive shipping rates make the return process less negative. These are standard APIs that customers expect and go a long way towards enhancing your ecommerce operations.
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