eCommerce API?

It's not currently scheduled to do an API for eCommerce. I've actually got a couple of different potential directions that we might go down in this area.

The first idea was an API for configuring a product and updating the cart but not for the entire checkout process. The idea here was to address needs to have a more elaborate or flashy product configuration than we can generate currently.

Another API option is for fulfillment where we would either call out to a fulfillment service at the completion of a transaction or provide an API that the fulfillment service can query to find orders that need to be fulfilled. The upcoming DataSync Web Services will actually address the second alternative.

The other thing we have been thinking about on the eCommerce API front is providing support for the Yahoo stores callbacks so that purchases made from Yahoo stores can be recorded in the Convio database.

I'm not sure if any of these ideas match up with the problem you want to solve.

Dave

Chris Luther:

Given the lack of an eCommerce API what other options are there for sharing information about store transactions.

Specifically: Working for a Convio client which has an online personality assessment application hosted outside of convio.  They want users to purchase these assessments inside the Convio store.  What avenues are available to me to know if a user has purchased something?  (Using OpenAPI I already have sso between Convio and external app working).

Thanks,

Chris

NOTE: Cross posted in OpenAPI section.

Chris,

There are really two options for what you're describing:

1) On the thank you page of the Ecommerce store, you can make a GET request to the external system (e.g. in an img tag) to indicate that a purchase has been made.

2) You could use Convio Web Services (http://open.convio.com/webservices) to pull data into the external system. This is certainly a much more involved project, and may be overkill for just this use case, but worth thinking about.

Chris Luther:

First off - WOW - thank you for such a quick response.

While I'm used to using HTTP POST for sending information externally, I've always used HTTP GET only for querries and never thought about using it any other way.   Did a quick reference lookup and discovered that yes, you can also use GET if you aren't concerned about a response.

Still, might you point me to a basic code example of what the thank you page might look like?

I agree that for this problem webservices would be too heavy of a solution.

Thanks,

Chris

You could also do a POST, but of course that would require JavaScript.

What information exactly do you need to send in the request? That will determine what the code looks like. Here's a very basic example if you just wanted to send name, email address, and transaction amount. You'd add this in the "Confirmation (Thank You) Page" under Configure Standard Pages in the Store setup. (Line breaks included only so this is more legible.)

<img style="position:absolute;left:-999em;" alt="" 
src="https://www.foo.org/bar.php?email=]]] dup dup "Email = " indexof 8 + swap "Address = " indexof 1 - substring]]]]
&firstname=]]] dup dup "First Name = " indexof 13 + swap "Middle Name = " indexof 1 - substring]]]]
&lastname=]]] dup dup "Last Name = " indexof 12 + swap "Suffix = " indexof 1 - substring]]]]
&transactionamount=]]] dup dup "Transaction Value = " indexof 20 + swap "Orig Transaction Value = " indexof 1 - substring]]" />