In case you missed it, we had some pretty big news last week. Jitterbit became the first integration solution to combine a do-it-yourself integration experience for everyday business users with a powerful design experience for developers—all running together on a single iPaaS cloud integration platform with centralized management and monitoring.
Basically, we have enabled citizen integrators, non-technical data users, to build and deploy their own integrations in a few clicks with pre-built templates called recipes.
We continue to add to our recipe library, and our focus is on creating these integrations with specific business functions and needs in mind.
One example: Ecommerce.
In digital commerce businesses, everyone from business analysts to marketing professionals and finance groups to service organizations need access to customer profile, inventory and pricing data that can be housed in systems they don’t use on a day-to-day basis—or even have access to.
With a solution like Citizen Integrator, end-users can not only finally get the data they need, it’s also incredibly simple. 1. Select a recipe. 2. Answer a few questions about the configuration. 3. Deploy the connection. 4. Monitor it all in one place.
Here a few examples of the ecommerce recipes that are currently baked in:
- Shopify Contacts —> Salesforce
- Connect Shopify and Salesforce contacts to ensure data integrity and gain a more accurate view of customers.
- Shopify Products —> Salesforce
- Connect Shopify product details with Salesforce to better understand inventory and fulfillment.
- Shopify Contacts —> NetSuite
- Connect Shopify contacts to Netsuite for accurate reporting and billing.
- Shopify Products —> NetSuite
- Connect Shopify Product to NetSuite for easier implementation, invoicing and service tracking.
Want to explore these recipes and see what else Citizen Integrator has to offer? Check out our free 30-day trial. Next, we’ll look at some Sales and Marketing recipes!
Yes, and they will for years to come.
Jitterbit hosted “Tips for a Connected Commerce with Wayfair,” a webinar focused on API connectivity and online marketplaces. After our discussion, a customer asked a critical question: Can EDIs and APIs coexist in an ecommerce landscape that’s always changing?
And our answer? Yes! Using EDI and APIs can strengthen supplier relationships while providing more flexibility with internal business systems.
Here, we compare and contrast the two frameworks:
| Capability | EDI | API |
| Infrastructure: | On premises or via cloud | Cloud to computer |
| Data integration: | Pulls and automates the translation of data from specific documents, such as POs, into a standardized EDI format | Connects two or more systems, using objects and fields |
| Industry Use: | Industry standard | Increasingly growing |
| Better for working with larger retailers | Better for working with small to midsize retailers | |
| Required or preferred by big box retailers, such as Best Buy, Costco, and Home Depot | Growing in adoption; becoming the preference for some retailers, such as Wayfair | |
| Implementation: | Easier to integrate with legacy systems but is more complex | Better for custom integrations and provides more flexibility |
| Longer implementation period | Shorter implementation period | |
| Longer testing window that requires trading partner coordination | Real-time testing and results when the supplier or brand is ready to do it | |
| Delivery of data: | Batch model, updating every 15 minutes or so | Real-time model, using individual transactions |
According to Digital Commerce 360, 76.5 percent of all digital sales in 2021 were conducted via EDI, which was the year’s biggest B2B electronic sales channel. While the rate of growth for EDI transactions is slowing, the channel will continue to be the industry standard for years to come. A Google study found that slightly more than half of retailers say APIs accelerate innovation and the ability to scale and we expect to see this number grow in the coming years.
“We’re moving to a world in which retailers will need or want to have both API connectivity and EDI,” said Blair Pzytula, Product Manager. “Retailers will want to be where the opportunities are, working with big box retailers using EDI and newer marketplaces using API connectivity. Working in both frameworks will give them the flexibility they need to scale and react to changing market opportunities and customer demands.”
