Over time, retailers have understood that knowing your customers is essential to building a loyal customer base and standing out from the competition. In today’s age of online shopping, it’s more necessary than ever to access data and use it to transform the customer experience.

Nearly 32% of shoppers buy more from a retailer that offers a personalized experience than those that don’t.

The challenge for retailers is to marshal excess customer data and deliver a personalized shopping experience. To overcome this situation, retailers have started to invest in digital transformation initiatives that help create a 360-degree view of the customer. The initiatives aim to collect customer data in an organized way so that retailers can gain actionable insights.

The connectivity challenge

The fundamental challenge of having a 360-degree view of the customer is the difficulty of keeping the central database updated in real time, as customers shop through multiple channels and have frequently changing preferences. Manually updating data in a monolithic data warehouse is time-consuming and error-prone because it can’t provide the timely, accurate, and consistent view of customers that retailers need to deliver a personalized shopping experience.

About 56% of customers say that retailers provide a disconnected shopping experience across all channels.

The API Approach

For all those who are not into all things technical, some of the questions that come to mind would be

What are APIs? How does it work? What are the benefits?

API stands for Application Programming Interface which is used to integrate two software components to share data functionality. API is more than a technical solution. It’s something you offer as a brand or service, as well as a means of integrating previously unlinked data sets. APIs allow retailers to create new business models different from the original ones.

APIs in retail business include catalogs, product search, order submission, inventory, and recommendations, in addition to existing specific retail lines of business. When a customer shops online, they are using multiple APIs simultaneously.

Let’s know a little about specific APIs!

When you search for an item online, you are using the Catalog and Inventory APIs. If you scroll down the page and see “items you might like,” it’s all thanks to the Recommendations API. When you choose the “place an order” option, it is the Order Shipping API that uses a Geo API in conjunction with the Courier API to calculate shipping rates. Entering payment information uses the Payment API which communicates with your bank to check for sufficient funds. And what is more! All of this happens in near real time!

How about explaining the APIs through an illustration? That will make your life easier!

By now, you must have understood that the Retail API plays an integral role in increasing customer engagement and improving the overall shopping experience. We will take the example of a clothing retail store to explain how APIs work in practice.

A customer walks into the store and, after trying on several sweaters, chooses a specific pattern. However, the color that she had was exhausted in her size.

You might be wondering how the API comes into the picture here.

The customer will go to the self-service kiosks and contact the retailer’s digital touchpoints and access real-time inventory data. You may find that although the item is out of stock at the current store, it is available at another store near you. In this case, you have the option of having it delivered to your home, but since you want to use it the same day, going to a nearby location is a more convenient option. In this case, the store owner also has the option not to provide all access to customers and instead only to staff members.

From the example above, you can understand how implementing APIs helps streamline business processes and provides a variety of options for your customers to shop at their convenience.

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform combines existing platforms with additional capabilities for API creation, publishing, and governance—basically everything you need to connect the New Enterprise. Anything related to APIs can be done with MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform along with exposing business data to mobile devices, web applications in a connected and secure way.

Here are some interesting MuleSoft facts for you

1.MuleSoft Anypoint Connectors are pre-built, out-of-the-box connectors from the MuleSoft ecosystem that provide fast connectivity to thousands of REST and SOAP APIs.

two.MuleSoft’s Anypoint Exchange is the exchange and development platform that contains the full list of connectors, templates, samples, and APIs.

3.Each piece of MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform is designed to be stand-alone rather than one feature in a giant stack. This means that you can choose which parts of the platform you want to use.

Four.MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform will take the pain out of accessing data, unlocking it easily and quickly with a built-in integration that offers secure and controlled API access with a one-click policy.

5.MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform is the fastest way to create, compose, and maintain APIs. Instead of days, design new APIs in hours, assemble mashups in minutes, and make all necessary changes on the back-end or front-end with minimal impact to embedded systems and consumers.

6.With MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform, you can innovate existing APIs with management and engagement layers, turning current assets into modular building blocks that can be easily assembled into new capabilities for future innovation.

7.MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform is built to tackle any integration challenge, whether it’s modernizing legacy systems, publishing device APIs, or connecting SAP and Salesforce.

8.For years, companies have kept some of their most valuable assets locked away in databases and applications. Now they have realized that sharing data can generate new sources of income. One of the easiest ways to do this is MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform, which not only makes the process of creating APIs easier, but also ensures that new APIs are found and used.

In today’s world, retailers must meet customer expectations and enhance their shopping experience, both physical and online, to gain an edge over their competitors. With technology improving every day, it is inevitable that the organization’s internal systems may share data now and in the future.

Want to explore the full potential of MuleSoft’s Anypoint platform for your business expansion? Talk to our experts or visit www.kodytechnolab.com now for more details!

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