Skip to main content

Maximizing eCommerce ROI: APIs Are Critical to Your Business

Priyanka Tiwari

This is part 4 of the multipart blog series explaining trends in eCommerce as a result of underlying trends in technology and how ecommerce providers can maximize ROI with the help of proactive performance monitoring.

Start with Part 1: Maximizing eCommerce ROI with Synthetic Monitoring

Start with Part 2: Maximizing eCommerce ROI - Understanding the Latest Trends

Start with Part 3: Maximizing eCommerce ROI in the Age of the Customer

The concluding post of this series will talk about the significance of APIs and the importance of measuring what you want to manage.

You are as strong as your weakest link.

We talked a lot about the outside in perspective on the performance: the external factors that can hamper your applications' perceived performance, but what about the most critical components of your web and mobile apps? I'm talking about APIs. Internal, external or 3rd party; APIs are most critical to your business.

The APIs you consume bring data and services to your applications, drive traffic and accelerate internal projects. Since one API can affect many applications or application components, API failures often are the most critical failures. Granted that the providers of APIs will work on monitoring and improving the performance of the APIs, but as a consumer, it's your responsibility too. Why? Because to your end users, it all looks the same. They won't know if it's your code or some 3rd party's. If a 3rd party API ill-performs or breaks down, your entire application will get bad rating and/or the users will abandon it.

On the other side of the API economy are API providers. The APIs you provide bring you revenue, increase footprint and open a path to innovation. Google maps, Amazon advertisement, Flickr, Twitter etc. APIs get more than 10s of billions of calls every day; they are significant revenue generators for these companies. Expedia quoted that 90% of its revenue comes from API business. In 2013, Salesforce generated 50% of its $3B revenue via APIs. A majority of the critical components of eCommerce applications are powered by APIs. Allow me to reuse the eCommerce ecosystem image we saw in the first post of this blog series.

Image removed.

Let's say you are the provider of payment processing API or add-to-cart API. It is your responsibility to ensure that your API is available 24x7, performing per your consumer's requirements and is returning right data at the right places. A poor performing API slows down the adoption, results in poor rating and reduced brand equity, finally hitting the bottom line. You can be an API consumer, a provider, or most likely both. If you are dealing with APIs, you have to monitor them proactively.

Tip: Consumer of APIs, a provider or most likely both, you should monitor your APIs proactively to check if they are available, performing well and returning correct data at correct places.

You can't manage what you can't measure

Did I save the best tip for the last? Maybe I did. It's as simple as this; you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Up-down monitoring is good, but it's certainly not enough. Poor performance of the website or application is as critical as unavailability. Don't just monitor the landing pages, but proactively identify and monitor performance of all critical conversion paths. Focus on the user experience metrics search as time to first paint and above the fold. And most importantly, monitor critical user transactions such as sign ups, checkouts, forms etc.

The first step in the performance optimization process is understanding and analyzing the performance. When writing functional scripts, make sure you capture the actual user transactions to get as close to the end user as possible. Using web transaction recorders seems like the best choice to ensure that all dynamic components of the applications are measured and monitored.

eCommerce is the extension of your business, your brand and your reputation. Having an available, functional and high performing eCommerce presence is extremely vital to maintain and grow customer loyalty and brand equity.

Priyanka Tiwari is Product Marketing Manager, AlertSite, SmartBear Software.

The Latest

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 2 covers the challenges presented by AI, as well as solutions to those problems ...

In the final part of APMdigest's 2025 Predictions Series, industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025 ...

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

Image
Broadcom

The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

Image
Catchpoint

The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
Datastrike

Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating across the telecoms industry, with 88% of fixed broadband service providers now investigating or trialing AI automation to enhance their fixed broadband services, according to new research from Incognito Software Systems and Omdia ...

 

AWS is a cloud-based computing platform known for its reliability, scalability, and flexibility. However, as helpful as its comprehensive infrastructure is, disparate elements and numerous siloed components make it difficult for admins to visualize the cloud performance in detail. It requires meticulous monitoring techniques and deep visibility to understand cloud performance and analyze operational efficiency in detail to ensure seamless cloud operations ...

Imagine a future where software, once a complex obstacle, becomes a natural extension of daily workflow — an intuitive, seamless experience that maximizes productivity and efficiency. This future is no longer a distant vision but a reality being crafted by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence ...

Maximizing eCommerce ROI: APIs Are Critical to Your Business

Priyanka Tiwari

This is part 4 of the multipart blog series explaining trends in eCommerce as a result of underlying trends in technology and how ecommerce providers can maximize ROI with the help of proactive performance monitoring.

Start with Part 1: Maximizing eCommerce ROI with Synthetic Monitoring

Start with Part 2: Maximizing eCommerce ROI - Understanding the Latest Trends

Start with Part 3: Maximizing eCommerce ROI in the Age of the Customer

The concluding post of this series will talk about the significance of APIs and the importance of measuring what you want to manage.

You are as strong as your weakest link.

We talked a lot about the outside in perspective on the performance: the external factors that can hamper your applications' perceived performance, but what about the most critical components of your web and mobile apps? I'm talking about APIs. Internal, external or 3rd party; APIs are most critical to your business.

The APIs you consume bring data and services to your applications, drive traffic and accelerate internal projects. Since one API can affect many applications or application components, API failures often are the most critical failures. Granted that the providers of APIs will work on monitoring and improving the performance of the APIs, but as a consumer, it's your responsibility too. Why? Because to your end users, it all looks the same. They won't know if it's your code or some 3rd party's. If a 3rd party API ill-performs or breaks down, your entire application will get bad rating and/or the users will abandon it.

On the other side of the API economy are API providers. The APIs you provide bring you revenue, increase footprint and open a path to innovation. Google maps, Amazon advertisement, Flickr, Twitter etc. APIs get more than 10s of billions of calls every day; they are significant revenue generators for these companies. Expedia quoted that 90% of its revenue comes from API business. In 2013, Salesforce generated 50% of its $3B revenue via APIs. A majority of the critical components of eCommerce applications are powered by APIs. Allow me to reuse the eCommerce ecosystem image we saw in the first post of this blog series.

Image removed.

Let's say you are the provider of payment processing API or add-to-cart API. It is your responsibility to ensure that your API is available 24x7, performing per your consumer's requirements and is returning right data at the right places. A poor performing API slows down the adoption, results in poor rating and reduced brand equity, finally hitting the bottom line. You can be an API consumer, a provider, or most likely both. If you are dealing with APIs, you have to monitor them proactively.

Tip: Consumer of APIs, a provider or most likely both, you should monitor your APIs proactively to check if they are available, performing well and returning correct data at correct places.

You can't manage what you can't measure

Did I save the best tip for the last? Maybe I did. It's as simple as this; you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Up-down monitoring is good, but it's certainly not enough. Poor performance of the website or application is as critical as unavailability. Don't just monitor the landing pages, but proactively identify and monitor performance of all critical conversion paths. Focus on the user experience metrics search as time to first paint and above the fold. And most importantly, monitor critical user transactions such as sign ups, checkouts, forms etc.

The first step in the performance optimization process is understanding and analyzing the performance. When writing functional scripts, make sure you capture the actual user transactions to get as close to the end user as possible. Using web transaction recorders seems like the best choice to ensure that all dynamic components of the applications are measured and monitored.

eCommerce is the extension of your business, your brand and your reputation. Having an available, functional and high performing eCommerce presence is extremely vital to maintain and grow customer loyalty and brand equity.

Priyanka Tiwari is Product Marketing Manager, AlertSite, SmartBear Software.

The Latest

Industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025. Part 2 covers the challenges presented by AI, as well as solutions to those problems ...

In the final part of APMdigest's 2025 Predictions Series, industry experts offer predictions on how AI will evolve and impact technology and business in 2025 ...

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

Image
Broadcom

The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

Image
Catchpoint

The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
Datastrike

Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating across the telecoms industry, with 88% of fixed broadband service providers now investigating or trialing AI automation to enhance their fixed broadband services, according to new research from Incognito Software Systems and Omdia ...

 

AWS is a cloud-based computing platform known for its reliability, scalability, and flexibility. However, as helpful as its comprehensive infrastructure is, disparate elements and numerous siloed components make it difficult for admins to visualize the cloud performance in detail. It requires meticulous monitoring techniques and deep visibility to understand cloud performance and analyze operational efficiency in detail to ensure seamless cloud operations ...

Imagine a future where software, once a complex obstacle, becomes a natural extension of daily workflow — an intuitive, seamless experience that maximizes productivity and efficiency. This future is no longer a distant vision but a reality being crafted by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence ...