The Multi-Retailer API Is Finally Here (SCRAPI) – AKA ShopLocal.com In A Box

Posted on 11 January 2010 by Patrick Flanagan1 Comment

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The much overdue and heavily request multi-retailer API (the team calls it the ShopLocal Cross Retailer API or SCRAPI for short) is finally complete and live.  Application development partners Spreezio and ReachEverywhere (more to come on what both of these firms are up to) played a key role in shaping and being alpha and beta release users of SCRAPI.

Basically what this new REST based web service that returns XML data allows is access to every last stitch of content that is currently displayed on ShopLocal.com.  Or as one developer said, “its basically ShopLocal.com in a box”.   This new API includes access to the following types of content:

• Circulars / FSIs / Catalogs / Weekly Ads (all localized)
• Run Of Press (ROP) Ads (all localized)
• eCommerce or Online Offers
• Retailer Store Locations

SCRAPI unleashes a serious punch of possibilities and access to the entire ShopLocal database

Within SCRAPI, all of the above content is normalized and fully loaded with rich meta data which allows for the following types of browsing and searching methods to take place, all via the powerful Endeca Site Search Engine:

1. Guided navigation with attribute/filter refinements
2. Browse by category or brand or retailer or location
3. Keyword search with all the bells and whistles that great search engines utilize such as stemming, plurals, thesaurus, search re-directs, etc
4. Popularity based result set rankings along with a ton of other sort orders

So for a quick recap, here is a list of all of the currently available ShopLocal API’s that trusted partners can be granted access to:

1. SmartDelivery API – SDAPI – This is by far the most used, mature and deep API that ShopLocal offers.  It is currently powering many different and diverse use cases across a plethora of digital mediums.  It is limited however to only one retailer’s circular/FSI data set at a time.
2. SmartCircular API – SCAPI – This is an API that offers that was built specifically to enable the building of an online circular web site. It is also limited however to only one retailer’s circular/FSI data set at a time.
3. SmartBrand API – SBAPI – This is an API that is all about enabling cross-retailer searching and browsing for a pre-selected list of one or more brands/manufactures.
4. ShopLocal Cross-Retailer API – SCRAPI – This API allows for all retailers content of any type to be browsed and searched across.
5. ShopLocal API – SLAPI – This is a somewhat older API that offers access to a limited set of content which includes some premade ROP or FSI ad viewer widgets (JSON type HTML widget) and some ROP and FSI keyword search capabilities.
6. Local Offer Management System API – LOMS API – This is the API that sits behind the new, very flexible local offer management system which allows advertisers (such as local Pepsi Bottlers or Lexus Tier 1) to retrieve product, store/dealer, offer or retailer data in a systematic way.

And yes, it’s somewhat confusing and there is tons of overlap between the different, poorly named APIs.  The long terms vision is to fold all of these into one super-powerful global API that allows a user to access any type of content from any content silo.  One day…

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One Response so far | Have Your Say!

1. 

   Anon
   January 11th, 2010 at 3:23 pm #

   Great news. Where can one find online documentation on these new APIs?