Ecommerce integrations to plan before development
Coordinate catalogue data, stock, pricing, payments, delivery and CRM by defining ownership and checking failure scenarios before launch.
ecomvision editorial team
2 min
Published
Key takeaways
- 01Assign an authoritative source to each data type.
- 02Keep payment confirmation and order creation consistent.
- 03Test repeated events, partial failures and cancellations.
Own the catalogue data
Define the sources of products, variants, descriptions, prices and stock. Document precedence when some fields are edited on the site and others in an accounting system.
Use stable identifiers instead of names and distinguish discontinued products from temporary stock shortages.
Describe the order lifecycle
Specify states such as created, awaiting payment, paid, processing and cancelled. Identify the event owner for every transition.
Customers can close the browser after payment, and notifications can repeat. A thank-you page cannot be the only evidence that payment succeeded.
Handle delivery constraints
Delivery depends on the basket, destination and provider rules. Test combinations and show a useful state when a provider is unavailable.
Agree on address corrections and who resolves a failed fulfilment attempt. The integration must support the operating team.
Build a scenario matrix
Record inputs, expected outcomes, repeats and failures for each exchange. Use provider test modes and an agreed process for real transactions.
After launch, watch for paid orders missing records, stale stock and duplicate deals. Give the owner a way to trace and recover an individual operation.
- A repeated notification does not create a second order.
- Price changes are handled predictably.
- The team can detect an unavailable integration.
- Cancellations propagate to the connected systems.