WordPress, Facebook, and MailChimp are just a few examples of software-driven businesses that are extending their reach through application programming interfaces (APIs). Although there are several ecommerce plugins for WordPress alone, there are far fewer plugins for specific ecommerce platforms and shopping carts. But that’s about to change.
Magento Embraces Plugins
Magento is a great example of an ecommerce platform provider that has embraced plugins. This isn't all together surprising since Magento is an open source solution provider. Notably, Magento is marketing free and paid plugins the way they should be marketed.
Visitors can effortlessly sort through plugins based on pre-defined filters. Paid and free plugin listings are accompanied by reviews. Free plugin listings also include download statistics while paid plugin listings include their associated prices.
You can download the free plugin extension keys from the Magento site. Paid plugins may be purchased directly from the developers' websites.
Miva Merchant Partners with Strands Recommender
Miva Merchant is also extending its functionality. Miva Merchant and Strands Recommender recently teamed up on a plugin, so that merchants can take advantage of Strands' behavioral tracking and product recommendations simply by installing the plugin and paying a nominal monthly fee. The end goal, of course, is to provide shoppers with a “personalized” shopping experience by offering relevant cross-sells, up-sells, and targeted product recommendations, among other things.
In addition to the Strands Recommender partnership, Miva has also established a number of relationships with third-party developers who are selling their addons directly from their own sites.
Strands Recommender Seeks Innovative Developers
Miva Merchant isn’t the end of the plugin story for Strands Recommender. In fact, it’s the beginning.
Strands Recommender is about to extend, with the help of developers, its behavioral tracking and product recommendation capabilities out to other shopping carts, email providers, and more. In fact, the company will announce a developer contest in an upcoming webinar entitled “Plug-in, Cash Out: How to Effectively Build and Market Your Plug-ins” which will take place at noon Pacific Time on August 12, 2010.
In the webinar, we’ll be talking a lot about ecommerce plugins, such as what’s involved in building them, how to sell them, and how to market them. We’ll have Brian Getting, executive director of Terra Firma Design & Consulting, on hand to tell us what it’s like to create plugins for ecommerce platforms. In addition, Jesus Pindado, vice president of Strands Business Solutions, will reveal the details of the developer challenge.
I’m very happy to say I’ll be moderating the webinar and very sad to say I’m not eligible to win the contest. The grand prize is very cool.
