Technical Information: API Changes on the Horizon

For all of you techies out there: a change is on the horizon for the Spreadshirt API. If you’re not a techie, you probably don’t know what an API is. Well, API stands for “Application Programming Interface” and it’s basically a way that one software communicates with another software.  Spreadshirt’s API is chockful of information that allows other systems to “talk” to our systems and access the information they need. If you’re interested in that kind of stuff, the information below is for you. If not… we wish you a very nice day.

What are we changing?

• Right now, if you access a shop article or a list of shop articles via the API (e.g. http://api.spreadshirt.com/api/v1/shops/337269/articles/107196141 or http://api.spreadshirt.com/api/v1/shops/337269/articles), you will find the element “price”
• This element will be GONE by end of February
• The price can now be accessed by at: http://api.spreadshirt.com/api/v1/shops/337269/articles/107196141/price
• Using the /price resource will calculate the price dynamically instead of having a static and cached price

Why are we doing this?

• Whenever we change product type prices, print prices, etc. we need to update all articles in our system. This usually takes days and lowers the performance of the API.

Are we sure we want to do this?

• We have used this resource for our marketplace for quite some time and have experienced no problems with the change
• It means more calls to the API, but the resource is very fast and should not affect the user experience

When will it happen?

• We expect to have this resource active by February 28^th, 2017

We are continually updating and improving our services to make Spreadshirt bigger, better and faster for both customers and business partners alike. This change in our API is another step in a positive direction for more efficient system-to-system communication.

If you have any questions regarding technical details of the API change, please comment them below and we will answer them for you.