Hi all,
I have a client that has an Api from their suppliers and wants to use this instead of adding products manually.
I have read that you can add a 'vendor' with email but that doesn't solve the drop shipping functionality my client wants.

My question is...
Is it possible for Hotcakes to use the Api from the supplier, display the products and offer the ordering functionality as normal (cart and ordering)?

or...

Would I have to import all the products that the Api delivers into the Hotcakes system on a regular basis (scheduler for example)?

If the only way is to import, how does Hotcakes deal with duplicate products etc?

Any advise is appriated,
Regards,
Geoff.

---

Hey Geoff:

Great question! Hotcakes does indeed depend upon its own catalog right now. You'd need to use the import method instead.

Every product in the catalog has a unique identifier that customers and merchants use to know what it is, namely the SKU. However, the SKU may not be an option for you in this scenario. If that's the case, then I'd suggest using custom properties to keep track of the unique identifier from the other system. Here's an article that discusses how to use that.

https://hotcakescommerce...Properties-for-a-Product 

If you use this feature, you'd then be able to query for it to determine if you're updating an existing product, or creating a new one.

---