The B2B SaaS Guide to Ecommerce Integration Platforms: How to Find the Right Fit

These days, no SaaS solution can stand alone. Your users want to integrate your app into their existing workflows, and the best way to do that is with native, user-facing integrations.

Having high-quality native integrations brings you major benefits:

• Your product is more valuable to your users
• It’s harder to “quit” your product once it’s part of core workflows
• You’re positioned to get new leads from other SaaS apps

But how do you create those integrations? That’s the focus of this article.

We’ve written this guide for B2B SaaS engineers and decision-makers who want to create native, user-facing integrations between an ecommerce platform and other apps. This applies whether you work in ecommerce or another type of B2B SaaS.

You could develop your integrations in-house, but that’s costly and time-consuming. Integrations can pull engineers away from developing important core product features or cost you hundreds of thousands to hire new talent. Plus, maintaining hosting, authentication, and API changes is a full-time job in itself.

That’s why many SaaS businesses are turning to integration platforms to create and maintain integrations without depleting their in-house resources.

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What’s an integration platform?

An integration platform provides resources to help you create and maintain your integrations without all of the grunt work.

This means:

• The platform does the heavy lifting of development and ongoing management, freeing up your engineers to do their most important work
• You save money on development
• The platform keeps track of API changes so integrations never break

But not all platforms are equal. You’ll find that platforms typically fall into two camps: no-code and low-code tools, and code-first tools.

Which is best for your use case? Let’s talk about it.

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No-code and low-code iPaaS vs code-first integration platforms

We can all agree that connecting two apps with code is a complicated feat. No-code and low-code iPaaS solutions were created to solve this problem for busy SaaS businesses who needed to launch integrations, like, yesterday.

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No-code and low-code tools are easy, but come with drawbacks

With these tools, you can create working integrations with a drag-and-drop interface. They’re easy to put together and practically anyone can create functioning integrations in a few clicks; meaning they don’t require a developer. (Sometimes, for more complex integrations, you will need a bit of custom code to make things work.)

But the ease of these tools can lead to big drawbacks for your product:

• Each iPaaS has its own pre-built code wrappers, which can bloat your codebase
• You’re limited to the functions and configurations the iPaaS offers
• If an integration is deployed to thousands of users, it might not be able to handle everyone’s needs, or even break
• You’re locked into the iPaaS—if you want to change platforms, you’ll have to create everything again

Because of these issues, we don’t recommend using a low-code or no-code tool for user-facing native integrations. Instead, we recommend using a code-first integration platform.

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Code-first integrations reduce risk and grow with your business

A code-first platform provides you with boilerplate code and other resources to create custom integrations easily. The integrations you build within the platform don’t rely on the platform’s infrastructure to run; instead, they’re custom-coded by your engineers and seamlessly integrated into your codebase.

A good code-first integration platform will also help with authentication, hosting, and the other behind-the-scenes work of maintaining integrations. That way you can rest easy knowing your integrations won’t break, and you can focus on improving your core product instead.

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Introducing Pandium: the code-first platform for building, launching, and promoting user-facing integrations

Our team comes from backgrounds in ecommerce, integration, and partnerships. We were frustrated with the lack of code-first tools out there, which is why we built Pandium.

Pandium is the code-first integration platform for B2B SaaS businesses that want to provide their users with high-quality and reliable native integrations.

No matter what integration you need, you can do it in your preferred coding language using pre-built boilerplate code and support from Pandium’s development team.

To get started, choose from over 200 pre-built connectors featuring customer favorites like Klaviyo, TikTok, Yotpo, Ryder, Gorgias, and Shipbob. If you can’t find the integration you’re looking for, we’ll build it for you free of charge.

More than 5,000 companies use Pandium-powered integrations every month, and users save an average of six figures per integration. 

For example, customer support platform Gorgias used Pandium to quickly launch an integration with BigCommerce, which noticeably increased adoption. And one Series B SaaS used Pandium to develop an integration with a major ecommerce platform, then got their integration listed in the platform’s marketplace, leading to 12x more installs than expected.

Pandium also helps SaaS companies showcase their integrations with two pre-built and white-labeled features: an App Marketplace embedded into your app and a Public Gallery to feature integrations on your website.

Don’t let your app stand alone. Use an ecommerce integration platform like Pandium to plug your app into a broader ecosystem and start reaping the benefits.

Are you in B2B ecommerce? Discover how Pandium can help you create and deploy user-facing integrations with customer favorites like Klaviyo, Ryder, TikTok, and more.

Are you in B2B SaaS? Discover how Pandium can help you create and deploy user-facing integrations with leading ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Amazon, AfterPay, Recart, and more.