Initiatives improving Retailer API reliability

At bol, we are committed to continuously improving the Retailer API and API-related services. We acknowledge that the reliability of our API in 2024 did not always live up to the standards you could expect from us. We take this very seriously and have launched several initiatives to enhance the reliability and performance of the Retailer API. One key initiative is the Partner Reliability Project, which focuses on improving the detection, mitigation and prevention of API incidents, as well as enhancing communication during incidents.

As part of this initiative, we launched a three-month pilot on April 28, providing extended support for API emergencies outside regular business hours. This is facilitated by a dedicated Partner Standby Team. A pilot group of selected intermediaries and partners can now report and alert us about suspected emergency API incidents outside office hours. In the event of an emergency incident that has not been picked up by bol, our Partner Standby Team is notified and will triage, escalate, and communicate as necessary - and our internal on-call engineers will respond to fix services under 24/7 coverage.

Through this pilot, we aim to implement further improvements in how we identify, manage, and prevent API-related issues. After the three-month pilot, we will share our insights and outcomes via a news update on the developers portal.