In recent months, bol.com has been working hard on the development of two important features in the Retailer API: price stars and Open API functionalities. In this article, we would like to inform you about new developments regarding these features.
We want to give our partners assurance that our endpoints are of high quality. During beta testing we learned a lot about using the beta endpoints. We received a lot of positive feedback and have updated the endpoints in response to suggestions for improvement. We also noticed that the traffic on both endpoints - which are not retailer specific - is (much) higher than anticipated. Scaling up to handle this peak load is very challenging. That is why we unfortunately couldn't make all endpoints from the beta General Available yet in the v9.
This is the current situation:
The endpoints with Open API functionality (including Competing Offers) have become generally available in the v9.
These endpoints contain direct value for almost all partners. We initially launched with the current limited rate limits, after which these will be increased as soon as possible as bol.com can scale up further.
Important: We advise to start researching the new endpoints now and prepare in Q2 for the migration from the Open API to the Retailer API. Use this period to test and migrate repricers and other functionalities that use the data from the Open API. Once the Retailer API rate limits are increased, we will have a three-month period where the Open API will run in parallel with the replacement endpoints in the Retailer API.
The Price star endpoint has remained in beta for the v10
We still have every intention of making this endpoint generally available. However, in combination with the other endpoints, we expect a peak load. By keeping this endpoint in beta for longer, we have more control over its use.
We are of course working on various solutions to scale up our API. The further progress of the project is unfortunately still difficult to predict at the moment. We will communicate again about progress by 9 May at the latest.
Improved predictability rate limits Open API
Yesterday around 13:00 we updated the way we were rate limiting for the Open API. The individual rate limits remained the same. The changes creates more predictability in rate limiting. We hope this will make traffic toward those endpoints more efficient.