Rye: Blog | Rye: The Universal Selling API

Product

Pricing

Solutions

Documentation

Learn

About Us

Get Started

Table of Contents

Mission

Our Vision

The Problem with Commerce Today

How Rye Works

Our Progress and What's Next

Rye: The Universal Selling API

Arjun Bhargava

Co-founder and CEO @ Rye

Jul 17, 2024

4 min read

Explore Rye, the universal selling API that streamlines online transactions. Learn how Rye integrates with various platforms to simplify the selling process, enhance user experience, and drive sales growth.

Mission

Rye’s mission is to enable any digital commerce experience online. Our APIs power companies to query for real-time data on any Shopify or Amazon product, perform on-platform checkout on those products without redirects, and earn revenue on every sale.

Our Vision

In the future, people will not spend time shopping - specifically, the mundane parts of shopping. Most people don’t enjoy scouring the internet to find a product, comparing prices, and entering payment details over, and over again.

Instead, they would rather be engaging with their favorite creators, scrolling fun reels, or engaging with friends. And amidst the joy of all this, shopping and commerce should be integrated seamlessly.

Want to buy something? Have the ability to purchase it instantly wherever you are - on any app or website - and have it show up on your doorstep the same day. We’re seeing early examples of this future with social commerce – like native checkout in TikTok or Instagram.

Here’s how it generally works: creators on those platforms create and post content about or referencing products they use daily. Shoppers can see more details about the product, glance through reviews, and place an order in a few taps within the app—all without repeatedly entering their credit card, shipping, and billing details, or having to redirect to brand websites. Once the orders are placed, creators immediately get rewarded with a small chunk of affiliate commission, and platforms share order details with the shopper for things like tracking and receipts.

Expand that user experience, but now imagine it as the standard on every website and app you use, including modalities that don’t exist yet – like Zuck’s metaverse or more interactive video streaming. In this future, any digital surface becomes a point of sale and commerce is an embedded layer of the internet.

For brands, this future opens up an essentially unlimited number of channels to reach new customers. Instead of relying on ad networks controlled by just a handful of tech giants, brands can work directly with these new modalities and be much closer to the end shopper’s experience. They can adjust affiliate commissions and rewards to optimize conversions through these new channels and have a much higher fidelity on their margins.

For companies, startups, and developers, adding commerce will be as simple as adding a few lines of code. Just like Stripe has enabled thousands of startups to be able to accept payments without having to worry about things like credit card validation, PCI compliance, or how payment gateways work, startups that build in this future will be able to transact any product their users want without having to worry about order fulfillment, merchant of record complications, or brand partnerships.

The Problem with Commerce Today

This vision isn’t new. Bill Gates was talking about it back in 1994. That’s 30 years ago. So why aren’t we there yet?

Well while commerce has obviously grown significantly online, it still has a ton of issues:

For platforms trying to sell - there are steep technical and business barriers for companies to sell products online. They need to integrate with a slew of different commerce systems that all have their own different product taxonomy, they need to individually onboard brands and vendors, and they need to make payouts for commissions seamless for their partners, themselves, and their customers.
Shoppers find out about products in many different ways on the internet, but the shopping experience is fairly inefficient: traditionally you follow an affiliate link off-platform to a brand website and fill out payment details for each new brand you visit.
Brands generally pay upwards of 40% of revenue to acquire new customers and the typical sources of acquisition are solely Amazon, Google, and Meta.

This vision isn’t new. Bill Gates was talking about it back in 1994. That’s 30 years ago. So why aren’t we there yet?

Well while commerce has obviously grown significantly online, it still has a ton of issues:

For platforms trying to sell - there are steep technical and business barriers for companies to sell products online. They need to integrate with a slew of different commerce systems that all have their own different product taxonomy, they need to individually onboard brands and vendors, and they need to make payouts for commissions seamless for their partners, themselves, and their customers.
Shoppers find out about products in many different ways on the internet, but the shopping experience is fairly inefficient: traditionally you follow an affiliate link off-platform to a brand website and fill out payment details for each new brand you visit.
Brands generally pay upwards of 40% of revenue to acquire new customers and the typical sources of acquisition are solely Amazon, Google, and Meta.

This vision isn’t new. Bill Gates was talking about it back in 1994. That’s 30 years ago. So why aren’t we there yet?

Well while commerce has obviously grown significantly online, it still has a ton of issues:

For platforms trying to sell - there are steep technical and business barriers for companies to sell products online. They need to integrate with a slew of different commerce systems that all have their own different product taxonomy, they need to individually onboard brands and vendors, and they need to make payouts for commissions seamless for their partners, themselves, and their customers.
Shoppers find out about products in many different ways on the internet, but the shopping experience is fairly inefficient: traditionally you follow an affiliate link off-platform to a brand website and fill out payment details for each new brand you visit.
Brands generally pay upwards of 40% of revenue to acquire new customers and the typical sources of acquisition are solely Amazon, Google, and Meta.

How Rye Works

At its core, Rye is a platform that connects developers and brands through a simple, powerful API. Here's how it works:

For merchants, integrating with Rye is straightforward. They connect their existing e-commerce systems (like Shopify or custom solutions) to our platform, which allows them to manage their products, inventory, and orders through Rye. This integration process usually takes minutes and is designed to be as smooth as possible, with our team providing hands-on support to ensure a seamless transition.

Once a merchant is set up on Rye, their products become available to a network of developers and apps through our API. This means that merchants can start selling through new channels almost instantly, without having to worry about the technical details or negotiating individual partnerships.

Rye's API offers three main areas of functionality for developers:

1. Displaying Products: Rye provides APIs that allow developers to easily access and integrate merchant product data into their applications. This includes product details, images, pricing, and inventory levels. Developers can use simple API calls to display and sell products directly within their apps.

2. Ordering and Checkout: Once a shopper intends to purchase a product, Rye's API provides a complete system for managing the shopping experience, from cart creation to checkout and order placement. Developers can build shopping carts, initiate checkouts using Rye Pay (our native checkout solution), and place orders on behalf of their users. Rye handles the complex back-end processes, ensuring a smooth transaction for all parties involved.

3. Post-Purchase Accounting and Tracking: After an order is placed, Rye provides the developer a full breakdown of the order including any commissions or revenue associated with the sale. Rye also provides comprehensive tracking capabilities – real-time updates on order status, payment status, and shipping information.

When a user makes a purchase through a Rye-powered app, the order is seamlessly passed to the merchant for fulfillment, while the app owner earns a commission on the sale. Rye takes care of all the complex back-end processes, from processing payments to syncing inventory, allowing developers to focus on creating great user experiences.

By connecting merchants and developers through a shared infrastructure, Rye creates a more open and efficient commerce ecosystem. Merchants can reach new customers without the usual barriers, developers can monetize their apps in new ways, and consumers can enjoy more diverse and convenient shopping experiences.

At its core, Rye is a platform that connects developers and brands through a simple, powerful API. Here's how it works:

Rye's API offers three main areas of functionality for developers:

At its core, Rye is a platform that connects developers and brands through a simple, powerful API. Here's how it works:

Rye's API offers three main areas of functionality for developers:

Our Progress and What's Next

We're still early in our journey, but we're excited about our progress so far. We've seen strong growth in brand adoption, developer integrations, and transaction volume. In less than a year since the official launch, we're processing over 120,000 orders per month and have onboarded over 1,000 brands directly onto our platform. And we're just getting started.

In the coming months, we'll be focused on expanding our brand network, enhancing our developer experience, and enabling even more creative commerce experiences.

If you're a brand looking for lucrative new ways to sell online - reach out to us to see if you're a good fit.

If you're a developer with an idea to build/scale your shopping experiences - get your API key by signing up to our console or talk to our team to see how we can help

In the coming months, we'll be focused on expanding our brand network, enhancing our developer experience, and enabling even more creative commerce experiences.

If you're a brand looking for lucrative new ways to sell online - reach out to us to see if you're a good fit.

If you're a developer with an idea to build/scale your shopping experiences - get your API key by signing up to our console or talk to our team to see how we can help

In the coming months, we'll be focused on expanding our brand network, enhancing our developer experience, and enabling even more creative commerce experiences.

If you're a brand looking for lucrative new ways to sell online - reach out to us to see if you're a good fit.

If you're a developer with an idea to build/scale your shopping experiences - get your API key by signing up to our console or talk to our team to see how we can help