ChannelApe Embeds CData Arc for Ecommerce EDI and MFT
From small and medium-sized businesses to companies with millions of customers, businesses of all size use the ChannelApe E-Commerce direct-to-consumer (D2C) suite for building web stores, connecting warehouses, managing product catalogs, and handling inventory & order management.
For many of their D2C E-Commerce customers, electronic data interchange (EDI) and partner file exchanges are a core part of doing business, especially for selling to major retailers. ChannelApe saw an opportunity to fill a fundamental customer need by adding EDI and managed file transfer (MFT) capabilities.
Their vision? A seamless user experience, where D2C customers could handle EDI and MFT without leaving ChannelApe.
Adding Core EDI and MFT — Without Major Development Costs
For ChannelApe, building these EDI and MFT capabilities into their platform was tricky.
Developing these capabilities would be difficult and costly. Between upfront development, certification & interoperability testing, ongoing support and maintenance, the total cost of integration would be very expensive.
At the same time, most other off-the-shelf solutions could not be easily embedded or provided a sub-optimal integration experience for their customers.
ChannelApe needed a solution that could:
- Do the work for them with a ready-made middleware layer they could plug in
- Eliminate custom coding for EDI standards, MFT protocols, security, and AS2 retries
- Work with their existing infrastructure — running Java-based containers in Docker
- Allow them to deliver custom business logic on top of the middleware
- And embed directly into ChannelApe to avoid customer confusion
Instead of attempting to build their own middleware layer, ChannelApe sought a powerful, modern EDI solution with an API that they could embed.
EDI & MFT Microservices
After researching the solutions available, including those from some of the biggest technology companies out there, ChannelApe selected CData Arc. And in 2018 alone, they processed more than 2 million EDI transactions.
"CData Arc has helped our business focus on solving the core problems of D2C supply chains rather than rebuilding proprietary connections and transports for EDI and MFT."
— Michael Averto, CEO, ChannelApe
Read the full case study to learn how CData Arc's unique microservices infrastructure, developer APIs and rigorous testing unlocked EDI & MFT for ChannelApe and their customers.