If a standalone or JavaScript Integrated Shop does not fulfill your requirements and you absolutely must have a custom shop this tutorial aims to be a starting point for your journey.
Example
Before we start you can take a look at a working (minimal) example that we have built in order to demonstrate the capabilities of the Public Shop API: https://github.com/spreadshirt/shop-api-example-integration.
Prerequisites
We have to stress that you have to have a certain amount of time and technical knowledge in order to build your own shop based on the Public Shop API.
The following topics will not be covered by this tutorial and will be treated as given
- A Spreadshop with one or more design which you configured in the PartnerArea
- An Spreadshirt API Key
- HTML and CSS knowledge
- PHP and/or Javascript knowledge
- Basic understanding about HTTP and "REST Resources" (in combination often called API)
Recommended approach
Manage your assets in the Partner Area
After you have created your Spreadshop you are ready to manage your assets at any time in the Partner Area. This is the only supported way to manage your shops, designs and products.
Import the data
While it is possible to build a shop entirely using the Public Shop API as single source it is not recommended. You will not be able to introduce all kinds of filtering and sorting options because these are NOT built into the Public Shop API.
That means that you should (periodically) fetch all sellables via the Public Shop API and import them to YOUR database. Once you have imported this data you can build a frontend. The only thing that should require direct API access based on customer action is the Basket API.