Website World's Shop API and MCP let wholesalers, distributors and merchants connect their online stores to other business systems and AI assistants. Customers can check products, access their own pricing and place orders according to the same rules and permissions that apply in your Website World store.
Why Traditional Online Ordering Doesn't Always Work
Trade customers don't always want to work their way through a catalogue to place an order. A cafe owner might want to reorder last month's coffee and add two cartons of oat milk. A retailer might want to access your prices through their own purchasing system. Even a member of the public might ask an AI assistant to find products under $100 that can be delivered by Friday.
Traditionally, these requests could mean phone calls, emailed price lists and orders that someone has to enter manually. Website World's Shop API and MCP make it possible for customers to access your shop through other business systems or compatible AI assistants. They can check products, get the prices that apply to them and place orders, while your existing stock rules, permissions and trading terms remain in place.
One Shop - Four Ways to Connect
1. Retailers and Outlets
Connect your purchasing system to your shop through the REST API. Access then download the product information and the prices that apply to each customer, then send orders directly back. Less manual data entry means fewer errors, no re-keying and less time spent processing orders.
2. Signed-In Customers
Customers can connect a compatible AI assistant to your shop using MCP. Once signed in, they can allow the assistant to search products, check their prices, prepare orders and, where permitted, submit purchases or make bookings. They can also use it to repeat previous orders, saving time on regular purchases.
3. Visitors
Potential customers can use a compatible AI assistant to explore your shop without signing in. They can ask about products, check publicly available prices and send enquiries. Private customer pricing and account information remain restricted.
4. Your Website
Customers can continue to visit your website, browse your products and place orders in the usual way. Your Website World shop remains the central place where your products, pricing and trading rules are managed, regardless of how customers choose to connect.
Prices that are always the right prices
Wholesale lives and dies on pricing, so the interface never guesses. Each customer is shown the price they would really pay, worked out by your shop’s own calculation:
- Their price group, quantity breaks, sale prices, live discounts and promo codes.
- Their currency, with tax shown the way your shop shows it.
- Shipping options calculated for their delivery address, including pick up.
Their member level and groups decide which products and categories they can see at all. If a customer is not allowed to see a price, no amount is returned and the product cannot be ordered through the assistant. Cost prices, supplier details and other customers’ trade prices are never exposed.
For retailers and distributors’ systems: the REST API
| Endpoint | What it is for |
|---|---|
GET /shop-api/products |
A product feed with the calling customer’s own prices, paged for large catalogues, with updated_since so a system can sync only what changed. |
POST /shop-api/orders |
Create and submit an order in one call. An Idempotency-Key makes retries safe, and an optional expected_total refuses the order if the price has moved. |
GET /shop-api/orders |
Read the customer’s own orders: status, totals, balance owing, delivery and tracking. |
For AI assistants: the shop MCP
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard AI assistants use to connect to services. Point an assistant at your shop’s address and it can do these things on behalf of one signed-in customer:
| Capability | What the assistant can do |
|---|---|
| Browse and search | Categories, product search and full product detail: variants, colours and sizes, customisation questions and booking products. |
| Draft an order | Build an order and get the final price back from your shop’s own calculation, with any errors or warnings listed line by line. |
| Submit an order | Place it with the total the customer agreed to. If the price has moved, nothing is submitted and the new total is shown. |
| Repeat and review | Read past orders and start a new draft from one at today’s prices. |
| Bookings | Check availability and book appointments, hire items, rooms and seats using your booking rules. |
| Profile and contact | Keep delivery details current and send you a message from the customer’s own account. |
| Cancel | Cancel an order where your cancellation rules allow it. |
What a conversation looks like
You stay in control
- Customers choose the permissions. Browse, read orders, draft, submit, cancel and contact are separate permissions. Submitting is the only one that commits the customer to buying, and an assistant can be given less than it asks for.
- Your rules apply. Minimum spend, stock, who may buy what, shipping and cancellation rules are checked when an order is drafted and again when it is submitted.
- You review orders. Orders arrive like any other. You review and approve them, and payment follows your own terms. Unpaid orders carry a link to pay by your payment methods.
- Everything is logged. Every request is recorded against the customer and the application they used, so you can see what was done on their behalf.
- Customers can be cut off. A connection can be revoked, and it stops working if the customer’s account is disabled or the website is not live.
- Secure sign-in. Customers sign in with their own account for your website using OAuth with PKCE, including two-factor sign-in where they use it. Assistants never see their password.
Getting started
- Nothing to build. It is built into every Website World shop. The API lives on your own domain at
/shop-api/and uses the customers, prices and products you already manage in Website World. - Give your customers the address. For assistants it is
https://your-domain/shop-api/mcp/. Assistants that support MCP find the sign-in on their own. - Developers read the REST guide at
/shop-api/. Both guides are readable by people and by machines.
Not signed in? Visitors can use https://myname.co.nz/shop-api/mcp/public to ask about your products at public prices and send you an enquiry, protected by spam checks and rate limits. You can turn it off for your website.
Why Website World?
Website World already runs your products, price groups, members, bookings, shipping and checkout. The Shop API and MCP are not a separate system to keep in step: they are another door into the same shop, so a price changed once is changed everywhere. Website World: one shop, every way your customers want to buy.
The MCP and Shop-API is already enabled, it is not opt in or opt out. It has no impact on the visible website. It is not a chat bot we provide. It is a set of tools that third party agents can use.
It is another gateway for users to interact with a business online - just like they choose their own web browser, customers can choose to use an agent, and not a web browser.. Or they can choose to interact via their own software.
Disclaimer: Any support for the API will be chargeable. We trust that the documentation is suitable for any proficient developers to work with it. We will fix bugs for free, if clearly presented.
