API v3 For Art Centres
Connecting your Online Store to SAM
What is SAM?
SAM (Stories Art Money) is an online management system designed specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art centres. SAM is a safe, secure place to store Art centre information, custom built for their needs.
Art centres use SAM as part of their core business tools, to manage daily tasks and store important information when cataloguing artwork, promoting artists and products, making sales, tracking artist payments, managing stock inventory. The database is a trusted central place that keeps important information about artworks, products, artists and sales.
Benefits of Art centres connecting their online store to SAM
More and more art centres are relying on their online store as a vital income stream. However, having an online store and keeping it up to date can be really time consuming. By connecting an Art centres online store to SAM, they can maintain one central repository for all Art centre knowledge and sales.
This creates great efficiencies in time management and workload for staff, allows art centres to have artworks and products for sale in multiple places without worrying about double selling items, and inventory management. Using SAM as a central information store and stock control, means consistent data is shared across all systems, with information pulled from one source and not duplicated, so when information is updated, it is done once and updates everywhere.
To enable this a web API (Application Programming Interface) has been developed for SAM. The API is a piece of software that sits between an art centres website and SAM and allows secure access to a limited set of information – through a portal. A web developer connects to the SAM API to pull content directly into an Art centre online store, and pushes sales and customer data directly back to SAM. Saving time and effort, updating inventory and artist’s money story.
How do Art centres connect their website to SAM?
Art centres need to engage a web designer/developer who is experienced with working with API’s. Ideally a web company that provides both design and development services to streamline the process.
Currently there are 2 paths Desart recommends art centres take:
A) Custom built solution – bespoke development to suit an art centre's needs. This could potentially have higher setup costs, and may need updating every few years, but it does not rely on a subscription. The art centre owns the code & website and can move it to new server, take it to another developer if they choose to. It provides a more customised solution, that the art centre is in control of.
B) Plugin – there is currently a propriety plugin built and owned by Defyn Digital a third party developer external to Desart and SAM. To use the plugin there is an initial setup cost, plus an ongoing subscription fee, which covers hosting, maintenance and updates for the plugin ONLY. If an art centre decides to stop their subscription, the plugin will stop working, as they don't own the code or plugin outright, just a license to use it.
C) Coming soon - Desart is currently working on a third solution which will bring more choice and create competition in the market, for the benefit of art centres. The expected timeline will be timed to coincide with the launch of the SAM rebuild and the APIv3. More information will follow.
Checklist for art centres building a website
When you are setting up your website its important to be informed and set things up for the future. This is a checklist of things you should ensure are set up.
- ☐ Register and manage your own domain name and renewal.
- ☐ Manage/have access to your website hosting. (If using a third party ensure the art centre can be provided with login access to where your website is (c-panel access). Does not apply to cloud based systems like shopify.
- ☐ Contract agreement in place with Web designer/developer (should outline terms and conditions – including ownership and ICIP, copyright, termination, costs etc. (Contact Arts law for contract template)
- ☐ Schedule of costs and rates for website (eg. hosting, development support fees/rates for changes, plugins, subscriptions, payment gateway fees etc.)
Costs
The costs to create, maintain and run a website and ecommerce store can add up. Pricing and fees should play a critical role in your decision-making process. When building a website ensure you are informed of all the costs including setup, build, subscriptions/plugins, hosting and maintenance, ecommerce, so you are not caught out.
There is no fee to use the SAM API, but your developer will have costs to set up the connection for you. Use the table below to help you be informed about all the costs associated when setting up and maintaining a website.
Choosing the Right Ecommerce Platform for Your Art centre
Selecting the right ecommerce platform for your business is finding the solution that helps you achieve your business goals and streamlines workflows. The one that’s right for you may not be right for someone else. You need to consider the platforms features and functionality, how well these integrate with SAM and your day-to-day business. Compare the costs and pricing plans, including any additional fees such as transaction fees, of each platform to determine the most cost-effective solution for your art centre.
Not all Ecommerce websites are suitable to connect to SAM, this includes WIX, webflow or squarespace for ecommerce.
Below is a list of ecommerce platforms that support integration with SAM API
Limitations
When choosing which ecommerce platform, it’s important to understand there may be limitations you need to consider about how the SAM API integration works. Ask your developer what these are and consider these alongside the pros & cons for each system.
Eg. There are some restrictions when importing data from SAM API into Shopify like, you can’t link an artist page to products, artworks automatically. Shopify can only process max 3 variation types, eg. size, colour, style. So you need to ensure in SAM that you only use 3 not the 4 available.
Pros and cons to consider- User-friendly interface
- Secure and reliable platform
- 24/7 support
- Monthly subscription fees
- Payment gateway fees, which can add up if you’re processing a large volume of transactions
- Customisation for themes/design, any costs associated with this
- Any additional costs for certain features and apps, plugins eg. donations, shipping
- Flexible integration with SAM
- Highly compatible, SEO and scalability
- Extensive range of tools, features, and integrations
- Easy to maintain
- How much customisation is required to integrate SAM? Will it be able to do all the functions you want.