EDI or API — which should we use with a trading partner?
Use whichever the partner supports, because the choice is rarely the supplier’s to make. National retailers run on EDI and will not take an API integration; marketplaces and modern dropship platforms usually offer REST APIs and no EDI at all. A brand selling into both ends up running both, which is an argument for a system that speaks each natively.
The technical comparison matters less than the enforcement model. EDI comes with a compliance regime — routing guides, acknowledgment windows, chargebacks — and an API generally does not. That difference shapes the operational work far more than the transport does.
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