Houzz opens its Commerce API to third-party vendors

Houzz, the home remodelling site with a focus on giving you house envy, today announced that it is opening up its Commerce API for third-party developers.

While you may mostly look at Houzz as a mobile app and website that features beautiful home remodelling photography in an effort to connect you to the professionals behind these projects, the service also features a thriving marketplace that aims to sell you the products needed to complete your next kitchen or bathroom remodel.

As the Houzz team tells me, its recently launched View in My Room feature, which lets you see what a certain product would look like in your home, is driving quite a few sales, too. About half of the users who purchased something through the Houzz app used this feature.

The company says it currently features about five million products from over 10,000 merchants on its site.

Houzz president and co-founder Alon Cohen tells me that the API will be open to all merchants who are selling home good. “We know that merchants want fast, seamless ways to integrate with Houzz to submit products, process orders, and keep inventory up-to-date and a commerce API will help us deliver that experience,” Cohen said.

Houzz’s launch partner for the new API is Shopify, which now features a Houzz sales channel for its users, for example. Using this channel, Shopify users can publish their products on Houzz and those who use a different service will be able to use the new API to integrate their existing backend systems with Houzz’s.

For the time being, there is no cost associated with using the API.

Potential partners who want access to the API can apply here (and those who are already approved sellers on Houzz can do so from the service’s Seller Central page).