Webhook

What it means

A webhook is a way for one application to notify another of an event as soon as it happens. Instead of the receiving application periodically polling the sender asking 'did anything change?' (API polling), the sender pushes a notification to a pre-registered URL the moment the event occurs. In ecommerce, Shopify fires webhooks for dozens of events: order.created, order.fulfilled, order.cancelled, refund.created, customer.created, and many more. A support platform like Bookbag registers its webhook endpoint URL with Shopify. When a Shopify webhook fires, Bookbag receives the payload, processes it, and triggers the appropriate action — sending a shipping notification to the customer, auto-resolving a related support ticket, or updating the customer's order status in the support inbox. Webhooks also flow in the other direction: Bookbag can send webhook notifications to other systems (like a CRM or ERP) when a support event occurs — ticket resolved, CSAT collected, escalation triggered. Webhook reliability depends on proper error handling: most systems implement retry logic and signature verification to ensure payloads are genuine and delivered at least once.