This request is for Mailchimp and Mandrill Email integration.

An ideal integration opportunity would create new APIs in ablecommerce to allow more external control in the email side of the platform.

For a Mailchimp integration, the requested features would be:
-- Sync between mailchimp email records and ablecommerce customer records:
---- 2 way sync so that changes made to customer record in Ablecommerce are reflected in Mailchimp and vise versa.
---- List signup would appear in a conLib file that can be used in:
------ Checkout ( frontend and backend in case a phone order customer would like to be added to the list ).
------ My Account section.
------ Any page in either the form of a sidebar control or in the content of a webpage.
------ ConLib would detect whether a user is logged into the site and if so, just display a button to click to be added to the list. The system would then send all the customer account info to Mailchimp and either create a new record or update the existing record. If the user is anonymous, then the conLib would display the following fields, First Name, Last Name, Email Address. The system would then send that info to Mailchimp after checking to see if it exists.

-- Ecommerce360 integration for orders to allow for advanced segmentation and the following automation rules:
---- Best customers - Send emails to your best customers after they purchase.
---- Specific product purchase - Send an email when a specific product is purchased.
---- Purchase from category of products - Send an email when a purchase is made from a specific category.
---- Any Product Purchase - Send emails when any product is purchased from your store.

For a Mandrill integration, the requested features would be:
-- Inbound Email Processing:
---- Allow the ability to parse emails sent to the specified store address ( some work on the ablecommerce customer’s end would be required, they would ideally create a subdomain that is empty (ie: inbound.email.yourstore.com so that the email address could be store@inbound.email.yourstore.com and have it route through Mandrill). This would in therory allow a webhook to be created communicating Ablecommerce to Mandrill so that when customers reply to emails like order/shimpent/cancellation confirmations or order note emails, the Mandrill system will process the emails and send the data to Ablecommerce that Ablecommerce can use to update the Order Notes record in the system.
-- Transaction based emails:
---- Account created welcome email.
---- Order related emails.
---- Item Review emails.
---- General customer contact emails.
---- Vendor emails.
---- Admin related emails ( daily error log report, daily pending product review report, daily low inventory report, etc )
-- Webhook to allow Mandrill to flag a new boolen field in Ablecommerce in Users table called email_valid
---- Would be set to true by default
---- Would be flagged as false if Mandrill reports the email having bounced. This way the admin can see if emails are being delivered to the customer.

About Mailchimp:
More than 7 million people use MailChimp to create, send, and track email newsletters. Whether you're self-employed, you manage projects for clients, or you work for a Fortune 500 company, MailChimp has features and integrations that will suit your email marketing needs.
Create signup forms that match your brand's look and feel, and send your subscribers product updates, event invitations, announcements, or editorial content. Use our reports to improve your campaigns and learn more about your readers. Best of all? MailChimp is free for lists of up to 2,000 subscribers.

About Mandrill:
Mandrill is a transactional email product from the people who brought you MailChimp. Apps can use Mandrill to send automated one-to-one email, like password reminders, shopping-cart receipts, and personalized notifications.
Mandrill offers advanced tracking, easy-to-understand reports, and hundreds of template options that shouldn’t be limited to bulk email newsletters. And it’s built on MailChimp’s proven email platform, which sends more than 10 billion emails a month.
Developers love the quick setup, webhooks support, and high delivery rates. Marketers love the beautiful interface, template options, tagging, and custom reports. Mandrill is the only transactional email product with a mobile app that allows you to monitor delivery and troubleshoot from wherever you are. You can send up to 12,000 emails per month absolutely free, and monthly MailChimp users get an allotment of Mandrill email credits every month, too.