What is a REST? March 18, 2024 02:16 Updated REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer. It is a mechanism that returns XML as a response to an HTTP request. Related articles What character encoding do these APIs use? Can businesses or organizations use Rakuten Webservice? Are Rakuten Webservice APIs free to use? What are "tags" used in the Rakuten Ichiba API? What is Rakuten Affiliate?