How to access segments of nested json using url?

Question

Ex json http://example/api :

{
    "shop":{
        "id":"shop",
        "employee":{
            "id":"employee",
            "name":"som",
            "age":10
         }
         "departments":{
            "id":"departments",
            "sales":{
                "id":"sales",
                "products":[]
            }
         }
     }
}

To access the shop segment i can use http://exampleapi/shop, but the same not applying for employee, departments and sales. I have seen few reference sources that use this method, is this method still in use?.

Also tried $id, $ref.