The ecommerce space is a highly competitive market and requires retailers to act out of their skin to get noticed and make progress. Now, Shopify is arguably one of the best ecommerce web development platforms that bring many customization features to the table. The Shopify Integration platform NetSuite is used by hundreds of thousands of ecommerce stores with various success levels.
Now, while the front-end of an online store is important to attract customers, the back-end work-flow processes and operations are important to ensure a hassle-free and consistent customer experience. That’s to say you need an automated and robust back-end management system that can handle and streamline the flow of information between different business functions.
That’s precisely where NetSuite ERP comes into play…
NetSuite ERP is arguably the most comprehensive and detailed cloud-based ERP system that brings in various automation features to streamline business functions and processes. The NetSuite ERP platform comprises various modules including inventory management, order management, order fulfillment, shipping, and others. All of these modules are meant to automate the business functions negating any chances of errors and improving business efficiency.
IN this blog, we will be looking at why you should opt for Shopify NetSuite integration, as well as, the right way to integrate these two key platforms.
Benefits of NetSuite Shopify Integration
NetSuite integration with Shopify can be pivotal for the accelerated growth of online stores. Below is a summary of how NetSuite integration with the Shopify store can benefit ecommerce businesses.
By integrating the NetSuite ERP platform with the Shopify store, businesses ensure a smooth and consistent flow of data between different business functions. The integration enables automatic synchronization of data into various functions, which not only improves the efficiency of the data entry process but also greatly reduces any chances of errors along the way. Moreover, the Shopify integration enables ecommerce stores to effectively manage and control different business functions for better system performance, higher efficiency, and increased productivity.
Elimination of data entry errors is also one of the biggest benefits of NetSuite ERP integration with Shopify stores. Since NetSuite Shopify integration syncs various business functions, there is no need to manually enter the data, and thereby, helping in removing any inconsistencies, redundancies, and errors in data entries.
NetSuite Shopify Integration
Well, now that we are done discussing briefly the benefits of NetSuite-Shopify integration, let’s move on to see some of the best approaches to integrate these three systems;
1. Point-to-Point Integration
Point-to-Point integration is the simplest and most widely used integration approach by small businesses. The Point-to-Point integration essentially creates separate data points for the synchronization of two data points. This means that there isn’t any operation platform in-between and that you have better control over the system where you manage the data. The Point-to-Point integration brings about the flexibility for the users to customize integration according to unique business needs.
The Point-to-Point integration for Bigcommerce NetSuite and Shopify is often accomplished to synchronize customers, inventory, products, and orders. In this approach, the synchronization may be achieved in real-time or in batches. However, the Point-to-Point integration approach is only ideal for small businesses that operate within a confined set of operations. That’s because for large businesses managing a large number of data points can become complex to manage.
2. Custom NetSuite Shopify integration
NetSuite application programming interfaces (APIs) do allow for a customized NetSuite Shopify integration approach. The NetSuite APIs represent individual systems that connect the two platforms (NetSuite and Shopify in this case) by writing custom codes. The custom integration approach through APIs is much easier and more streamlined as compared to Point-to-Point integration as it enables handling of complex operations, and can serve the needs of large businesses.
3. Saas-Based Middleware Integration
Lastly, the cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) approach can also be adopted for integrating NetSuite ERP with Shopify store. The SaaS-based approach is arguably the best and most advanced integration approach, where a cloud-based platform acts as an operation hub between these two platforms.
While SaaS-based middleware integration is the most advanced and optimized integration approach, it comes with a relatively higher price, which makes it suitable only for large enterprises and conglomerates.
Integration Checklist for Reference
Just like with any other systems integration process, the NetSuite-Shopify integration is a complex and sensitive process. For businesses to leverage the full potential integration, it’s important to implement the process with due diligence, and expertise. Below are some important considerations that should be adopted for streamlined NetSuite-Shopify integration.
Need for Research – Before you start the integration process, it’s important to research the complexities and bottlenecks that you may experience during the process. The ideal way is to discuss the integration bottleneck with an experienced NetSuite-Shopify integration partner. This way, you would be better prepared for any possible hurdles that may be encountered during the integration process and be better prepared to counter these bottlenecks.
Documentation – Unfortunately, most businesses ignore the importance of documentation during the integration process. Documentation of the process is important to ensure effective communication between the in-house IT teams and integration partners. The key here is to avoid duplication of documents, or incomplete documentation, which may only add to the complexity of the integration process.
Data Volume – Determining the volume of data you need to manage is important to ensure effective integration. This becomes even more important for ecommerce stores looking for exponential growth in a short period of time. For such businesses, it’s important that the integration support big data management and offers scalability options to grow with your business operations.
Customers – The ultimate objective of NetSuite-Shopify integration is to offer a better customer experience with streamlined business processes. Thereby, it’s important to quantify the benefits of integration for customers. This can be achieved by performing SWOT analysis at each stage of integration.
Technical Resources – Lastly, you need to be sure of the technical expertise and resources required to undertake the integration process. As mentioned earlier, the best way is to hire the services of a professional NetSuite-Shopify integration partner. This way you get access to the experienced and expert professionals with a proven methodology to implement the integration, as well as, train your in-house team to leverage the full potential of the integration.