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Integrate Amazon with NetSuite because you deserve to have visibility on your data to make better business decisions.
Now, doesn't that sound great? Having one place where you can see all of your sales, inventory, discounts, taxes paid, and payments and refunds all managed from one single source of truth?
Most Amazon Sellers do not realize how much it is costing them to operate with separate software and how much it is holding back their business. Not only that, but how different it is to operate out of the various Amazon Marketplaces available around the world and how having one single source of truth can help optimize your business, save time, and cut costs.
As your business grows, moving on from Quickbooks (or any other small business ERP) to an integrated ERP like NetSuite becomes critical to supporting the growth of your organization, but ensuring that NetSuite is integrated with all of the important pieces of your business, like Amazon, is required to reap the full benefit of the solutions you've implemented.
Most of the Amazon Sellers are experiencing problems with most or all of the questions mentioned above. And really, are you able to focus on your customer if you're experiencing those pain points?
Integrate Amazon with NetSuite to really be able to take care of your customers. Integrating benefits both you and your customer.
First, let's talk about what integration between systems is. Integrating two systems is the process of linking two systems together into a single larger system that functions as one. Specifically, with regards to software solutions like Amazon and NetSuite, it is the process of linking them together to enable them to functionally work together.
The main reason to integrate Amazon with NetSuite is to improve the productivity and quality of your operations. Through the integration, the goal is to also speed up informational flows and reduce the operational costs of your business.
And when integration saved you time and money, you get to focus on what really matters - your customers.
In addition to helping your business save time and money, how does it help your customers?
Your customers can see when you have a backend that runs smoothly. You'll be able to deliver a consistent and efficient customer experience with (but not limited to) the following:
Your customers will show their appreciation by buying from you again and again. Not only that, but you will gain the trust of your customers by offering effective, consistent and timely customer service. It will give you the edge you're looking for over your competitors who are still operating who haven't invested in their business to integrate Amazon with NetSuite.
*You can also read about the three ways to integrate Shopify with NetSuite. The three options presented in the Shopify article are the same three options available to you from a technical perspective.
There are three options to integrate Amazon with NetSuite, all of which have their pros and cons.
Building an integration to be custom for your business requires serious technical knowledge. It involves using the NetSuite and Amazon API and writing custom code to connect both systems together. This kind of integration is not something you want someone to be learning on the job.
A custom-built integration is usually an option Seller's like to entertain as it seems like it would make the most sense. The most common reasons we hear are:
Having said that, here are the facts based on our experience:
Some vendors offer integration application solutions. This type of solution is usually tailored to a specific function. In this case, to integrate Amazon with NetSuite. They are designed to only be used between two systems and offer to synchronize data like inventory, orders, products, and customers.
In the case of an Integration Application, there is no hub between your systems. There is only a point-to-point integration that has been productized for a specific purpose. You must choose one of the two systems as your "master" to manage each type of data. Data is sent "as-is" between systems without any transformation.
These types of solutions usually sync in "batches" meaning every hour or even once or twice a day.
Having said that, they are very affordable solutions and work best for small retailers with a small budget with small data volumes. These will get you up and running quickly with integration to leverage the power of integrating Amazon with NetSuite and to alleviate some of your operational pain points.
For growing retailers though, these kinds of solutions have major shortcomings. They are not as flexible as an iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) in adding new sales channels or managing multiple systems are your business evolves. Each new system requires you to add new connectors.
If your business is growing quickly, choosing this type of integration will require completely redoing your systems architecture in the near future using an iPaaS.
Our take: For small retailers with a consistent sales volume year over year and a simple technical architecture, Integration Applications are a good fit. For growing retailers, skip this type of integration and move on to the iPaaS directly. The investment will be worth it as your business grows.
To integrate Amazon with NetSuite using an iPaaS means using a cloud-based, hosted, middleware integration platform that sits between NetSuite and Amazon. These types of integrations can be referred to as hub-spoke integrations or horizontal integration.
Ideally, the iPaaS chosen already has pre-built connectors for Amazon and NetSuite and any other system you would like to integrate (for example, ADP for Payroll, Amazon, etc.).
However, unlike Integration Applications or Custom-Built Integrations, these iPaaS platforms are configurable meaning they can be customized or changed to accommodate your business requirements.
You can define rules about how your data moves between systems and allows greater control over the flow of data.
This integration approach is usually quite flexible and allows us to easily add and configure additional connectors that integrate with the hub. This way, you can also update and change your data flow as your business grows.
This solution is, generally speaking, the pricier of the three because it is essentially a platform that allows you to integrate not just Amazon with NetSuite but also other potential systems in the future.
It allows for greater flexibility and grows as your business grows with you. Expect to pay a monthly subscription fee for access to this kind of platform.
Although the three options to integrate are viable, there are a few key points we would like to highlight and keep in mind when selecting an integration method to integrate NetSuite and Amazon.
Every Amazon Marketplace requires it's own connector. This is usually not written anywhere in the documentation of iPaaS providers nor Integration Application providers. The price that is quoted is usually for one Amazon Marketplace only.
To get an idea of how much it would cost for an iPaaS or Integration Application you can take that price and multiply it by the number of Amazon Marketplaces you have and then apply a discount on top of it as most providers will offer up discounts for multiple Marketplaces.
Amazon Marketplaces are also not all created equal, so beware. This applies to all integration types. The American version of the Amazon Marketplaces collects and remits taxes for you. The other countries do not. Some of the Marketplaces share customer data, others do not.
For European Marketplaces, is VAT collected and remitted by Amazon, or by you? All of these factors need to be taken into consideration.
With a Shopify webstore, this is not the case as you will need one connector per webstore. This means that every webstore can have its own configuration relating to taxes, the way transactions are processed, and more.
Amazon has a multitude of fees that are applied in all kinds of ways. Commission, storage fees, order fees, you name it and they are probably charging you for it. It is important for reconciliation between NetSuite and Amazon to be able to capture this information in NetSuite.
Amazon settlement reports are similar to the Shopify payouts but they contain all the fees that have been paid, not only on the order itself but also (for example) damaged inventory (and more). Being able to track that in NetSuite is critical to making better business decisions.
The chances that you will use your Shopify inventory as your source of truth is slim, but with Amazon, you will need to make sure that the inventory levels in NetSuite reflect what the inventory levels are in Amazon to leverage the full power of NetSuite demand planning.
Another aspect of Amazon inventory is the creation and management of Amazon shipment plans and corresponding transfer orders in NetSuite. This will also impact your demand planning, your tax reporting, and more.
Our take: We recommend getting an iPaaS, especially if you are growing and have other systems that would be connected in the future. The iPaaS provider invests in their product and rolls out automatic updates so you always have the latest and greatest. The platform requires minimal maintenance so requiring help to reconfigure is reduced. It is easier to set up initially than a custom integration, and about the same as an Integration Application. Additionally, the price gap between an iPaaS and the Integration Applications is reducing as time goes and iPaaS solutions are becoming more and more common and easy to use.
