Inform.ca: NetSuite ERP & Craft Commerce E-commerce Data Sync

The Challenge

Inform Interiors, a Canadian premium furniture and home décor retailer, was undergoing a major digital transformation. They were simultaneously:

1. Migrating from Shopify to Craft Commerce for greater flexibility and control
2. Adopting NetSuite as their ERP for unified business operations
3. Launching a completely new website with a complex product configurator

The problem: Craft Commerce had no out-of-the-box NetSuite integration. They needed a custom solution that could synchronize 2,500+ products (with 1-5 variants each) and handle complexities their previous Shopify integration couldn’t manage.

Technical Approach

Discovery First

Before writing production code, I conducted a two-month discovery phase to understand the full scope of what needed to sync:

• Products and variants (2,500+ items with complex configurations)
• Stock levels and pricing (frequent bulk updates)
• Orders and order status (two-way sync)
• Customer accounts and discounts (tiered pricing)
• Shipping information
• Product images (from NetSuite to Craft)

During discovery, I built a technical demo that uncovered limitations in the initial approach and solved them before committing to the full build.

Key Technical Challenges

Queue-Based Synchronization for Scale

With thousands of products and frequent price updates, synchronous processing would block the website. I implemented a Craft Queue-based system that:

• Processes bulk updates asynchronously in the background
• Prioritizes critical syncs (orders, stock) over less time-sensitive data
• Handles failures gracefully with retry logic
• Keeps the website responsive during large sync operations

Image Sync from NetSuite to Craft

This was one of the more challenging aspects of the integration. Product images needed to flow from NetSuite to Craft Commerce, requiring:

• Efficient file transfer handling for large image sets
• Storage optimization for web delivery
• Asset relationship management in Craft CMS
• Verification that the correct images display without performance degradation

Canadian Dual-Tax Compliance

Canada’s GST/PST tax system added complexity. I built custom logic ensuring:

• Accurate tax calculations flow from Craft Commerce to NetSuite
• Proper order accounting for compliance
• Support for different tax rates based on customer location

Covering Edge Cases

The client’s previous Shopify integration didn’t handle several scenarios critical to their business. The new system was designed from the ground up to manage these edge cases, ensuring complete data consistency between their ERP and e-commerce platform.

The Solution: Nexbea Integration

I built this integration using Nexbea, my proprietary solution for ERP and e-commerce data synchronization. For this project, Nexbea was deployed as a self-hosted library integrated directly with Craft CMS.

Nexbea capabilities used:

• Two-way automatic syncs running multiple times per hour
• Manual sync triggers for immediate updates when needed
• Live logging dashboard for real-time monitoring and diagnostics
• Scalable architecture designed to grow with Inform Interiors’ catalog

A cloud/SaaS version of Nexbea is launching soon, making this level of ERP integration accessible to more businesses.

Impact

The solution transformed how Inform Interiors manages their product data. As one team member noted:

It’s faster for me to just do it once in NetSuite and then forget about it knowing that data changes will be sent to the website

Key outcomes:

• Eliminated manual data sync between systems
• Real-time data consistency across platforms minimized errors
• Operational agility with manual triggers for urgent updates
• Reduced administrative overhead through automation
• Future-proof architecture handling increased data volumes as they grow

Ongoing Evolution

Since launch, I’ve continued supporting the integration:

• New field mappings as their product catalog expands and business rules evolve
• Tax rule updates when Canadian tax regulations changed
• NetSuite API modernization migrating from SOAP to REST for better performance

Conclusion

This project demonstrates how custom integration work can bridge the gap when off-the-shelf solutions don’t exist. By combining thorough discovery, queue-based architecture, and purpose-built tooling (Nexbea), I delivered a solution that handles the complexity of a 2,500+ product catalog with Canadian tax requirements while remaining maintainable and scalable.

For the full engagement details, see the discovery phase and implementation work pages.

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• E-commerce and Warehouse data sync
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• Website Redesign Implementation
• Website Performance Optimization
• Website's Core & Stability
• Website Technical SEO Optimization
• Custom Discounts Logic
• Custom Taxes Calculation Logic
• Custom Shipping Price Calculation
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• File storage integration
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