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Here are five things to know about NetSuite Ecommerce integration:

  1. NetSuite is one of the world's most-used cloud-based business management platforms. Ecommerce enterprises use it to host their online stores, maintain customer relationship management (CRM) software, and optimize and automate tasks associated with enterprise resource planning (ERP).

  2. Moving NetSuite data to a data warehouse or lake is the easiest and fastest way to generate business-critical analytics about that data and run it through business intelligence (BI) tools like Tableau and Looker. That helps ecommerce retailers identify patterns and trends in data for improved problem-solving, decision-making, and business growth.

  3. Transferring data from NetSuite to a warehouse or lake can throw up multiple challenges. Ecommerce companies need to be wary of data quality issues, data loss, and data governance legislation during and after the integration process. These companies also need, at the very least, intermediate knowledge of code and data engineering processes when creating the complex big data pipelines required for integration. 

  4. A data warehouse integration platform solves these challenges by removing the pain points associated with moving data from NetSuite to a target system like a warehouse. No-code connectors, for example, help ecommerce retailers build data pipelines without any data engineering experience or knowledge.

  5. Integrate.io is a new data warehouse integration solution with deep ecommerce capabilities. It can integrate NetSuite data sets via ETL, ELT, ReverseETL, and super-fast CDC. The platform has an out-of-the-box connector specifically made for NetSuite, making NetSuite ecommerce integration easier than ever before. 

NetSuite comes with in-built analytics to help you make sense of all the data that flows in and out of this popular business management system. However, these metrics are limited compared to those available in third-party BI tools like Tableau, Looker, and Power BI. Moving data from NetSuite to an external platform, therefore, can improve data analysis in your ecommerce organization and make it easier to generate actionable insights that benefit all your teams. In this guide, learn more about NetSuite e-commerce integration, its challenges, and how a data warehouse integration solution like Integrate.io simplifies the process. 

Integrate.io is the new data warehouse integration solution built for ecommerce. The platform connects data from NetSuite to a warehouse or lake for deeper data analysis that drives your business teams. Integrate.io's developers created the tool to simplify the data integration process by removing all the jargon associated with transferring business-critical information between a data source and a target system. Email hello@integrate.io to learn more about NetSuite ecommerce integration. 

What Is NetSuite?

NetSuite says it's the world's leading cloud-based software suite for business. The all-encompassing platform comprises CRM, ERP, accounting, and ecommerce functions that manage almost every aspect of your online business. Used by nearly 30,000 fast-growing organizations worldwide, NetSuite automates core ecommerce processes such as bookkeeping, payroll, customer service, customer retention, inventory management, and financial management. 

NetSuite SuiteAnalytics is an in-built feature on the platform that helps ecommerce retailers like you identify patterns and trends in customers, sales, supply chain, inventory, order processing, order management, payroll, and financial data. Using SuiteAnalytics can support your data analysis activities and provide some of the intelligence you require to grow your business. However, third-party BI tools like Tableau, Looker, and Power BI come with far more metrics and key performance indicators (KPI) for ecommerce, providing deeper data analytics for problem-solving, decision-making, and business growth. Integrating data with one of these tools, therefore, can generate more value for your enterprise. 

What Is NetSuite Ecommerce Integration?

NetSuite ecommerce integration refers to the process of transferring data from NetSuite to a third-party tool, typically for data analysis. To get data to a BI platform, you first need to move NetSuite data sets to a warehouse or lake like Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, and Microsoft Azure Data Lake. From here, you can run data through BI tools and access data visualizations — graphical representations of your NetSuite ecommerce data such as charts, graphs, dashboards, and real-time reports. That provides you with improved knowledge of common ecommerce processes such as invoicing, filing sales taxes, handling credit card transactions, managing inventory processes, executing payroll, communicating with prospects and leads, retaining existing customers, improving customer loyalty, and enhancing the customer experience. In other words, data insights from BI platforms can improve workflows and grow your online business. 

Recommended reading: Integrate.io Now Has a New NetSuite Connector!

What Are the Challenges of NetSuite Ecommerce Integration?

NetSuite ecommerce integration is fraught with challenges. Typically, you need to create complex big data pipelines that move data from NetSuite to a target system like a warehouse or lake. That involves lots of coding and data engineering — two skills that many ecommerce companies, especially small businesses, lack. 

One solution to this problem is to employ a data engineer (or multiple data engineers) to create these pipelines and facilitate proper data integration. However, hiring a data engineer costs, on average, more than $120,000 — a cost that most ecommerce retailers can't afford. Another solution is to learn code like Java or Python, but this skill can take years to develop. 

There are other challenges. Moving data from somewhere like NetSuite to a third-party target system, either for storage or analytics, requires knowledge of advanced data governance principles. Transferring the wrong data (or too much data) can see an ecommerce company fall foul of legislation like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA (for enterprises that sell healthcare-related products to patients in the United States). Not complying with the relevant legislation in your jurisdiction or niche can result in expensive fines, such as fines of up to 20 million euros for companies that don't adhere to GDPR. Complying with data governance principles can make the data integration process slower and, therefore, less effective.

Ecommerce companies also need to be wary of data quality issues and even data loss. When moving data out of NetSuite, data sets can degrade in quality if companies don't create data pipelines properly. Data loss can also happen, jeopardizing a company's reputation and causing customers to shop elsewhere.

Different Techniques for NetSuite Ecommerce Integration

There are various NetSuite ecommerce integration techniques:

ETL

Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) is the most popular type of data integration for ecommerce companies that want to move NetSuite data to a target system for analysis. That's because NetSuite typically contains structured data. ETL usually involves the following process:

  • Data engineers extract data from NetSuite.
  • Engineers then cleanse the data, check its accuracy, ensure it complies with data governance legislation such as GDPR, and turn it into the correct format for analysis.
  • The final step of the process happens when engineers load the newly cleansed, accurate, compliant, and formatted data into a data warehouse or lake.
  • Now ecommerce companies can run NetSuite data through the BI tool of their choice.

The above process makes ETL sound a lot easier than it is. In reality, engineers need to build elaborate pipelines that extract, transform, and load data, taking weeks or even months. In the meantime, ecommerce organizations can't operationalize and analyze data in BI tools or generate the kind of analytics they require for business growth. 

When moving NetSuite data to a target system, you can use that system as the single source of truth (SSOT) for all data in your organization. That means your warehouse or lake serves as the centralized location or hub for the data sets required for ecommerce activities. 

ELT

Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) is similar to ELT. However, the process involves extracting NetSuite data and loading that data to a warehouse or lake before transforming it into the correct format for analysis. ELT better suits unstructured data, which NetSuite doesn't always store. This NetSuite ecommerce integration method can also prove beneficial if retailers want to quickly move a large amount of data to a target system.

ReverseETL 

This data integration technique reverses the ETL and ELT processes. Instead of moving data to a target system, you transfer NetSuite data from a warehouse or lake back into NetSuite. This method can be beneficial for ecommerce teams familiar with NetSuite and who want to use it as their primary system for analysis. 

CDC

Change Data Capture (CDC) is a technique that involves integrating NetSuite data with another database system such as Salesforce. That allows ecommerce teams to track any changes made to these databases and take quick action after those changes. 

Again, the above processes require the building of code-heavy data pipelines to be successful. Ecommerce retailers might not have the time or resources to create these pipelines, making it difficult to integrate data between systems. 

Integrate.io transforms NetSuite ecommerce integration. No longer do you have to worry about pipeline-building or learning code. This ecommerce platform comes with low-code/no-code out-of-the-box connectors that move data from NetSuite to a target location in mere minutes, removing all the challenges of data integration. Integrate.io's drag-and-drop click-and-point interface also makes data integration easy. Email hello@integrate.io to learn more about the benefits of NetSuite ecommerce integration. 

Recommended reading: Everything You Need to Know About NetSuite and Salesforce

What Benefits Does NetSuite Ecommerce Integration Provide?

NetSuite ecommerce integration offers ecommerce retailers of all sizes the following benefits:

  • Evaluate business profitability, performance, and productivity by analyzing the latest metrics and KPIs,
  • Improve ecommerce functions such as paying employees, managing business growth, managing product supply and demand in warehouses and production plants, handling income and expenditure, and improving customer relationships.
  • BI tools provide ecommerce retailers with in-depth and customizable daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reports about their business. 
  • Companies can share these reports with partners, investors, and internal team members. 
  • Remove all the data silos in your organization. (When data exists in silos, it can be difficult to perform analysis.) By integrating NetSuite data with data from other systems, you can create a 360-degree view of all the data activities in your business and learn more about customers, inventory, accounting, and sales and marketing processes.

Recommended reading: The NetSuite Integration Guide

What Type of Analysis Can You Perform After NetSuite Ecommerce Integration?

NetSuite ecommerce integration can provide you with unparalleled data insights:

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics help you forecast future trends in your ecommerce organization using historical and statistical information. As a result, you can learn which customer cohorts provide ongoing brand loyalty (customer lifetime value, or CLV), how customers engage with your omnichannel marketing campaigns, and how to improve everyday functions such as payroll and bookkeeping.

Machine Learning

Machine learning (ML), a subset of artificial intelligence (AI), automates predictive modeling by producing algorithms that search for trends and patterns in data sets. With ML, you can generate deeper data insights and become a more successful organization. 

Real-Time Reports

With real-time reports about data activities in your ecommerce organization, you can learn more about your sales, customer, inventory, payroll, and financial workflows and make smarter decisions. It's that simple. Use the information in reports to learn more about how customers interact with your web store, how inventory influences your ecommerce operations, and which sales and marketing reps provide your organization with the most value. 

NetSuite Ecommerce Integration Use Cases

Here are a couple of use cases that demonstrate the power and effectiveness of NetSuite ecommerce integration:

  • An online retailer specializing in consumer electronics wants to learn more about the customers who purchase their products. The retailer decides to move data from NetSuite to AWS Redshift and then run that data through Looker. The resulting data insights help the online retailer manage supply and demand, improve customer loyalty, and offer personalized products to customers. 

  • An online retailer specializing in footwear has data in separate siloed systems. For example, the retailer has some ecommerce data in NetSuite and other data in Salesforce and other software suites. By integrating all of this data into a data warehouse, the retailer can create an SSOT that makes it easier to run data through BI platforms and generate insights about their footwear business. 

  • An online retailer wants to improve inventory management processes and optimize supply and demand, especially during busy retail periods like the run-up to Black Friday. The best way to achieve this goal is to move NetSuite data to a warehouse, use the warehouse as an SSOT, and push data into BI platforms for analysis. 

How Integrate.io Helps With NetSuite Ecommerce Integration

Integrate.io is a new data warehouse integration platform built for ecommerce. This single platform eliminates the everyday problems of integrating NetSuite data with a target system by automating data integration tasks and preventing the need for manual pipeline-building. Integrate.io's native NetSuite connector (launched in February 2022) lets you treat NetSuite as both a data source and destination, facilitating data integration methods like ETL, ELT, ReverseETL, and CDC. Now you can move NetSuite to a warehouse or lake (and then on to a BI tool) without the stress and generate impressive insights about your enterprise without advanced coding or data engineering skills. 

Integrate.io removes the barriers of NetSuite ecommerce integration with its drag-and-drop click-and-point interface that doesn't require a steep learning curve. Unlike other data integration tools, Integrate.io removes all the jargon that exists when moving NetSuite data to a third-party target system, making the process simpler for ecommerce teams. 

It's not just NetSuite ecommerce integration. Integrate.io offers over 100 native out-of-the-box connectors for ecommerce-related platforms, including apps, ERPs, SaaS tools, relational databases, transactional databases, and e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and eBay. Like with NetSuite, Integrate.io can move data from Salesforce to a warehouse and then back into Salesforce for operational analytics. If you can't find a native connector for your data needs, Integrate.io can build one for you. 

Integrate.io understands that data governance compliance is an ever-present concern for ecommerce companies like yours. That's why the scalable platform complies with all major data governance regulations when integrating data, helping you steer clear of expensive government penalties. Now you can transfer data from NetSuite to a target system without worrying about breaking the law. 

Other Integrate.io benefits include simple pricing and world-class security. You can also communicate with the Integrate.io team via phone, email, and live chat. 

Integrate.io is a new data warehouse integration platform designed exclusively for ecommerce. NetSuite ecommerce integration has never been easier. Integrate NetSuite data in a low-code/no-code environment and transform how you generate ecommerce analytics for your team. Schedule an intro call or email hello@integrate.io to learn more about NetSuite ecommerce integration.