Bocci: NetSuite E-commerce Integration Discovery

Lead Web Engineer and Systems Architect responsible for technical discovery and solution architecture for a NetSuite to Craft Commerce integration. Bocci, a Canadian luxury lighting manufacturer, needed to connect their NetSuite ERP to their e-commerce platform, but their existing product data structure wasn’t designed for online retail.

The core challenge: their products in NetSuite were defined as groups of sub-items reflecting their highly configurable nature, rather than as clear products with SKU variants that e-commerce platforms require. Additionally, staff were manually copying order information from Craft Commerce into NetSuite for every sale, creating delays and data entry errors that slowed fulfillment.

The Challenge

Bocci’s lighting products are highly configurable, with thousands of possible variations. Their NetSuite structure reflected their manufacturing process, organizing products as hierarchical groups of components rather than the flat product/variant structure e-commerce platforms expect.

This created a fundamental mismatch: NetSuite held data optimized for production and inventory, while Craft Commerce needed data structured for customer browsing and purchasing.

Key complexity factors:

• Products represented as component groups, not sellable items
• Thousands of possible configurations per product line
• No clear SKU variant structure for e-commerce display
• Future 3D visual configurator requiring compatible data model

What I Delivered

E-commerce Data Structure Recommendation

I analyzed their NetSuite data and defined what structure their e-store needed to successfully represent and sync their products:

• Product/SKU variant mapping translating component groups into purchasable products
• Variant structure design enabling customers to select configurations
• Data transformation requirements for syncing between systems
• Configurator compatibility ensuring the structure could support their planned 3D visual product configurator

Technical Architecture

• Designed queue-based synchronization approach for handling thousands of variations
• Mapped data flows between NetSuite’s manufacturing-oriented structure and Craft Commerce’s retail structure
• Identified custom fields and transformations required for accurate sync
• Created technical specifications for the full implementation phase

Sync Requirements Analysis

Defined synchronization requirements across all data types:

• Products and configurable variants
• Stock levels and pricing
• Orders and order status
• Customer accounts and discounts
• Shipping information
• Product images

Outcome

The discovery phase provided Bocci with a clear roadmap for restructuring their NetSuite data to support e-commerce operations. The architecture accounts for their highly configurable product nature while creating the structured data format required for successful ERP to e-commerce synchronization.

The recommended structure also ensures compatibility with their planned 3D visual configurator, allowing customers to configure products online while maintaining accurate inventory and order data in NetSuite.

Business Impact: Once implemented, this integration will eliminate hours of daily manual order copying, reduce fulfillment delays, and prevent the data entry errors that occur when staff manually transfer order details between systems.

Implemented solutions:

• E-commerce and Warehouse Data Sync
• Custom E-commerce Functionality
• Flexible Content Management
• Product Configurator

Used technologies: