Epicor + Ecommerce Integration Doesn't Have to Take Months

One question can change the scope of your ecommerce project

“How are we connecting this to Epicor?”

It sounds straightforward. But behind that question are the products, pricing, inventory, customer data, and orders that need to move between your ERP and storefront, along with the development and maintenance required to keep everything working together.

For manufacturers on Epicor Kinetic and distributors on Prophet 21, that connection has historically added significant complexity to bringing B2B ecommerce online.

“The challenge is that every ERP implementation is going to be a little different. The customer’s ERP has been modified, potentially, over time. They’ve changed some of the processes and the way things work.”

— Wayne Stratbucker, Senior Solutions Engineer, Silk Commerce

Silk Commerce knows that challenge firsthand. After years of working with Epicor manufacturers and distributors, the team built ShopHive to turn that experience into a purpose-built connection between Epicor and BigCommerce — giving teams a simpler path to launch without starting every integration from scratch.

Your buyers don’t see the integration. They feel it.

Buyers don’t think about how data moves between Epicor and your storefront. They expect the right products, accurate pricing and inventory, and an ordering experience that works the way it should.

Behind that experience are five types of data Michael Payne, Vice President at Silk Commerce, calls the “lifeblood” of B2B revenue: products, pricing, inventory, customers, and orders. 

When Epicor and ecommerce aren’t working together, gaps between systems can quickly show up in the buyer experience and your day-to-day operations:

• Inventory can fall out of step, leaving buyers with inaccurate availability

• Pricing can become inconsistent, creating confusion for buyers and teams

• Orders can create more manual work to keep ecommerce and Epicor aligned

• Routine questions can land back on your team instead of being handled through self-service

Historically, businesses have often connected Epicor and ecommerce in one of two ways:

• Custom middleware: Offers significant flexibility, but requires the connection to be designed, mapped, built, tested, and maintained as systems and business needs change.

• Integration platform as a service (iPaaS): Provides a broader integration layer when Epicor and ecommerce are part of a larger ecosystem that may also include CRM, warehouse management, marketing, and other systems.

Both approaches have their place. But when the job is connecting Epicor Kinetic or Prophet 21 with BigCommerce, a purpose-built solution can significantly cut down on the custom development and maintenance required.

ShopHive takes the headache out of Epicor integration

ShopHive puts Silk Commerce’s years of Epicor experience to work in a direct connection between Epicor and BigCommerce. Instead of designing the integration from scratch, teams start with an established foundation and configure it around their business.

ShopHive does that through two components:

Synq connects your data.

Synq keeps products, pricing, inventory, customers, and orders moving between Epicor and BigCommerce with automated, bidirectional syncing. Sync schedules are configurable, ranging from near-real-time to nightly depending on your business needs. 

Portl powers buyer self-service.

For businesses that also need customer self-service, Portl includes Synq and adds a buyer-facing portal to the BigCommerce storefront.

Logged-in buyers get 24/7 access to orders, invoices, shipments, and payments pulled directly from Epicor — including orders placed online, by phone, through a sales rep, or via EDI.

Less custom work. A faster path to launch.

Because that integration foundation already exists, ShopHive shifts more of the implementation from custom development to configuration:

• Configurable data sync: Keep critical ecommerce data moving on schedules ranging from near-real-time to nightly.

• Built-in configuration: Manage mappings, sync schedules, warehouses, and other settings through ShopHive’s interface.

• Less developer dependency: Configure the standard integration without building and maintaining custom middleware.

• Hosted and supported: Silk Commerce hosts ShopHive and provides ongoing updates and integration support.

For Kinetic manufacturers and Prophet 21 distributors that fit ShopHive's standard integration model, that can mean getting connected in weeks rather than months.

Instead of starting with “Can this connection be built?”, teams can spend more of the project focused on how the connection should work for their business.

The final word

The best integration is one your team doesn’t have to spend all its time thinking about. Data moves where it needs to go, buyers get the experience they expect, and your teams aren’t stuck managing the gaps in between.

That’s the idea behind ShopHive: make the Epicor-to-BigCommerce connection easier to manage so the integration supports the business instead of becoming another burden on it.

“We’re focused on making sure that people in IT and operations aren’t kept up at night because data is out of sync or the wrong pricing is being presented or orders are getting lost in the mix.”

— Michael Payne, Vice President, Silk Commerce

Ready to see what that looks like? Explore ShopHive to learn how Silk Commerce and BigCommerce can simplify the connection between Epicor and B2B ecommerce.