Switching from Sana Commerce to Magento for more efficiency and control

Miedema’s previous webshop was built on Sana Commerce. However, they noticed a lack of innovation. Combined with rising costs and a revenue-based fee policy, this led Miedema to seek a new solution.

Key challenges with the old system

Incorrect payment processing – Payments made through iDeal were not correctly reflected in Business Central, often causing confusion for customers who had already paid but still received invoices stating a 30-day payment term.

Duplicate customer registrations – Existing customers could register again through the webshop, leading to duplicate accounts and an unnecessary influx of new customer entries in Business Central.

Stock management limitations – Some products are not kept in stock but can be ordered on demand. The previous system only allowed this setting for all products, whereas Miedema wanted to control it at the product or product group level.

Pallet registration issues – Properly assigning pallet types to products was a challenge. Now, Miedema can specify the correct pallet type per product, calculate the number of products per pallet, and automatically adjust pallet quantities based on order size.

Limited pricing options – The available tools didn’t sufficiently support specific pricing such as applying discounts to individual products or product groups for a set period of time. The existing technical capabilities lacked the necessary flexibility.

After an initial kickoff meeting with NVision, Miedema required minimal consultancy. Using the Commerce 365 for Magento documentation, they managed the entire setup and configuration themselves, reducing implementation costs.

The launch of the Magento webshop and its integration with Business Central went smoothly. Everything was thoroughly tested beforehand, ensuring a problem-free go-live.

Intuitive and centralized PIM functionalities

The built-in PIM module in Commerce 365 for Magento has been a major win for Miedema’s content team. “It’s much more intuitive now,” says Teake, who works hands-on with product data. “With one click you can turn any item into a web item. And then everything else is managed from a single card. You can easily see categories, check whether an image is attached, and filter which items you still need to work on. It’s all very efficient.”

Managing content updates has become faster too. “We can simply use Excel files to gather data, and them import everything with ease” Teake adds. “That alone makes our workflow twice as fast.”

One of the improvements after the switch from Sana to Commerce 365 for Magento was the ease and speed of managing product data. Previously, Miedema had to enrich product data in two separate places: the ERP and a disconnected PIM structure. “That was very cumbersome,” recalls Teake Jellema. “If you wanted to update something, it had to be done in both systems.” Synchronization was also slow, taking up to 30 minutes because every single product was reprocessed each time — even if only a handful had been changed.

With Commerce 365 for Magento, product updates are handled far more efficiently. Any changes made in Business Central are queued for synchronization. And in the background a separate process takes care of the communication with Magento. Only updated records are processed, which dramatically reduces waiting time and improves overall system performance.

Miedema now works with two specialized partners: Vendic for the Magento store and NVision for the Business Central integration. While having two partners can sometimes lead to questions about which party is responsible for an issue, Teake says the experience has been very positive: “The collaboration worked well. Once it was clear who needed to handle what, issues were resolved quickly and professionally. Both partners bring their own expertise to the table. That gives us more freedom and results in a higher quality solution overall.”

Commerce 365 for Magento – Acadon module, the industry-specific solution from NVision, is gaining popularity within the timber industry. “Within the Sakol group – but also among Acadon’s customer base – word is spreading very quickly: Commerce 365 for Magento is the integration to work with. I notice a lot of word-of-mouth promotion,” says Ulko Stelpstra – Financial Manager and IT Specialist at Miedema.