Retail
StartupNathan James massively simplifies EDI workflows with Stedi
Nathan James designs and sells furniture and home goods that are high-quality, stylish, affordable, and easy to assemble. Founded in 2016, they are a fast-growing startup that is continually expanding to new markets.
Challenge
Nathan James uses a custom-built Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application to receive 850 Purchase Orders from trading partners and send back 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgments. To reduce costs and make integrations easier, the team wanted to replace their legacy EDI service.
More flexibility was a major requirement. “Our previous solution required a very specific processing flow and didn’t allow much customization,” says Senior Software Engineer Lucas Graciano. “We wanted something event-driven that would give us more control over our pipeline.”
The team also wanted a solution with complete access to self-service tools, plus comprehensive documentation and a responsive customer success team – they were tired of getting stuck in support queues.
Solution
Nathan James selected Stedi to build an EDI integration with a new trading partner: Amazon Canada (amazon.ca).
The team set up a Remote SFTP connection with Amazon and configured Stedi to poll for new files automatically. Then, they created a Stedi mapping to transform processed Purchase Orders into a custom JSON shape. Finally, they configured a Destination webhook to automatically send transformed JSON to their internal API.
Nathan James also uses Stedi’s automatic 997 feature to autogenerate 997 Functional Acknowledgments for Amazon in response to each Purchase Order.
Lucas says 997s are just one of the many Stedi features that make his life easier. “Another one is the outstanding level of support. The docs are great, and the team is so responsive that I’m never blocked waiting for answers.”
Results
Nathan James now plans to transition all of its EDI integrations to Stedi.
Once the migration is complete, the team anticipates their EDI capabilities will be roughly 50% less expensive than their current solution. These savings are compounded by the fact that with Stedi, Lucas and his team can build new integrations significantly faster that incur less maintenance burden over time.
“We’re excited to revolutionize how we do EDI over the next few months,” says Lucas. “Migrating to Stedi will have huge benefits for the business, especially as we continue adding trading partners.”
