How SoundImports ships worldwide without hold-ups with iWeb

SoundImports is a Dutch webshop selling DIY audio components worldwide, from the Netherlands to America and China. With more than 10,000 products in its range, its own warehouse and a direct connector between webshop and accounting, plenty passes through every day. And it has done for well over ten years.

Owner Martijn founded SoundImports in 2015 and quickly saw that processing orders manually was not scalable. He went looking for a reliable connector between Lightspeed and Exact Online, and found iWebDevelopment in 2017. That connector has been running steadily ever since.

The challenge: 10,000 products and a way of working all their own

SoundImports was growing fast. More and more products, more and more orders, and a warehouse that had to get orders ready every day for shipment all over the world. Manually transferring orders from the webshop to Exact Online was no longer sustainable.

On top of that, SoundImports works with a specific picking process internally. The warehouse team needs to know not only which product to pick, but also exactly which variant goes with it, based on the chosen shipping method. With more than 250 shipping methods in the range, that is no small detail. It calls for a connector that adapts to the way SoundImports works. Not the other way round.

The solution: a connector with custom work where it matters

Martijn did his research and, after comparing the options, ended up with iWebDevelopment. The choice was quickly made: at the time there was no other party that could offer the sales order connector he wanted, certainly not with the option of custom work where it was needed.

In concrete terms, the connector handles the following processes fully automatically:

• Orders flow straight from Lightspeed to Exact Online. No manual retyping, no admin waiting to be done.
• B2B and B2C run on the same connector. Whether it is an individual consumer or a large business order: everything runs through the same automated flow.
• Custom shipping method mapping. The title of each shipping method in Lightspeed is translated into the right product information in Exact Online, so the warehouse knows exactly what to pick.
• Logistics control. The pick and pack process starts automatically from Exact Online, with the right information in the right place.
• Worldwide processing. Whether a parcel goes to the Netherlands, America or China: the connector handles it without a hitch.

The impact: peace of mind, growth and no hold-ups

For SoundImports, the difference is not so much a spectacular number, but something harder to quantify: peace of mind. The connector runs stably in the background, day in, day out, year after year. The warehouse does its work, the books are correct, and nobody has to worry about orders getting stuck somewhere.

"The connector gives us peace of mind. Orders flow through automatically and we know exactly where we stand. iWeb makes it possible for us to grow without getting stuck in our own processes."

Marlinde, Content marketer @ SoundImports

The fact that the connector has been running reliably for almost ten years also means the collaboration with iWebDevelopment has become less intensive over the years. Not because the relationship has cooled, but because everything simply works. Meanwhile, the connector quietly keeps expanding: improvements in the Exact Online API are picked up proactively, and new capabilities become available automatically as soon as they exist.

A recommendation that speaks for itself

Looking ahead, SoundImports is sticking to what works: growing in what they do and getting even better at what they are already strong in. The infrastructure is in place, the processes run, and the focus can be on the business rather than the technology behind it.

Asked whether Martijn would recommend iWebDevelopment, the answer is clear. He would recommend iWeb to any company that combines a webshop with Exact Online as its ERP.

"You can build everything yourself, but then the maintenance is yours as well. Choose the easy life. Things are simply better when they are easy."

Martijn, Owner @ SoundImports

Do you also want to ship worldwide without your processes seizing up?

At iWebDevelopment we help companies like SoundImports connect their webshop, accounting and warehouse intelligently. Whether you work with Lightspeed, Exact Online, your own warehouse or a combination of these: we make sure the data is right and the processes keep running, without you having to keep an eye on them constantly.

Curious what we could do for your processes? Get in touch for a no-obligation chat. We are happy to think along with you.