Moto Direct Web

Moto Direct

Find out why Moto Direct switched e-commerce providers from Magento to Sana Commerce — and how it benefited.

  • Leading motorcycle clothing and accessory manufacturer and distributor
  • Grew from simple buy-and-sell distributor, to a much more complex business involved in manufacturing and brand development
  • Based in the U.K.
  • Caters to a wide variety of clients around the world, ranging from individual store owners to large distributors
4x faster

implementation Sana vs. Magento

27% lower

TCO for Sana than for Magento

4x increase

in online export orders

    The challenge

    Keeping up with rapid business growth and delivering a stellar customer experience

    As Moto Direct was experiencing rapid growth, its existing B2B e-commerce website — which was both outdated and lagging behind its competitors — was holding the business back. The company needed a new B2B web store to integrate with its Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP system, which was due to launch at the same time.
    The company’s goal was to:

    • Improve the web store’s performance, design and usability
    • Make it easy for its B2B customers to place large, complex orders
    • Allow its customers to access their account and order information online

    This was one of the biggest projects undertaken by the company. Initially, it chose Magento as its e-commerce solution partner.
    Moto Direct Challenge

    The problem

    Magento integration challenges

    With no prior experience in this type of project, Moto Direct underestimated the complexity of the Magento web store implementation. The project quickly fell behind schedule and over budget, and received poor feedback from internal stakeholders. This, in turn, significantly delayed the launch of the new ERP system — a huge investment for the company.

    When implementing Magento, the main issues faced by Moto Direct included:

    • Cost of B2B customization: As Magento isn’t a pure B2B platform, there were many missing features. This meant additional development was needed, which added time, cost and complexity, and held the project back.
    • Complexity of integrating B2B logic: When integrating Magento with Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the business logic and processes already stored in the ERP have to be replicated in Magento. From complex pricing to real-time, accurate inventory information, a lot of additional development and manual work was needed to synchronize the data between the NAV ERP and Magento. This would not only prove to be an issue during implementation, but would also require constant maintenance after the web store launch.

    The decision

    Switch e-commerce solution providers

    Although the team could likely have made the Magento platform work for them eventually, the necessary ongoing integration costs and poor functionality meant that it did not make sense to continue with the implementation. Moto Direct also recognized that continuing with Magento would lead to a web store that would not have delivered the excellent customer experience the company prides itself on. Despite having already invested a lot of time and money, Moto Direct made the difficult decision to find a new provider, and switched to Sana Commerce.

    The solution

    Leveraging the strength of the ERP

    Having chosen Sana Commerce as its e-commerce platform, Moto Direct experienced the following benefits:

    • Seamless ERP integration: Because Sana builds integrated web stores directly into the ERP, we eliminate the need to replicate all the business logic, processes and data of the ERP into the web store. This was a huge time saver for Moto Direct — not only in terms of getting the project live, but also in terms of the day-to-day maintenance of the web store.
    • Fast implementation: Direct ERP integration also leads to fast and efficient implementation. Moto Direct was able to launch its Sana web store in just four months: that’s less than a quarter of the time it had previously spent in only partially implementing its Magento web store.
    • Transparent, helpful and specialized B2B partner: While the choice of e-commerce software is important, Moto Direct found the choice of partner equally as important. With no prior experience in this type of project, the company was looking for guidance and support from its e-commerce partner. In Sana, it found a partner that provided helpful advice and honest conversations. We provided realistic timelines and B2B expertise, which meant the project successfully met the planned launch date.

    Read more about the benefits of ERP integration in our white paper.

    Having that out-of-the-box integration, where we didn’t need to replicate all our business processes on the website, was a huge time saver for Moto Direct. We love the Sana product because it’s really hands off. We don’t need to worry about the day-to-day management of data and other such tedious tasks.

    Moto Direct Sean Hefferin | Supply Chain Manager at Moto Direct

    The results

    Reduced costs, increased efficiency and more global orders

    Moto Direct’s Sana Commerce web store helped the company meet all its initial goals, and has received positive feedback from its customers. It also delivered the following results:

    • Reduced cost of implementation: Thanks to the seamless ERP integration, the initial cost of implementing the Sana web store was 50% lower than what Moto Direct had invested into the partial implementation of the Magento platform. Moto Direct also expects the total cost of ownership (TCO) over 3 years to be 27% less for Sana than for Magento.
    • Low maintenance cost: Since there is no need to replicate ERP data into the web store, the maintenance of Moto Direct’s new web store requires minimal business resources — even less than Moto Direct’s previous web store. Maintenance also doesn’t require any technical knowledge, so no experts are needed in house.
    • Increased efficiency with customer self-service: Just four months after going live, Moto Direct was already seeing a reduction in calls and emails as customers become used to accessing the information they need online. Whether the customer is looking for product specifications, a tracking number for a recent shipment, or a copy of their latest statement, they can find it all in the web store. This saves time both for Moto Direct and its customers.
    • Increased export orders: Within a few months of the web store launch, export customer online orders — which are very often larger and more complex than typical orders — quadrupled compared to the order levels on Moto Direct’s previous website. Feedback from key export customers has also been very positive.

    Whenever I work with Sana, I’m consistently blown away. Every single person I speak to is helpful, friendly and goes out of their way to work for Moto Direct. I think it’s a huge part of why our project has been so successful. `{`…`}` I would 100% recommend Sana Commerce to other companies considering Magento, so they can avoid repeating our mistakes.

    Moto Direct Sean Hefferin | Supply Chain Manager at Moto Direct

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