STIGA Sports automates its Amazon business with the Amazon Marketplace Connector

As an establishedompany, the Swedish sporting goods manufacturer STIGA Sports distributes a wide range of table tennis equipment, paddles, snow racers and other articles from the sports and leisure sector. In addition to the classic distribution business, in which the manufacturer exports many of its articles to China, Japan, Canada and numerous other countries, one business area in particular is proving to be a real growth engine: e-commerce. STIGA has recorded a continuous increase in sales for both its own online store and its Amazon marketplace presence. For the latter, the Amazon Marketplace Connector from ESYON has been in use since January 2022.

We reviewed the project together with Ulrika Zetterfeldt, financial accounting employee at STIGA Sports. She told us in an interview what challenges STIGA has to overcome in its day-to-day business with Amazon and exactly how ESYON is a help here.

Automation of the Amazon business with the AMC from ESYON

High administrative workload and lack of support: these were the challenges STIGA Sports had to deal with.

From the financial accountant Ulrika’s point of view, the international distribution business with wholesalers all over the world  makes comparatively little work. For example, shipping a container of non-rubberised table tennis bats, commonly called blades, in the B2B sector draws exactly one invoice. In the context of an Amazon business designed to sell directly to the end customer, the same container generates hundreds of individual transactions – for which an individual invoice must be issued each time. Manually, this effort is impossible to manage.

“If we wanted to process our order volume via Amazon manually, we would have to hire many new people,” Ulrika says with a laugh.

This problem exponentially increases when a retailer like STIGA Sports wants to sell internationally via several Amazon domains. As the number of marketplaces increases, so does the complexity. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that e-commerce leader Amazon is intransparent in many respects and charges a multitude of different fees that are difficult for retailers to understand. In addition, there are also differences in tax law.

STIGA Sports takes off in Europe with ESYON

STIGA Sports was looking for a solution that would bring together Amazon Marketplace and the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations ERP system used by the company. Previously, the Swedes had replaced their old Microsoft AX 2012 in an elaborate process.

“This was a very big project for us, and we invested a lot in it,” Ulrika reveals. That an integrated solution was needed for the upcoming challenges in everyday business with Amazon was clear to everyone involved from the beginning – including the management. In their search, Ulrika and her colleague Andreas came across ESYON.

“The seamless integration and functionality convinced us. A product like ESYON’s Amazon Cockpit is really rare. On the sales side, there are many tools that help transfer incoming orders into the ERP system. However, financial accounting is often disregarded in the process. ESYON has not done that and has created a product that harmonises sales and finance. We would like to see more companies take notice of this intelligent solution.”

The collaboration with ESYON and STIGA Sports started in August 2021, with the brand going live on the German domain as an Amazon Seller just four months later. Since then, all new products have been listed on Amazon Seller Central. Before that, it had already been selling as a vendor on the marketplace for several years.

Digression: In contrast to Amazon Sellers, who act as independent retailers on Amazon, Vendors sell on behalf of Amazon.

The company has since connected a number of other Amazon domains, including Spain, Italy, France and Sweden.

“For a long time we didn’t have that many sales through Amazon. But these have since developed very positively. E-commerce may not be the biggest part of our turnover for us yet, but we can already see that it has the potential to be.”

Constant cooperation creates a win-win situation

We value being close to our customers and providing them with long-term and personalized support. That’s why our customers always have a fixed contact person who advises and supports them individually. When we ask her if she would work with ESYON again, Ulrika therefore logically answers:

“We still do.”

The cooperation with STIGA Sports is nevertheless something special. At STIGA, they strive to get to the bottom of how an ERP is handled. In this way, the employees have developed immense know-how. The mutual exchange helps us to adapt our solution to the needs of the retailer and to make it even better in the long run. This creates a win-win situation for both sides.

In the future, STIGA Sports would also like to expand into the US market. We are convinced that the company will achieve its ambitious goals and look forward to being a part of future projects! Ulrika, we thank you for the cooperation so far and the exciting interview. We wish you and STIGA Sports all the best for the future.