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Comment by ratrocket | Hacker News Reader

That's a nice Friday surprise..! My company is in the process of migrating from an in-house ecommerce platform to Shopify and we picked Stitchlabs for ... that piece (inventory mgmt? warehouse mgmt?). Oh well!

Any suggestions for a "modern"[1] piece of software that plays the role of Stitch, specifically in a set up with Shopify?

1: I ended up being pretty disappointed with Stitch. My fault for not checking deeper, but I thought they would have an API, at least. Nope, they use sftp for integration to sales channels they don't "natively support". That's what I mean by "modern": does it have an API that you don't have to pay >$2k/mo to access.

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My team has worked with their API and had a lot of grievances with it.

Regarding API openness vs flat file.. we in the OMS space have our hands tied by the WMS, ERP and EDI world. Investment in an open API doesn't really have any ROI it's actually more of a money pit than anything. Most of the high value integrations are with antiquated systems where all of the connectivity is flat file CSV, XML, EDI type thing. It's awful.

There's also very very slim margins the shipping / fulfillment middleware market. It's incredibly costly to maintain these legacy proprietary connections, mission critical to the business so near constant customer service requests with complex "we're on fire" troubleshooting, and nobody wants another expense lumped onto their shipping costs so it's very hard to justify paying a premium.

Not surprised that any company in this space backed by VC is getting dumped by their investors like a hot pile of bricks. OMS is about consultation and pain endurance, not venture exits

Thanks for the explanation. I had some vague sense something like this was the case but wouldn't know where to even start looking for a confirmation of that sense. This makes the pieces fall into place, thanks!

Hey! I'm obviously biased but I thought you might be interested in what we're building over at fulfil.io.

For one, we have a 100% open API that's included in our subscription.

if you're interested you can message me directly at luke.chesney@fulfil.io, would love to show you the product

I haven’t seen the product in a couple of years, but your team has always stood out as uniquely knowledgeable and deliberate with your approach. You are getting the data models right in a way that I don’t think others are. For anyone reading — I think these folks are worth a look. We have used many (MANY) of the solutions mentioned here and if Fulfil has been able to get it right - it should be great.

WooCommerce is a pretty popular product - would be nice if that was supported (we are migrating off Stitch Labs too).

The problem is WooCommerce isn't a product. It's a framework and it depends on your implementation as to whether or not you're going to have a good time with one inventory management system or another.

In direct comparison to Shopify, when you uninstall a Shopify plugin you have zero risk of lingering effects. You can't install a plugin that will break your API in "please hire better developers" ways, and Shopify doesn't give you enough power to harm yourself with "infinite variant" issues or un-trackable products.

Even with WPEngine which takes much of the complexity away of improperly sized machines or databases you still are able to destroy your ability to interface with other software through variant madness or overzealous plugins.

That being said we support it and our customers are happy who use it and get through the initial hurdles but it's very much up to your team or in most cases the outsourced help as to whether or not you're compatible.

Ordoro https://www.ordoro.com/ could be a good alternative (Disclosure: I am the co-founder of Ordoro). Ordoro works well with Shopify and has an open API. We've successfully migrated users from Stitch Labs to Ordoro in the past.

+1 for Ordoro if you’re on Shopify

Finale Inventory is a multichannel inventory management solution that has a Shopify integration. The Platinum plan is $649/month, it includes API access and unlimited integrations.

Disclosure: I'm a software engineer at the company, not a business owner that uses the software.

Finale co-founder and CTO here. We've been in the SaaS inventory management space since 2011 and are bootstrapped so you won't have to worry about us disappearing because investors stop supporting the company.

If you have any questions about Finale: chris@finaleinventory.com

Hey, I’m the CEO of TradeGecko.com - and we’ve been focusing on solving this problem for a long time now.

We’ve got an open API and a sales channel SDK, happy to see if we can help.

Cameron at tradegecko dot com

Having worked with TradeGecko a lot through customers, you guys seem like a good option for anyone on Stitch currently (And yes, I enjoy your API so much more than the Stitch API).

Thanks!

Also, we're focused on SMB omni-channel product based businesses, we're not as focused on super-high volume DTC brands -- Skubana is a good option if that's your business profile.

Skubana is also a great platform. Good to see you guys working in partnership.

Definitely worth checking out Veeqo as a potential solution for your inventory and shipping.

Directly integrates with all major ecommerce channels (Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, Etsy, Walmart etc), features one click shipping label printing, and offers discounts of up to 90% on USPS shipping rates.

Veeqo also comes with open API access for all users across all plans, in case you need to build on top of it with any additional functionality.

You can try it free for 14 days via the Veeqo website, and it's pretty quick and easy to get set up. Let me know if I can help you at all with it!

(Disclaimer - I work for Veeqo)

If you’re looking to do real-time stock level syncing as well as bundling/kitting, check out Trunk. We integrate with Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Faire, Square, Squarespace, and Etsy. We have a superb integration with Shopify as you can see from our app listing reviews: https://apps.shopify.com/trunk

https://trunkinventory.com

P.S. I’m the founder, happy to answer any questions

Fiddle (fiddle.io) is a great option also. I'm the technical cofounder of Fiddle. Fiddle is much cheaper than stitch, (no contract & month to month) and has advanced inventory features for brands and manufacturers. Fiddle stands out if you are doing kitting/bundling, assembly, or anything to do with a bill of materials. We also have a nice Shopify integration.

I am the Cofounder and CEO of Zentail (S12), I'm not sure exactly what you were looking to achieve with stitch, but we offer pretty robust backend ecommerce infrastructure and we integrate with all of the major storefronts and marketplaces. Happy to chat to see if we could help, also happy to answer any questions here

[Edit] (we do offer a pretty robust api)

Hi,

This is the founder of https://sumtracker.com

We have a superb integration with shopify. Please give us a try. Email me at hello@sumtracker.com

I will schedule a demo with you. We can manage all operations for your warehouse, fulfilment and shipping.

We've migrated a number of operations off of Stitch after they recently forced upgrades to Stitch X and took away features their customers depend on that we offer.

I'd be happy to review your needs and make sure you find the right software out there.

I'm Head of Product at SKULabs.

I have used finale, stitch and DEAR

Of the 3, DEAR was the best value. Finale is good but extremely expensive. I would not recommend stitch.

In all cases i have been the key user becoming the SME for the team on the SAAS. Idont have a horse on this race, only sharing my experience

Good luck!

I am the cofounder of Picqer. We provide modern warehouse management software for e-commerce businesses. We are here for 8 years, bootstrapped and profitable. We have a modern and open API, see picqer.com/api.

Boop from ShipHero. Stitch isn't really a WMS. If you need a WMS and are on Shopify, did you check us out? We tend to get those brands (we power about $5 Billion of annual ecommerce GMV).

I'm curious as well, their inventory fulfillment + content management seemed pretty awesome. Im curious what alternatives there are out there.

same, had a really bad experience with Stitch. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of custom middleware connections between Shopify and Shipstation. InfoPlus is another one that was pretty decent when I used it several years ago.

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