Why this international composites group chose Tinx over Microsoft’s free Shopify connector Bob’s Industry Insights #4

In this episode of Bob’s Industry Insights, Jeroen talks with Bob about a large French composites group migrating from obsolete e-commerce systems to Shopify. With Business Central on-premise across multiple European subsidiaries, they discovered Microsoft’s free Shopify connector only works with cloud versions. What are their integration priorities? And why does on-premise deployment still make sense for international operations?

Jeroen: Bob, you recently spoke with a project manager from a large group operating in the composites industry. What’s driving their e-commerce transformation?

Bob: It’s a family-owned organization with over 40 companies across Europe in the composites and gas industries. Two of their subsidiaries, one in Belgium and one in the UK, currently run outdated e-commerce platforms that need replacing. Belgium is using a heavily customized system that’s become obsolete, while the UK operates on a platform called EKM without any integration at all. They’ve selected Shopify as their new platform and need it properly integrated with Business Central, but here’s the catch: they run Business Central on-premise across multiple countries, and Microsoft’s free Shopify connector only works with the cloud version.

Jeroen: What kind of organization are we talking about?

Bob: They’re active across composites and special effects supplies. In Belgium, they serve sculptors, mold makers, and the special effects industry with products like silicones, resins, and casting materials.  It’s a fascinating mix of B2B professionals and B2C hobbyists and cosplay enthusiasts. They operate Business Central on-premise with a shared server architecture serving multiple countries, which makes sense for their international structure but complicates the connector situation.

Jeroen: Why are they still on-premise when many companies have moved to cloud?

Bob: Scale and complexity. They’re managing Business Central implementations across UK, Belgium, Germany, five Nordic countries, Serbia, Poland, Italy, Spain, and France. They use regional servers to minimize infrastructure, so their Northern European server handles multiple countries and companies. They’ve been actively migrating from NAV 2009 to Business Central 22, with plans to upgrade to BC 26 soon. With that many implementations and ongoing migrations, moving everything to cloud at once isn’t practical. The on-premise approach gives them control and allows phased upgrades across their organization.

Jeroen: What are their main integration requirements?

Bob: Interestingly, product catalog integration isn’t their priority because their product range is relatively stable. What they really need is robust customer management and order processing. For customers, they want both B2C shoppers and B2B professionals to register online, with the ability to sync that data back to Business Central. Orders need to flow seamlessly from Shopify to Business Central for fulfillment. They also want real-time inventory updates and shipment tracking information synced back to customers. The project manager specifically mentioned they can work with scheduled updates rather than constant real-time sync, which gives us flexibility in the implementation approach.

Jeroen: What challenges are they facing with pricing?

Bob: That’s actually one of the more complex discussions. They currently use fairly flat pricing on their webshops because managing individual customer pricing has been difficult. For B2B customers, they typically offer standard discounts like 15% or 20% off certain products, but right now they often have customers place orders and then call for pricing adjustments. Ideally, they’d like to manage B2B pricing in Business Central and have that reflected online. The challenge is that Shopify’s standard editions don’t support sophisticated B2B pricing unless you go with Shopify Plus, which starts around $2,300 per month, and they can’t justify that cost for these webshops.

Jeroen: What solutions did you discuss for the pricing challenge?

Bob: We explored a few options. For simple percentage-based discounts like their standard 15% for certain B2B customers, we can use customer attributes in Shopify that their e-commerce agency can leverage to apply discounts on the frontend. It’s not as sophisticated as full price list management, but it works for their current needs. I also introduced them to Spark Layer, a wholesale B2B add-on for Shopify that adds more advanced B2B functionality. It does add a few hundred euros monthly, but it’s worth considering if they want more robust B2B features without jumping to Shopify Plus.

Jeroen: What’s their implementation approach?

Bob: The project manager has significant experience with Business Central and integration projects, and he’s planning to handle the implementation themselves using our documentation and support when needed. That’s actually quite common with technically capable teams. We also gave them the option of a full-service project with dedicated consultants and project management if they decide they want that level of support once they get into it.

Jeroen: How does licensing work when you have multiple companies on one server?

Bob: This is important for on-premise deployments. When you install our connector on a Business Central server, it becomes available to all companies on that server. However, licensing is managed per company through what we call sales channels. Each company that wants to actively use the connector needs its own license, which connects one Business Central company to one Shopify store. In their case, they’d need one license for Belgium and one for the UK. Because they’re ordering both as part of the same project, we can offer volume discounts on the licensing.

Jeroen: What does Tinx offer as a solution?

Bob: We provide our Shopify Connector for Business Central on-premise, which includes:

• Full support for all Business Central on-premise versions, including BC 22 and BC 26
• Customer synchronization for both B2B and B2C scenarios
• Order import with flexible mapping and validation
• Real-time inventory updates with scheduled sync options
• Shipment and tracking information export
• Flexible pricing structures including Business Central price lists
• No per-user, per-product, or per-order limitations, just flat monthly licensing
• Ongoing updates to keep pace with both Business Central and Shopify API changes

The key advantage is that we’re not just providing software. We’re a strategic partner that handles all the technical complexity of keeping integrations working as both platforms evolve.

Jeroen: And what’s the benefit of working with Tinx versus developing something custom?

Bob: Time, reliability, and ongoing maintenance. The project manager mentioned spending six months getting OAuth 2 working with UPS on NAV 2009 because they had to find developers still willing to work with obsolete code. With a proven connector, they avoid that entire risk. They get immediate access to functionality that would take months to develop and test. More importantly, when Shopify changed their entire API from REST to GraphQL, we handled that transition for all our customers. With custom development, every API change, every Business Central upgrade, every new requirement means going back to developers and managing another project. Our solution just keeps working. For organizations managing multiple subsidiaries across Europe, that predictability is invaluable.

Are you running Business Central on-premise and need a reliable Shopify integration that works with your infrastructure?

Schedule a demo or introduction call with us today.