Stitch Labs has been acquired by Square

https://www.stitchlabs.com/blog/stitch-labs-acquired-by-square/

by simonsarris • 6 years ago

88 60 6 years ago

stitchlabs.com

cgb223• 6 years ago

Longer term, we plan to sunset Stitch Lab’s products so the team can focus on building out Square tools

Looks like it was an acqui-hire

tyre• 6 years ago

We are still in the early stages of this process, but in the future we also plan to share information on how you can migrate to Square, if you choose to do so.

They have customers that they hope to move to the acquiring company. It's not just about the talent.

kenmck2• 6 years ago

That's a really odd statement since Stitch's main feature is multi-channel inventory synchronization and Square doesn't do that at all.

casperb3• 6 years ago

That is a bold move. It is not easy as a warehouse to switch for your WMS software. So to give all your customers ~6-8 months to switch to something else is not a nice move.

They were pretty big on the Shopify App Store alone and had decent pricing, 500 dollar per month and up. Should be a perfectly nice business.

But seems that they did not do any new releases the last 8 months: https://stitch.releasenotes.io/

kutorio• 6 years ago

M&A process is pretty draining, so that could explain the 8 months of inactivity.

casperb3• 6 years ago

Maybe a little, but if you want to acquire the business for the product than it is weird to let your product completely stagnate. If your team cannot keep shipping while other things happening, is it really worth to acquire?

JaggedJax5• 6 years ago

There were some rumours floating around for about that long of them potentially shutting down. The rumors didn't mention the acquisition part, but they turned out to be accurate about an impending shutdown. It was also clear from the last 6+ months that the platform was stagnant.

MuffinFlavored2• 6 years ago

any idea why they’d shut down? are they not raking in money hand over fist? are they profitable?

ratrocket2• 6 years ago

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.

syntaxing2• 6 years ago

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

disantlor• 6 years ago

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.

KyleJune• 6 years ago

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.

chondl• 6 years ago

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

lchesney• 6 years ago

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

numlocked• 6 years ago

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.

icelancer• 6 years ago

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

jagath• 6 years ago

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.

kh302• 6 years ago

+1 for Ordoro if you’re on Shopify

IG_Semmelweiss• 6 years ago

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!

aaronrubin• 6 years ago

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).

rwhitman2• 6 years ago

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

ratrocket2• 6 years ago

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!

czcar2• 6 years ago

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

JaggedJax5• 6 years ago

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).

dsugarman• 6 years ago

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)

zaphodq• 6 years ago

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.

Axsuul• 6 years ago

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

bmcahren3• 6 years ago

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.

casperb3• 6 years ago

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.

duncanveeqo• 6 years ago

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)

kojuka• 6 years ago

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.

syntaxing2• 6 years ago

Is there an alternative to the service from Stitch labs? I didn't hear about them until now and I can see the application of their service. But Im worried with the acquisition, it'll become obsolete and push users to Square.

kenmck2• 6 years ago

There are many. Their feature sets vary a lot.

bmcahren3• 6 years ago

We've had numerous of their customers flock to us over the last six months due to a lack of customer support and evolving product changes that diverted from customer needs like the removal of scan verification.

We're a pretty solid replacement and recently hit a record 30 minute migration for one customer today. If you have any questions about the process we'd be happy to at least point you in the right direction even if it's not us (SKULabs).

MakeUsersWant• 6 years ago

Stitchdata.com, the maker of the ETL tools Stitch and Singer.io, is a different company (and is not being acquired).

icebraining2• 6 years ago

Neither is STITCH, the digital fashion design startup :)

umeshunni• 6 years ago

Isn't that Stitch Fix?

AustinBGibbons• 6 years ago

They were acquired by Talend in late 2018, I think.

dzonga• 6 years ago

same too, at first I reckoned it was stitchdata. alas, so many stitches.

g0rbongler• 6 years ago

I've heard good things about https://www.finaleinventory.com/ but haven't tried them yet.

notatoad• 6 years ago

i'm sure there will be some people disappointed by this, but it seems like a pretty ideal way to do a acquihire-and-shutdown.

there's no bullshit or ambiguity about how the product will continue despite us all knowing it won't, just a clear end-date far enough in the future that nobody can reasonably complain about it.

taurath• 6 years ago

"We were drawn to Square’s purpose of economic empowerment."

Is a fun way to say "We're rich!!!!"

rwhitman2• 6 years ago

Overall pretty shocking as they were pitching to be an ERP replacement for e-commerce. Anyone who was using Stitch Labs as an ERP-light is going to have a substantial amount of pain migrating in a hurry.

I've referred some of Stitch Labs biggest customers to their platform, so I feel particularly guilty about their being sunset in an acquihire like this.

If anyone needs advice about what to do, I'm well versed in the area of OMS & ERP migrations. Linkedin is in my profile

ilikeerp2• 6 years ago

Stitch labs slag off ERP a lot. What're your thoughts on NetSuite? I know lots of fast growing companies that use it.

lrm242• 6 years ago

Ran a business that started on stitch. What a painful piece of software that is. We had a heavily custom integration to their api and very high order volume. Moved to NetSuite, built many a customization and integration. NetSuite is great, but expensive and you will find the developer experience painful. As an ERP without investing heavily in customization it does a great job.

acwan93• 6 years ago

I'd love to hear about your thoughts on where things in this area are going. We provide an in-house, completely customizable ERP system for wholesale distributors, many of which have started selling directly to consumers via Amazon, Shopify, etc.

Since joining, I've provided direct integrations between these channels and our ERP (it's an old system installed on-premises). We're in the middle of reinventing the company's attempts at e-commerce to a SaaS model. It seems like Stitch Labs was trying to downplay the role of an ERP, but based on our customers it seems like it's still needed.

kareemm• 6 years ago

Can't say I'm surprised. Been a customer for years. Had many issues, was regularly frustrated by support and by the software rewrites.

This feels like if they were more customer-focused and more circumspect about raising money (they raised $23M) they would have had a nice, profitable business.

BMS5102• 6 years ago

I work at Brahmin Solutions. Check out Brahmin Solutions https://www.brahmin-solutions.com

We have worked with dozens of customers over the past 8-10 months trying to migrate from Stitch Labs. We can be an alternative as we cover most of their features and more. If you are a manufacturer we might be an even better fit than having to use Netsuite.

kangaroozach• 6 years ago

Acquihire? How do these usually work? Who approaches who?

blackrock• 6 years ago

What do they do? And why are they unique or special?

SellerGrip• 6 years ago

If you are looking for a multi channel listing, inventory sync, and order management check us out at https://sellergrip.com

Stitch Labs has been acquired by Square

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