How Saddleback Leather Left NetSuite for Acumatica and Saved Over $1 Million

Not every ERP migration starts from QuickBooks or spreadsheets. Sometimes the system holding a business back is the one that was supposed to fix everything. When a growing eCommerce brand spends seven years and millions of dollars on an ERP platform that still requires 14 developers to keep running, the problem isn't a lack of investment. It's the wrong platform.

Saddleback Leather, a Fort Worth-based maker of high-end leather goods, reached that breaking point with Oracle NetSuite. Slow page loads, impossible integrations, and a mounting development team made it clear that the platform was costing more than it was delivering.

In this article, we're highlighting how an Acumatica customer, Saddleback Leather, replaced Oracle NetSuite with Acumatica, cutting technology costs by 33 percent, gaining 10 times the functionality, and reconnecting its eCommerce operations to a platform that actually works. This story is shared for educational purposes to help ERP buyers understand what's possible with Acumatica.

Company Overview: Saddleback Leather

The origin story is hard to beat. While volunteering as an English teacher in Mexico, Dave Munson wanted a leather bag like the one Indiana Jones carried. He found a local craftsman to make one, and so many people asked where it came from that Munson moved to Juárez, Mexico, to see if he could build a business around it. He slept on the floor in a house without hot water for three years while the first bags were made and sold on eBay.

Today, Saddleback Leather operates a factory in León, Mexico, with more than 200 employees and a headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, with another 55. The company sells luxury leather bags, backpacks, wallets, and accessories through its own BigCommerce online store and third-party marketplaces, making it a primarily direct-to-consumer eCommerce business with a global customer base.

The Challenge: Seven Years of Frustration With Oracle NetSuite

Saddleback Leather originally used a custom-built financial system before moving to Oracle NetSuite, expecting it to serve the company better. After seven years, the opposite proved true.

The problems were extensive:

• The platform required 14 full-time developers just to keep it running

• Nothing worked out of the box, and because NetSuite was proprietary, every customization took far longer than necessary

• Page load times on their NetSuite-powered online store ran between 9 and 12 seconds, drawing penalties from Google that crushed organic traffic

• Creating new product landing pages required a programmer, and adding customer reviews to the site took three months of back-and-forth

• The platform couldn't provide executives with a unified dashboard, so no one could agree on the same set of financial numbers

The situation escalated when Saddleback switched its online storefront from NetSuite to Magento, hoping to solve the eCommerce performance issues. The internal development team spent months trying to connect Magento to NetSuite. They couldn't get the integration to work. The company went an entire month without any online sales.

Over seven years, Saddleback paid approximately $230,000 annually for NetSuite licensing alone. Factoring in the 14-person development team needed to maintain it, the total cost of running NetSuite was estimated at more than $4 million.

Evaluating ERP Platforms After NetSuite

Munson had explored leaving NetSuite in prior years but didn't know what to replace it with. His requirements were clear: easy integration with his eCommerce storefront, efficient inventory management, cloud-based deployment, and a pricing model that didn't penalize growth.

He researched Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, and several other platforms. But he kept hearing the same feedback from peers: legacy systems were retrofitted for the cloud, required more work, and felt clunky.

Then a CEO friend suggested Acumatica. The recommendation wasn't an isolated one. Multiple people in Munson's network pointed him in the same direction, citing Acumatica's pricing, aggressive development roadmap, and user-friendliness.

Why Saddleback Leather Chose Acumatica

Saddleback Leather selected Acumatica Commerce Edition, working with Acumatica ERP partner Kensium for implementation.

According to the Acumatica-published case study, the company began implementation in April and went live on October 1st. The deployment included Acumatica's Advanced Financial Management, Order Management, and Inventory Control modules, along with intercompany accounting for the U.S. and Mexico operations.

The company also connected BigCommerce as its eCommerce storefront through Acumatica's native connector, along with ShipStation for shipping, NETSTOCK for inventory planning, and ChannelAdvisor for marketplace management.

The Results: 5 Benefits of Replacing NetSuite With a Connected ERP Platform

After leaving Oracle NetSuite for Acumatica, Saddleback Leather saw immediate improvements across technology costs, eCommerce performance, team productivity, and financial visibility. These five outcomes highlight how the right platform turned seven years of frustration into a foundation for growth.

1. Technology Costs Cut by 33 Percent With 10 Times the Functionality

The most dramatic change was financial. Saddleback's technology costs dropped by a third compared to what the company had been paying for NetSuite, while the functionality it gained multiplied by a factor of ten.

The development team shrank from 14 to 2, eliminating approximately $750,000 in annual IT costs. The consumption-based pricing model meant the company no longer worried about per-user licensing fees, and the elimination of on-premises infrastructure removed another layer of ongoing expense.

2. A 45 Percent Increase in Organic Traffic

Under NetSuite, Saddleback's online store loaded in 9 to 12 seconds, triggering Google penalties that suppressed organic search visibility. Creating product landing pages required developer involvement, and adding even basic eCommerce features like customer reviews was a months-long process.

After moving to Acumatica and connecting BigCommerce through the native eCommerce connector, organic traffic increased by 45 percent. The team could create landing pages, add SEO, and launch email marketing campaigns without developer support, capabilities that had been impossible under NetSuite.

3. Employees Who Actually Use the Software

One of the more telling outcomes was behavioral. Under NetSuite, the platform was so difficult to navigate that employees created workarounds using Google Docs, Sheets, and Excel rather than learning how to find the right screen in the ERP. Institutional knowledge lived in spreadsheets instead of the system of record.

With Acumatica, that pattern reversed. Employees adopted the platform because it was intuitive and easy to use. Spreadsheets stopped flying around, and everyone had access to the same data in the same place. That shift alone reduced errors, eliminated shadow systems, and improved collaboration across departments.

4. Real-Time Financial Visibility for the First Time in Years

For seven years on NetSuite, Saddleback's executives couldn't get a unified financial dashboard. Different people had different numbers, and no one at NetSuite could explain how to get them to align. Decisions were slow because leadership had to wait for month-end to get a clear picture.

With Acumatica's dashboards and reporting, the company now operates from a single version of the truth in real time. Executives have access to the same financial information and can make decisions faster, without wasting time reconciling competing spreadsheets.

5. Seamless Third-Party Integrations That NetSuite Couldn't Deliver

The integration failures that plagued Saddleback under NetSuite disappeared with Acumatica's open platform. BigCommerce, ShipStation, NETSTOCK, and ChannelAdvisor all connected seamlessly, giving the company multichannel eCommerce, shipping automation, inventory planning, and marketplace management in one connected ecosystem.

The company can now add new integrations, build product pages, and launch marketing campaigns without relying on a large development team. That flexibility has unlocked a backlog of marketing ideas that had been impossible to execute under NetSuite for years.

Why This Story Matters for ERP Buyers

Saddleback Leather's experience is a cautionary tale and a success story rolled into one. Seven years and an estimated $4 million on NetSuite didn't deliver the connected, scalable platform the company needed. It took leaving that platform entirely to get there

This Acumatica customer story shows what becomes possible when an eCommerce brand finds the right fit. A 14-person development team became two. Technology costs dropped by a third while functionality multiplied tenfold. Organic traffic jumped 45 percent after years of being penalized for slow page loads. And a team that had abandoned the ERP in favor of spreadsheets started actually using the system, because it finally made sense.

For eCommerce businesses weighing their ERP options, the lesson is clear: the most expensive platform isn't always the most capable one, and sometimes the best move is to start over with something that works.

Disclosure: Saddleback Leather is an Acumatica customer that implemented the platform with a different Acumatica ERP partner. This story is shared for educational purposes and does not reflect a Stellar One member engagement.