At Hestra Gloves, everyone hopes the cold weather arrives early, because winter means peak season. With a new e-commerce platform, a returns management system and integrations through Codeunit, Hestra Gloves is now well prepared to handle high order volumes. The stable OmniConnect integration platform plays an important role in managing seasonal peaks, while freeing up employees' time for development and improvements.
After the summer of 2025, Hestra Gloves decided to invest in its e-commerce operations, including replacing its e-commerce platform. The goal was to establish a stronger technical foundation that would enable further development. Hestra Gloves also wanted greater control over system management and maintenance.
Experts in gloves
Hestra Gloves is a family-owned company, now run by the fourth generation of the Magnusson family, with around 700 employees around the world. Design and development still take place at the company's headquarters in Hestra, Sweden, while production takes place in its own factories. Hestra Gloves produces approximately 2.2 million pairs of gloves each year for sports, fashion and professional use. The company has retailers in 40 countries and six of its own concept stores, including two that opened in 2025 in Munich, Germany, and Boulder, USA.
"We know that we have a very extensive range of gloves, with more than 450 models. That's a lot to choose from, so we want to build our e-commerce experience in a way that helps customers find the right model. We don't just want to sell a pair of gloves; we want to sell the right pair. Changing our e-commerce platform was the first step towards improving the shopping experience for our customers, and with Shopify, we want to be able to guide them more effectively," explains Pontus Rudolfsson, E-commerce Specialist at Hestra Gloves.
A solution for both Europe and the US
Shopify was chosen to provide a platform that could be managed using the company's own internal resources: Direct to consumer manager Niklas, along with Pontus and his colleague Chris, who work with e-commerce in the US. Since US and Canada are important markets for Hestra Gloves, the new solution needed to work not only in Europe but also in North America. The company has a US subsidiary with its own office and warehouse to support operations in the North American market.
"We were introduced to Codeunit through a recommendation, and after evaluating them, we felt very confident in their capabilities. I could see that they had many years of solid experience with Business Central, and since we want to expand in the US, it was also a good fit that Codeunit has employees working in the American market. It's important for our US office to be able to receive support during their local business hours," says Maria Larsson, IT Manager at Hestra Gloves.
A quick start and strong confidence
Hestra Gloves quickly chose Codeunit as its integration partner, and the project was soon underway. “By the time we had our first meeting, Codeunit had already set everything up, and we were able to process orders in our test environment during the meeting. I think that's proof of just how good the platform they've built really is," says Pontus.
Throughout the project, Hestra Gloves held weekly meetings with Codeunit and the web agency building the Shopify store. Between meetings, intensive work continued on mapping data between Business Central (BC) and Shopify. Hestra Gloves had been using BC in Sweden for many years, while its US operations had previously used a different ERP system. The US company had already planned to implement BC, and was now running those two projects in parallel. This made the Shopify integration more complex for the American operations, while the work for the European market progressed smoothly.
An unexpectedly smooth go-live
"We went live in spring 2026, and beforehand, we had prepared the entire organization for challenges that might arise. We had really braced ourselves for what could happen, but instead, everything was incredibly calm. It was during our low season, but the orders that came in flowed through exactly as they should. Throughout the project, people across our organization took great responsibility for helping resolve any challenges that came up, and we carried out thorough testing together with Codeunit before the migration," says Pontus.
"The worst thing is when a supplier simply does everything you tell them to do. We need someone who challenges us. Just because we say something doesn't necessarily mean it's right. And that's exactly the kind of advice we felt we got from Codeunit! They were incredibly good at suggesting solutions that would be best for us in the long term, and they made sure we didn't build unnecessary limitations into our systems," says Maria.
Less administration, more development
"Codeunit has a portal that we use. If an error occurs, an automated email notification is sent out. I can then easily log into the portal and see what needs to be fixed. It might be something we've missed in the data mapping in BC, or someone might have entered an address that's too long for the limits in BC. We can make the correction directly in the portal, and the change is then automatically reflected in the ERP system," explains Pontus.
The integration has freed up a significant amount of time for the IT department. Maria feels that the IT department no longer needs to be involved in the day-to-day management of the integration with the e-commerce platform. Orders now flow through as they should, allowing Niklas, Chris and Pontus to spend more time developing the website. Following the successful project with Codeunit, taking the next step in the partnership felt natural, and the returns management system Reclaimit was implemented.
Automating the returns process
"Codeunit had previously built integrations with Reclaimit, and we had found it so easy to manage our integrations on their platform. That's why we wanted Codeunit to help us with Reclaimit as well, and we've already gone live. Simply having a returns management system is a major step forward for us. We can now track and analyze our returns data in a completely different way. Processing is faster for our warehouse and for our customers too," explains Pontus.
Previously, customers had to fill out paper return forms, but with Reclaimit and the integration through Codeunit, Hestra Gloves now has a significantly more automated returns process. When a return is approved in Reclaimit, the return order is automatically created in BC. This saves time and reduces the risk of errors. If a return order should happen to get stuck, it can also be easily handled through Codeunit's portal.
A platform to grow with
"Now that we have these integrations in place and are using OmniConnect, which we feel confident in, I can see opportunities for more integrations in the future. With developments in AI and new regulations that we'll need to comply with, together with an increasing customer demand for product data, we'll need to exchange more product data between systems going forward. It feels good to have everything connected through the same platform. We've just started our third project with Codeunit, implementing an integration with our new PLM system. I don't think you're ever really finished developing an e-commerce business. There are always new things you can improve," concludes Maria.
