Case study · Retail & eCommerce
Wholesale buyers who stopped needing to phone a rep
A distributor took wholesale orders by phone, email and fax, re-keyed them, and got them wrong often enough to matter. We built a B2B portal on Shopify Plus where every buyer sees their own prices and terms.
Engagement · Build & rollout
B2B commerce, where the price depends entirely on who is asking.
- Industry
- Trade distribution
- Solution
- B2B wholesale ordering portal
- Platform
- Shopify Plus
- Engagement model
- Dedicated product team
- Scope
- Portal, pricing, terms, ERP integration
- Buyers
- Trade accounts with contract pricing
- Constraint
- Pricing stays owned by the ERP
- Target
- Self-service ordering
Outcomes
What self-service wholesale delivered
The point was never to remove reps. It was to stop them typing.
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71%
Of orders placed without a rep
Buyers see their own contract pricing, stock and credit position, so a routine reorder no longer requires a phone call to confirm anything.
Measured across order volume six months after rollout
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−96%
Order entry errors
Orders are placed by the buyer directly against real stock and real pricing, so there is no transcription step in which a code or quantity can be mistyped.
Measured across order corrections and credit notes before and after
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2 min
Average reorder time, from 25 minutes
Reordering from history or a saved list turns a twenty-five minute phone call into a two-minute task the buyer does when it suits them.
Measured across repeat orders after rollout
Context
Wholesale ordering that ran on transcription
Every order was typed twice, and the second typist was guessing.
The business
A trade distributor supplying independent retailers and contractors, with contract pricing negotiated per account.
The starting point
Buyers phoned or emailed orders. Sales staff re-keyed them into the ERP, checking prices and credit manually.
The trigger
Order errors were generating credit notes at a rate that had become a visible cost, and the sales team spent most of its day on data entry rather than selling.
What they wanted
Buyers ordering directly against their own prices, terms and credit position, without the ERP losing ownership of any of it.
Constraints
Pricing is contractual and must come from the ERP · credit limits must be enforced at order time · buyers are not consumers and will not tolerate a consumer checkout · many buyers reorder the same lines constantly.
System
What it runs at today
The portal as it runs today.
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71%
Self-service orders
Placed without a rep
-
2 min
Average reorder
Down from 25 minutes
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Live
Pricing & credit
From the ERP
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−96%
Order errors
No transcription step
The engineering problem
Four things that make B2B different
Treating wholesale like consumer retail is how most B2B commerce projects fail.
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Every buyer has a different price
Contract pricing means there is no such thing as the price of a product. A storefront that shows one is wrong for everybody.
What we did
Customer-specific price lists resolved from the ERP per buyer, per product, at the moment of display.
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Credit is part of the order decision
A wholesale order against an exceeded credit limit is not a sale, it is a problem. Buyers need to know before they commit.
What we did
Credit position shown live and enforced at order placement, with clear handling when a limit is reached rather than a silent failure.
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Consumer checkout is wrong for a trade buyer
Trade buyers order dozens of lines, by product code, on account. A consumer flow with one-at-a-time add-to-cart makes that painful.
What we did
Rapid order pad with code entry, CSV upload, saved lists and reorder from history, in place of a consumer browse-and-add flow.
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Reps still matter on the complex orders
Removing the rep entirely loses the relationship and the upsell on the orders where judgement is needed.
What we did
Reps can place and amend orders on behalf of a buyer from the same system, so the portal absorbs the routine and leaves them the rest.
Architecture
How it fits together
Simplified — the shape of the system rather than every service in it.
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Account model
- Trade accounts
- Buyers
- Contract pricing
Multiple buyers per account, each seeing the account's negotiated terms.
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Pricing
- ERP price lists
- Volume breaks
- Resolution at display
The ERP stays the source of price truth; the portal resolves and shows it.
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Ordering
- Order pad
- CSV upload
- Reorder
- Saved lists
Built for volume line entry rather than consumer browsing.
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Terms & credit
- Credit limits
- Payment terms
- Invoicing
Enforced at order time, settled against the ERP.
Pricing is resolved from the ERP rather than synchronised into Shopify. Synchronised contract pricing drifts, and a drifted B2B price is a commercial dispute.
Solutions
What we built
A wholesale portal that behaves like a trade counter.
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Account model
Trade accounts with multiple buyers and roles.
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Contract pricing
Buyer-specific prices resolved from the ERP.
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Credit & terms
Live credit position, enforced at order time.
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Order pad
Code entry, CSV upload and quantity grids.
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Reorder
From history and saved lists.
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ERP integration
Orders, stock and credit kept in step.
Key capabilities
What it does day to day
Six capabilities in the portal.
| Capability | Runs | Refresh | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract pricing | Automatic | At display | Buyer-specific prices resolved from the ERP |
| Credit position | Automatic | Live | Available credit shown and enforced at order time |
| Order pad | Buyer | Per order | Code entry, CSV upload and quantity grids for volume ordering |
| Reorder | Buyer | Per order | From history or saved lists in a couple of clicks |
| Rep ordering | Sales | Per order | Reps placing and amending on behalf of an account |
| ERP sync | Automatic | Continuous | Orders, stock and credit kept in step with the ERP |
Integrations
How the moving parts plug in
The buyer sees their world, not a shop window.
Buyer signs in
- Account resolvedAnd their role on it
- Contract pricingLoaded for them
- Credit positionShown up front
Order built
- Order padCodes and quantities
- CSV uploadFor big orders
- ReorderFrom history
Order placed
- Credit checkedAt placement
- Stock reserved
- No re-keyingBy anyone
Because reps use the same system to place orders on behalf of buyers, there is one order record regardless of channel — which is what made the error rate collapse.
Security & data
What protects the trading relationship
In B2B, the controls are commercial as much as technical.
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Price isolation
A buyer can only ever resolve their own account's pricing, enforced server-side.
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Credit enforcement
Limits applied at order placement rather than discovered at invoicing.
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Role separation
Multiple buyers per account with distinct ordering and approval rights.
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Order audit
Every order attributable to a buyer or a rep, with amendments recorded.
The brief
B2B commerce is a pricing problem first
The distributor initially wanted a store with a login. That would have failed, because the hard part of wholesale is not the storefront — it is that every buyer has a different price, a different credit position and a different set of products they are entitled to buy.
We built the pricing resolution against the ERP first, and the portal on top of it.
- Contract pricing resolved live from the ERP
- Credit enforced at order placement
- Order pad built for volume line entry
- Reps ordering from the same system
What the portal had to respect
- 01Pricing owned by the ERP, never duplicated
- 02Credit limits enforced before commitment
- 03Trade buyers who will not use a consumer checkout
- 04Reps who still handle the complex orders
Process
We started with the price list
Everything a wholesale buyer sees depends on getting their price right.
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Pricing model
Contract structures, volume breaks and entitlements mapped from the ERP and validated against live invoices.
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Resolution layer
Live price resolution built and load-tested before any storefront work began.
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Order pad
Designed with actual trade buyers, who wanted codes and quantities, not photographs.
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Rep tooling
On-behalf-of ordering built so reps adopted the system rather than working around it.
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Account rollout
Accounts migrated in waves, largest buyers last, with reps supporting each wave.
Technology
Shopify Plus B2B over the ERP
Commerce on Shopify, commercial truth in the ERP.
Commerce
- Shopify Plus
- B2B
- Storefront API
Pricing
- ERP price resolution
- Volume breaks
- Entitlements
Integration
- Order sync
- Stock sync
- Credit position
Portal
- Order pad
- CSV upload
- Saved lists
Business impact
What changed for the distributor
Three outcomes within two quarters.
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71% of orders self-service
Routine reordering moved off the phone entirely.
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Errors down 96%
The transcription step that caused them no longer exists.
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Reps went back to selling
Freed from data entry onto the accounts that need judgement.
The result
The phone stopped ringing for routine orders
71% of orders are now placed by buyers directly, order errors are down 96%, and a routine reorder takes two minutes instead of twenty-five.
The sales team did not shrink. It stopped doing data entry and went back to the accounts where a conversation is worth having.
- 71% of orders placed without a rep
- Order errors down 96%
- Reorder in 2 minutes, from 25
- Pricing and credit live from the ERP
What we hold to in B2B commerce
- 01Resolve contract pricing, never synchronise it
- 02Enforce credit before the buyer commits, not at invoicing
- 03Trade buyers want codes and quantities, not a browse experience
- 04Put reps in the same system or they will route around it
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