I’m Kayla Sox. I run ecommerce for a wholesaler that sells HVAC parts to dealers and school districts. We stock a little bit of everything—filters, motors, gaskets, the tiny screws no one can find when it’s 4 p.m. on a Friday. Fun stuff, right?
We moved from phone-and-fax orders to a full B2B ecommerce site. I led the whole thing—platform choices, dev team, training, the mess after launch. You want the truth? It was worth it. It was also loud, long, and a little wild.
If you want the full, blow-by-blow narrative of how I took our B2B site from whiteboard to launch day, I wrote up a detailed case study right here.
Let me explain.
I’ve probably shared more behind-the-scenes detail than most companies would ever dare. That urge to pull back the curtain reminds me of the concept of candaulism—a kink built around the thrill of exposing what’s usually private. If the term is new to you, you can dive into a clear, no-judgment overview of what it means at candaulisme where you’ll find background, examples, and insight into why transparency (in any context) can feel so electrifying. Openness about motives shows up in other corners of adult life too. Take the sugar-dating community, for instance; anyone curious about how aspiring sugar babies craft arrangements in a place like Virginia Beach can check out this guide to becoming a sugar baby in Virginia Beach to get practical tips on setting boundaries, negotiating allowances, and connecting safely with vetted partners.
What We Needed (a quick snapshot)
- 12,800 SKUs, all with specs and PDFs
- Customer-specific pricing and quote workflows
- Quick order by SKU, plus CSV upload
- Net 30 terms and ACH payments
- Punchout for a few big customers (their system talks to ours)
- ERP hookup to NetSuite
- Freight quotes for pallets and LTL (we used ShipperHQ)
- Sales rep tools—shared carts, re-order lists, notes
Because many of those PDFs are proprietary, I cribbed ideas from an earlier project on locking down media in WordPress multisite—lessons I captured here.
Sounds big. It was.
Our First Try: Shopify Plus (fast start, short runway)
We started on Shopify Plus because it felt simple. And hey, it is simple. We got a clean storefront fast. We added:
- Shopify B2B features (company profiles, catalogs, price lists)
- Bold for custom pricing (before Shopify rolled out more B2B)
- Mechanic for some scripts
- Avalara for tax
- Celigo for NetSuite sync
Checkout was smooth, search felt fine, and our small dealers loved it. We even overhauled the storefront chrome—grabbed a React-based header pattern I’d road-tested in another build, which you can see in action over in this breakdown.
Our team felt brave. We shipped more orders with fewer phone calls.
Not-so-good? Complex price rules got messy. One buyer needed tiered pricing plus min order qty plus “free freight over $1,500 except Alaska.” We stacked apps. Then we stacked rules. Then things clashed. Punchout? We made it work for one customer, but it felt fragile. I kept a notebook of “don’t touch this” settings. That’s not how I like to live.
We ran Shopify Plus for 9 months. It handled about 60% of our accounts well. The other 40% kept calling.
Second Try: BigCommerce B2B Edition (closer, but not quite)
Then we moved to BigCommerce B2B Edition. The quick order pad was better. Shared carts and quote tools felt like they were made for reps, not just web folks. Our buyers liked the clean “My Account” area.
But one client had 27,000 contract prices. Another had weird tier rules per branch. We hit timing issues on price sync. Imports took a while. A few big buyers got stale prices for an hour or two. Guess who called? Everyone.
It was close. It just didn’t land for our largest accounts.
The Final Build: Adobe Commerce (Magento 2.4) with the B2B Module
We went heavy. Adobe Commerce with the B2B module hosted on a managed cloud. An agency set it up. I won’t name them here, but they were patient and blunt, which I like.
What we used:
- Adobe Commerce B2B module (quotes, shared catalogs, company accounts)
- ShipperHQ for freight logic
- Avalara for tax
- Authorize.net + Stripe for cards and ACH
- NetSuite connector (Patchwork custom + Celigo flows)
- Elasticsearch for search (we tuned synonyms; it helped)
- Plytix as our PIM for product data (cheap, cheerful, good enough)
The site felt like ours, not a template. We built a quick order screen that takes SKU paste, CSV upload, or barcode scan. Quotes are smooth. Approval rules make sense—buyers add items, managers approve. Punchout? We did cXML for a university and OCI for a hospital group. Not cute to set up, but stable once live.
It wasn’t perfect. Admin has a learning curve. Extensions can fight after upgrades. And I learned to plan time for QA like it’s a holiday meal—you always need more.
Costs, Time, Wins (the unglam parts)
- Discovery: 6 weeks
- Build: 5 months
- Data cleanup: forever (kidding, but it felt like it)
- Launch support: 6 weeks
- One-time cost: about $185k (dev, design, connectors)
- Monthly: about $3.2k (hosting, support, tools)
What we saw after 90 days:
- Phone orders down 34%
- Quote-to-order time down 41%
- Average order value up 18%
- Re-order rate up 22%
- Fewer “Where’s my invoice?” emails (the account portal helped)
A month later, a purchasing manager told me, “I can place a 60-line order before my coffee cools.” I wrote that down. Framed it in my head.
What Worked Great
- Quick order that takes paste, CSV, and scan. Buyers loved it. I mean loved it.
- Company accounts with roles. No more “Larry ordered by mistake” dramas.
- Price lists tied to ERP rules. Not cute to set up, very nice to run.
- Freight quotes that made sense. Pallet rates were clear. Fewer surprises.
- PIM discipline. Plytix kept specs tidy. Our filters finally made sense.
What Hurt (but we handled it)
- Catalog cleanup. Bad data grows like weeds. We had to prune hard.
- Two-way ERP sync. You touch pricing, you test 20 ways. No shortcuts.
- Training sales reps. They’ll say they get it. They won’t, at first. Sit with them.
- Upgrades. Plan windows. Keep a rollback plan. Keep snacks.
- Search tuning. Synonyms, typos, part codes—this took real time.
You know what? None of this is scary. It’s just work. But it’s stacked work.
Real Examples From My Desk
- A school district needed three approvals per order. We built a simple chain: requester, facilities lead, finance. They placed a 96-line order during spring break. It sailed through.
- A hospital buyer wanted punchout with strict cost centers. We set cXML. First test failed on a tiny tax tag. We fixed it. It’s been quiet since, which is the dream.
- A dealer called, “I need filters fast, but my boss hates logins.” We made a saved cart link that opens a pre-filled order. He texted me a thank you with a beer emoji. I’ll take it.
- A big customer asked for “free freight above $1,500, except hazardous items.” We wrote a rule in ShipperHQ and added a little banner on cart. Fewer emails. Fewer “gotchas.”
My Short Scorecard
- Shopify Plus: Great for speed and simple B2B. Struggled with deep pricing and punchout.
- BigCommerce B2B: Better quick order and quotes. Price sync at big scale was tricky for us.
- Adobe Commerce (Magento): Handles complex B2B well. Needs strong devs and good process.
Tips I Wish Someone Told Me
- Start with 20 real orders. Build your flows around them.
- Pick a PIM early. Even a light one. Your future self will cheer.
- App store first, custom second. But don’t stack five apps for one job.
- Teach reps with real accounts. Live ammo, small stakes.
- Make one person “data boss.” Give them time and snacks.
- Write “what good looks like” for speed, search, and uptime. Check it monthly.
Would I Do It Again?
Yes. I’d