Which platform should we use?

It depends on the order flow, and we take no commission from any of them. We've built on Shopify, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, Odoo and custom, and the right answer is usually determined by your pricing and integration requirements rather than the storefront.

Can we show customer-specific pricing?

Yes, and it should be read live from wherever it's maintained rather than copied into the store. Copied pricing drifts, and a customer seeing a price that doesn't match their invoice is worse than no store.

What about punchout and EDI?

Both are common requests from larger customers and both are solvable. They're also usually the reason the project started, so they should be scoped in from the beginning rather than bolted on.

Our last attempt failed. Why would this be different?

Worth understanding before committing. Most stalled B2B e-commerce projects failed at the integration and pricing layer, not the storefront — which is exactly why we start from the order rather than the design.

AliveCommerce / Capabilities / Sell to customers online

Sell to customers online

Consumer e-commerce is a solved problem. Yours isn't, because your customers have negotiated pricing, credit terms, approved catalogues and stock expectations that a standard storefront has no idea what to do with. The store isn't the hard part. The handoff to operations is.

Does this sound like you?

Tick what applies. The count changes what we'd recommend, and sometimes the recommendation is to do nothing yet.

What's actually causing it.

Almost never carelessness. Usually the predictable result of a decision that made sense at the time.

The platform was chosen for the storefront

Evaluated on templates and checkout, which is the easy part. The pricing logic and ERP integration were assumed to be configuration and turned out to be the project.

Operations weren't in the room

The store was a marketing initiative. Nobody asked how orders would reach fulfilment, so they arrive as email and get re-keyed, which is where the value quietly leaks out.

B2B rules were treated as edge cases

Contract pricing, minimum quantities, approved lists and credit holds aren't exceptions in your business. They're the normal case, and platforms designed for retail treat them as add-ons.

What we do about it.

In this order, because doing them out of order is how these projects fail.

Start from the order, not the storefront

Follow a real order from placement to fulfilment before choosing anything. The platform decision falls out of that, rather than the other way round.

Keep pricing where it lives

Read contract pricing from the system that owns it. Duplicating it into the store guarantees drift, and drifted pricing costs more trust than the store earns.

Make it reach operations properly

An online order that gets re-keyed has moved the work, not removed it. Integration to fulfilment is where the return actually is.

Sequence it

One customer segment, one catalogue subset, one region. Prove the mechanics before extending, because the failure mode here is scale without foundations.

Typical first phase

8 to 16 weeks

One segment, real pricing, integrated orders

Platform

Whatever fits

We take no commission on any of them

Most common trigger

A customer request

Usually your largest one

Which way in.

Same team either way. The difference is whether this has an ending.

A defined project

AliveCommerce

Complex B2B and industrial e-commerce, including pricing logic, ERP integration, punchout and marketplace connections. Fixed Budget, Scope Controlled.

E-commerce development

Continuous ownership

DARWIN

Once it's live. Catalogue, merchandising, conversion and the storefront evolving monthly instead of being rebuilt in three years.

See DARWIN

What it looks like in practice.

Distribution · 80 staff · 11 months

Contract pricing wouldn't survive the storefront

Pricing stayed in the ERP and the store asked it for every quote. Slower to build, and it has never disagreed with an invoice since.

pricing disputes

Straight answers.

Related.

These tend to travel together.

Give customers self-service“The phones ring all day for order status.”Connect systems that don't talk“An export, an import, and a spreadsheet in between.”Stop rebuilding the website“Redesigned two years ago. Already dated.”

Tell us what's breaking.

We'll tell you which part of this we'd put on it, roughly what it costs, and whether it's worth doing at all — including when the honest answer is that you don't need us.

Start the Conversation

Knowledge and process

Applications and data

Customer and web

Browse by symptom instead

The structure

Continuous ownership

Before you commit

Start with one problem

Priority sectors

Also

Or by situation

Not sure you fit?

Reading

Most read

Proof

Nobody owns the application layer