Standard ecommerce assumes everyone pays the same price and checks out with a card. Trade works nothing like that, which is why most trade suppliers are poorly served by off-the-shelf shops.
Trade customers have negotiated prices, volume breaks, account terms and credit limits. Some see one price, some another, and some should see none until they are logged in. Reproducing that on a platform designed for retail is where trade ecommerce projects get expensive, and it is almost always underestimated.
The order process differs too. Plenty of trade customers do not want a checkout at all — they want to build a list, send it as a request, and have it confirmed against their account. Forcing a card payment at the end loses the order.
And the pricing already exists somewhere: in the accounting or ERP system that runs the business. Maintaining a second copy by hand on the website is both a cost and a source of quoting prices you cannot honour.
What we do
Working UK-wide — directly with businesses, and white label behind design and marketing agencies.
Discuss a projectPrices following the account record, so each customer sees their own terms once logged in.
Ordering against an account with agreed terms, rather than a card payment that does not suit how you trade.
A basket that becomes a request rather than a sale, for products that need confirming before they can be sold.
Order history, saved lists and bulk entry by product code — which is how trade customers actually buy.
Live or scheduled from the system that already holds it, so nobody maintains it twice.
Search that understands part numbers and specifications, which matters more than design to a buyer who knows what they want.
Often they live in somebody's head. Writing them down is the first task, and it regularly reveals inconsistencies worth fixing anyway.
Some suppliers cannot show prices publicly for competitive or contractual reasons. That has to shape the design from the start.
Some will keep phoning, and that is fine. A trade shop supplements the sales team rather than replacing it.
A lot of our work is delivered white label or under agreement, so these describe the problem and the approach rather than naming the client.
An industrial-scale ordering portal migrated off a legacy platform, with client authentication, advanced search and form-to-CRM integration.
Ecommerce · Product configuratorA bespoke configuration module built on top of a standard ecommerce platform, so customers can order hand-made furniture built to their own measurements.
Ecommerce · DevelopmentBespoke ecommerce for a luxury coffee supplier — one-off purchases and recurring bulk orders, with accounts, history and simplified repeat ordering.
Account pricing, volume breaks, who sees what and where it is held today. That is the thing that determines a trade build, far more than the design.