Case Study -Bespoke Wholesale E-commerce Case Study

The Challenge

Founded by Laura while studying at University, Laura’s Confectionery is a leading luxury confectionery brand, that originally started at farmers markets and country shows. In more recent years, the company has expanded its online presence through their own Shopify site, as well as retail and e-commerce partnerships with leading stores such as Selfridges and John Lewis.

After completing a previous project, updating the look and feel of their B2C Shopify website to more closely match their brand, Laura and her business partner Harry came back to me for help with the B2B sales channel.

Laura wanted to expand their wholesale offering, however, they were reaching the limits of what Shopify could provide without a massive increase in costs.

Shopify only offers wholesale features on their Shopify Plus plan, starting at $2000 per month, a massive 100x increase on their current spend. Alternative options, such as apps within the Shopify App Store had their own costs, and most involved hacks or workarounds in order to be functional. Even then, the functionality was severely limited and restricted.

The Solution

After discussing the options with Laura and Harry, we decided that the B2B side needed to move away from Shopify, and that a bespoke solution built from the ground up would be the best option for the business.

The new solution was built from scratch in Laravel + Vue.js, allowing for complete flexibility and integrating new features in more streamlined and user-friendly way than could ever have been achieved within Shopify.

The Outcome

The newly created wholesale e-commerce system now allows Laura’s Confectionery to manage new customers applying for wholesale accounts, decreased order times with bespoke features such as quick ordering and streamlined business workflows by directly integrating orders and customer data with the company QuickBooks accounts.