Tailoring a B2B Experience

‍The Brief

JAM Distribution is a prominent distributor of art supplies in the UK, supplying the majority of art retailers nationwide. With a focus on providing high-quality products to their trade customers, JAM Distribution sought to modernise their operations by creating a bespoke e-commerce platform. They required a private, integrated and scalable solution to streamline their processes and cater to the unique demands of distribution.

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Main Requirements

Before partnering with us, JAM Distribution operated without a dedicated e-commerce website. Their new web platform had many key requirements:

• Purchasing Permissions: Certain products needed to be accessible only to specific customers based on their trade approvals, requiring precise and manageable access controls.
• Volume-Based Discounts: As the business relied upon volume discounts for all products. It was necessary to make this feature easily updatable for admins and clearly displayed and incentivised for trade customers.
• Pricing Privacy: It was critical to prevent competitors and the public from accessing trade prices and product information.
• Customer Applications: There needed to be a portal for customers to apply for accounts by submitting required information, along with an admin system to review and approve access easily.
• Inventory Synchronisation: It was essential to implement a system that synchronised inventory in real-time between their other websites, ensuring accurate stock levels and preventing overselling.

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Solutions

Based on their requirements, we determined Shopify was the best fit due to its admin-friendly customer management tools and its ability to handle large SKU volumes at checkout without impacting performance for other customers.

Key Solutions Delivered:

1. Individual Customer Access:
   • Utilised Shopify’s customer tagging system to allow administrators to tag customers based on what products they were allowed to purchase.
   • Engineered the theme to hide or show pricing and purchasing buttons based of what customer was viewing the product.‍
2. Restricted Public Viewing:
   
   • Configured the site to prevent public users from making purchases, ensuring only approved customers could access the ordering functionality.
3. Inventory Synchronisation:
   • Implemented a custom syncing system to ensure real-time inventory updates between JAM Distribution’s Shopify site and their other retail platforms, maintaining consistent stock levels across all channels.
   • Prioritised instant stock synchronisation to align with Shopify’s native inventory management system, ensuring real-time updates and reducing the risk of overselling.
4. Volume Incentivised Purchasing:
   • Created a visual volume incentivised table that encourages larger volumes and is clear for the customer to see and is developed on Shopify metafields so it is easy to update and manage

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Significant Results

This new platform for JAM Distribution delivered noticeable returns:

• 12% increase in average order value, driven by the clear volume discount structuring design.
• Increased Stock Availability, the stock syncing eliminated the need for separate setups across websites, ensuring a master stock level and more products available for customers to purchase.

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Looking Forward

JAM Distribution now operates with a modern, scalable digital platform built to handle the complexities of business to business wholesale operations. We continue to support JAM Distribution through ongoing development and updates, ensuring their platform evolves alongside their business needs and keeps them competitive in the art supplies distribution market.