metric 01
55%
Self-serve share, up from 18% on Magento.
§
§ · archetype · b2b
A B2B industrial supplier · Magento to Plus.
Industry archetype drawn from patterns across multiple B2B and wholesale brands we have migrated through the Catalog Method. 55% self-serve share, order cycle cut to 18 hours, 4.2x reorder compounding.
§ 01 · archetype framing
Magento was expensive.
This archetype reflects patterns across multiple B2B industrial and wholesale brands we have migrated through the Catalog Method. Buyer self-serve share tripled. Measured on Shopify Plus B2B + NetSuite via Celigo.
metric 02
18h
Order-to-confirmation cycle, down from 72h.
metric 03
4.2x
Reorder GMV vs first-order GMV, trailing 12 months.
metric 04
<15m
NetSuite-to-Shopify sync lag on inventory and pricing.
§ 02 · the challenge
Expensive Magento, slow buyer experience.
B2B industrial brands fitting this archetype arrive with a decade of Magento 2 Open Source history, a NetSuite implementation that runs the business properly, and a frustrated leadership team paying $18-30K annually on Magento hosting plus three-developer retainer to keep the storefront upright. Self-serve share hovers around 18 percent because buyers default to emailing the rep; approval workflows are bolted on via custom development and break on every upgrade.
Order cycle from buyer-submit to order-confirmed runs 48-96 hours on Magento operations because the ERP sync is batched overnight and approval emails route through a plugin that sends them to the wrong inbox half the time. Enterprise buyers tolerate it because their alternative is calling; they do not like it.
Mobile experience is the quiet killer. B2B buyers increasingly reorder from phones during site visits or between meetings. Magento 2 mobile performance on the brand's Adobe Commerce Open Source hosting typically scores 23-38 on PageSpeed Insights. The Shopify Plus equivalent scores 72-86 out of the box.
§ 03 · the approach
The Catalog Method, phased.
- 01
Company account model (weeks 1-4).
Mapped existing Magento B2B customer records to Shopify company accounts: company, locations, users, roles. 847 companies, 2,100 users migrated.
- 02
Tier pricing + contract pricing (weeks 4-9).
Gold/silver/bronze tier structure rebuilt on Shopify B2B. Contract pricing per account migrated from Magento price lists. Volume breaks configured per SKU family.
- 03
NetSuite integration (weeks 6-14).
Celigo iPaaS connecting NetSuite to Shopify for real-time inventory, pricing, credit limits, and order writeback. Sync lag tuned under 15 minutes.
- 04
Approval workflow (weeks 10-14).
Threshold-driven routing per company. Klaviyo transactional emails plus Slack notifications for approvers. Reject-with-reason flow.
- 05
Reorder UX (weeks 14-18).
Reorder-from-history, par-level reminders, scheduled POs, quick-order-by-SKU paste. The second-order engine that compounds B2B growth.
- 06
Phased cutover (weeks 18-20).
Buyer segment by segment, not big-bang. Top-20 accounts first (with hand-holding), next-200 second, remainder third.
§ 04 · the stack
Six tools, ERP-first.
01
Shopify Plus B2B
Company accounts, tier pricing, approval workflows native.
02
NetSuite (ERP)
System of record. Contract pricing. Credit limits. Order history.
03
Celigo (iPaaS)
Real-time NetSuite-Shopify sync. Battle-tested B2B connector.
04
Resolve (NET management)
NET-30 underwriting for new accounts. Direct ERP for established.
05
Klaviyo
Approval-workflow transactional emails. Reorder reminders.
06
Gorgias
B2B ticket macros: quote requests, credit questions, order adjustments.
§ 05 · in their words
"We cut two developer seats and added 240 new accounts in the first year."
a B2B industrial operator we have worked with
Your B2B migration starts with a call.
30-minute audit. Migration fit, ERP readiness, cutover risk. Scoped quote within 48 hours.
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