Adobe Commerce Implementation - Building B2B E-Commerce for Food Distribution

We launched our Adobe Commerce B2B platform this month. It's been a year in development. Here's what we learned building e-commerce for food distribution.

Why Adobe Commerce

B2B food distribution has unique requirements: customer-specific pricing, order guides, complex product hierarchies, and integration with legacy ERP. Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) handles these requirements better than most platforms. It's not perfect, but it's capable.

Integration Architecture

The hard part isn't the website - it's the integration. Our architecture: S2K remains the system of record for inventory and pricing. Adobe Commerce syncs via SFTP for bulk data and API for real-time pricing. Orders flow back to S2K through secure file transfer.

We built a middleware layer using Azure Logic Apps to handle transformation and error handling. Direct integration would have been faster initially but harder to maintain.

Customer Segmentation

Two customer types: Order Guide Only (OGO) and Full Access. OGO customers see only their contracted items at contracted prices. Full Access customers can browse the full catalog. Different customers, different experiences, same platform.

Adoption Strategy

Technology doesn't matter if customers don't use it. We started with willing early adopters, gathered feedback, iterated, and expanded. Sales reps got incentives to drive adoption. Support teams got trained before launch.

Early Results

Month one: 15% of orders through the platform. Goal is 40% within a year. Customer feedback is positive - the interface is better than phone/fax ordering. The work is just beginning.