CTO-USA B2B e-ordering environment
CTO-USA (Commercial Truck Outlet USA) is a U.S.-based supplier of air conditioning components and replacement parts for commercial vehicles. With a catalog of more than 4,000 products, the company primarily serves professional resellers and other B2B customers who need to quickly identify the right parts and place both new and repeat orders efficiently.
Moving from a B2C Store to a Purpose-Built B2B Ecommerce Portal
CTO-USA was using Shopify for online sales, but a standard B2C ecommerce setup could no longer support the company’s more complex B2B sales processes.
Business customers had different pricing tiers and credit terms, orders sometimes required additional review, and customers needed access to account-specific product, inventory, order, and financial information. The online store also needed to work closely with the company’s ERP system to eliminate unnecessary manual entry and keep business data consistent across systems.
The goal was to create a B2B ecommerce portal where customers could handle more of their everyday purchasing through self-service while still following CTO-USA’s existing sales and ERP processes.
B2B Ecommerce with Two-Way ERP Integration
Lumav developed a B2B ecommerce portal for CTO-USA with a two-way integration between the online store and the company’s ERP system.
Products, product groups, inventory levels, customer information, and customer-specific pricing are synchronized from the ERP to the B2B ecommerce portal. Orders placed online flow back into the ERP system for further processing.
This two-way ERP integration makes the ecommerce portal part of the company’s core business infrastructure rather than a standalone sales channel. The ERP and ecommerce platform work with the same business data, reducing duplicate data entry and manual order processing.
Customer-Specific B2B Pricing and Ordering
B2B ecommerce requires more than a traditional consumer shopping cart. CTO-USA’s solution needed to accommodate customer-specific pricing, credit limits, user permissions, and B2B ordering workflows.
After logging in, customers can access pricing and product information relevant to their account. The customer portal provides access to ordering as well as information about previous orders, invoices, and other account-related data.
A 4,000+ Product Catalog with Enhanced Product Search
For a replacement parts business, helping customers identify the right product is critical. CTO-USA’s catalog includes more than 4,000 products, and customers may search using product codes as well as vehicle and technical information.
Product discovery was therefore an important part of the B2B ecommerce development project. The solution included improvements to search and filtering, product information, inventory and product status visibility, and the presentation of related and substitute products.
The result is a B2B ordering experience that helps customers navigate a large product catalog more efficiently and place repeat orders with less back-and-forth communication with the sales team.
An Evolving B2B Ecommerce Platform
Following the initial launch, Lumav has continued working with CTO-USA as its ecommerce development partner. The platform has been continuously improved across ordering workflows, the customer portal, product catalog, search, checkout, invoice information, and overall user experience.
CTO-USA demonstrates how a B2B ecommerce portal with two-way ERP integration can move traditional B2B ordering toward customer self-service. Customer-specific pricing, product and inventory data, orders, and financial information become part of one connected ecommerce process instead of being managed separately across the online store and back-office systems.
