Pattersons is one of the best-known suppliers of catering and cleaning supplies in the UK, having grown from its Bristol roots as an ironmonger in the 1950s to become a national supplier with delivery depots across the UK
Pattersons was looking to replace its custom-built e-commerce websites, which were expensive to add features or make changes to, and did not display well at all screen sizes. There was a custom integration with the backend stock management and order fulfilment system from OGL, which needed to continue in place so that there was no rekeying of orders or products or customers as that would not be practical with the level of sales and the fast turnarounds required for next day delivery. Some products were available in cases and also split out of cases at differential prices, with the case price not being an exact multiple of the per-item price. A single admin area was wanted to manage two separate sites.
The websites were recreated on the mature Magento 2 e-commerce platform. Custom B2B features were added using a combination of off-the-shelf extensions and custom code. Features included order pads with custom prices set for a customer, per-account pricing, restrictions on order values requiring approval by a purchase manager that could be defined per-login and per-client, integration with purchasing platforms, editing of orders in a pending-approval state etc. The integration with OGL's system was recreated.
The new site successfully transitioned the company to a modern e-commerce website with B2B features, one with powerful SEO features and that could be easily added to with off-the-shelf extensions, as well as custom code. The site was successfully re-integrated with a different backend stock and order management system in 2020/21, and was flexible enough to cope with the extensive SKU and product availability changes that happened during the COVID lockdowns.
