B2B e-commerce platform

A simpler, faster way to buy plants, flowers and accessories

Over 40 years, Waterdrinker has grown from a local plant trader into one of the world’s largest exporters of flowers and house and garden plants. In 2016 they asked us to build a custom, mobile-friendly B2B e-commerce platform so each customer group could easily buy flowers, plants, and accessories online. Three months after kick-off we delivered an MVP; since then we have continuously shipped new functionality.

Tailored services for different customer types

Insight

Waterdrinker aims to deliver tailored services and experiences for florists, garden centres, wholesalers, retail chains, and retailers. The two main groups — Cash & Carry and Big Professional Buyers — needed different capabilities, each requiring deep integration with Waterdrinker’s existing systems.

We ran usability tests to understand buying behaviour. Waterdrinker buyers do not behave like typical consumers: a large professional buyer placing frequent, high-volume plant orders needs a fast, smart checkout optimised for repeat orders. Those insights helped us refine navigation and remove friction.

Why we built a custom B2B e-commerce platform

Challenge

We evaluated open-source commerce frameworks including Magento 1 & 2, Sylius, and Solidus. Off-the-shelf stacks either lacked stability for our needs or could not connect cleanly to a sector-specific ERP.

We therefore chose custom software. The goal was a framework that stayed stable, adaptable, and resilient — able to handle today’s complexity, ERP or API latency, and high volumes of parallel requests.

One infrastructure, multiple storefronts

Solution

The bespoke commerce engine connects to Waterdrinker’s systems and exposes different storefronts per audience. Each storefront is tuned for Cash & Carry versus Big Professional Buyer journeys.

Large wholesale buyers can top up weekly stock so stores stay filled with plants and flowers; Cash & Carry customers get inspiration and trends in a dedicated area.

Designed for maximum flexibility

When building the front-end we optimised for change: everything had to be flexible enough to refresh look and feel easily. We delivered an adaptable white-label approach so Waterdrinker can operate multiple storefronts with different visual identities and assortments.

Results

The platform is live. Customers submit purchase orders smoothly and we keep improving the experience.

Since the 2016 launch we have worked in two-week sprints: user stories are prepared from the backlog before each sprint; afterwards stakeholders review the software and plan next steps.