The challenge
The distributor sells both wholesale (B2B) and retail (B2C), sourcing from dozens of manufacturers and distributors. That's harder than a normal store: buyers order by the carton, each account needs its own pricing, and orders have to be routed to the right supplier for fulfilment - with suppliers able to manage their own dispatch. A standard e-commerce platform doesn't do this.
Carton ordering
Buyers order in bulk by the carton - item, best and carton pricing, not single-unit retail checkout.
Account pricing
Customer-level B2B pricing and registered-account visibility, alongside a full retail storefront.
Multi-vendor routing
Orders must route to the right manufacturer for fulfilment, with suppliers managing their own dispatch.
What we built
A heavily customized AspDotNetStorefront platform shaped around food wholesale.
- ◆Carton & kit orderingWith item, best, and carton pricing - built for buyers who order in bulk.
- ◆Customer-level B2B pricingAnd registered-account visibility, alongside a full retail storefront.
- ◆Multi-vendor fulfilmentOrders retain distributor information and route to the right manufacturer, with per-supplier dispatch scheduling.
- ◆A supplier dashboardSuppliers sign in to manage their own orders, dispatch, consignment labels, and invoices, with required-stock reports by dispatch day.
- ◆Complete operationsFavorites, reorder, promotions, admin order management, and automated order notifications.
- ◆Already AI-commerce readyThe store publishes a live OpenAI Agentic Commerce feed, discoverable by AI shopping agents.
The stack
Custom, self-hosted commerce built for multi-vendor food wholesale - with real operational depth in supplier dispatch, not just catalog and checkout.
Delivery model: Direct client. Silex built the platform to fit food-wholesale operations end to end and has run it as a long-term partner - with the client owning the code, data and hosting outright.
Results
A 1,500-product catalog across 80+ categories and 46 suppliers, with supplier-managed fulfilment - and the distributor owns it outright: code, data, and hosting.
"Our customers order by the carton in seconds and fulfilment routes to the right supplier on its own. Sixteen years on, it simply runs."
- Operations Manager, Australian food-service wholesaler (illustrative - attribution pending client approval)
Why it matters
This case shows B2B commerce done to real operational depth - not just custom pricing, but supplier dashboards and multi-vendor fulfilment - running reliably for 16 years on a platform the client owns, and already speaking to AI shopping agents.
