Two Wrens

• Places automated purchase orders to over 200 suppliers based on product sales and stock levels required
• Supplier-facing purchase order acceptance and dispatch process
• Contested item flagging and resolution
• Supplier management
• User management
• Custom system reports on sales, fulfilment, stock level issues, and more
• Messaging system between company and suppliers
• Wholesaler-to-child-supplier relationships catered for
• Top-up product list linked to dispatch department manual requests
• Singles-to-case product ordering logic (e.g. singles × 12 = 1 case)

The company was a successful mail-order business, but ordering remained a manual process and relied on a key member of staff spotting business needs. It took a lot of time for the user to collate the required information. The checking-in process was minimal with no defined contested process, and supplier margin reporting was minimal.

• Automated purchase ordering that is not reliant on the knowledge held by key members of staff
• Flexible ordering rules per brand, including min items in order, min and max order total, and order-in-multiples logic
• Full contested / resolution process to improve product checking-in processes
• Full custom reporting section to respond as the company’s needs changed

The system was fully incorporated for the company and has been running for 8 years.

• Syncs order data from the Sage accounting system for up-to-date dispatch workflows
• Guided one-order-at-a-time picking with barcode scanning to verify product and quantity on every line
• Customer-targeted insert and advertising print, driven by order and receipt history
• Consolidated dispatch data for courier manifest generation
• Handles both order-based and non-order dispatches (e.g. returns, samples)
• Comprehensive dispatch and fulfilment reporting

The business was experiencing significant dispatch errors—missing or incorrect products, wrong batches or quantities—which affected customer satisfaction and operational cost.

The system reduced dispatch errors by 99% and introduced reporting that highlights where further training and process improvements will have the greatest impact.

• A single modern e-commerce platform replacing multiple legacy versions and order streams
• Centralised business logic covering orders, dispatch and reporting—effectively a mini-ERP for the business
• Data migration: cleansed, sorted and imported from all legacy systems into the new solution
• New functionality to improve the core customer experience

The company ran on multiple versions of the same e-commerce platform, each responsible for different order streams. This created a complex experience for staff and significant technical challenges: duplicated data, validation headaches, and no single source of truth. The goal was a new, modern and stable e-commerce solution that would form a strong foundation for the business to move forward.

The migration was completed successfully. The company now operates on the new platform and is moving forward in a safe, organised way, with a single system that supports orders, dispatch and reporting as a solid base for future growth.

• A fully customised nopCommerce solution containing all required business logic
• API built to expose parent-company product and supplier data; European site consumes it on a nightly schedule so thousands of products / brands stay in sync from a single source of truth
• Custom dispatch plugin integrating with European shipping provider APIs for local courier and fulfilment
• Multi-store setup: three distinct storefronts (Trade, Retail, Wholesale) on a central database—each with its own URL, branding, supplier and product offering, and pricing
• Multiple cart and access models: standard shopping cart plus telephone-order cart; trade-only areas with deeper discounts and richer product information

The parent company wanted to establish a European owned sister company to improve logistics and respond faster to a large customer base in that market. Product and data updates had to remain with the parent as the central source of truth—essential when managing thousands of products. The previous setup relied on shipping from the parent into the European market, which had become increasingly complex and slow. The brief was a new e-commerce platform that could serve the European operation with local fulfilment while keeping a single, parent-led product and data strategy.

The platform went live six years ago and has been in continuous use since. The European operation was live from day one and has grown steadily. The parent company updates product and supplier data once; the European site receives the relevant updates daily, keeping operations simple and consistent.