How a 60-Year-Old Distributor Freed Its Sales Team and Grew Revenue 25% YoY
Customer Success by the Numbers
YoY online sales growth
order processing time
separate branded websites
on one platform
The Challenge
For six decades, Northern Metalic built its business on relationships. Sales reps traveled to customer sites. Customers called or emailed when they needed parts. Everyone knew everyone. It worked until scale and expectations caught up.
- Every offline transaction consumed 20 minutes of staff time. Processing, data entry, corrections. Sales reps spent their days as glorified order takers instead of managing accounts.
- Customers couldn’t see what Northern Metalic carried. The old paper catalog had been discontinued years ago. Buyers knew Northern Metalic for certain products but had no way to browse the full range from over 1000 suppliers.
- Pricing lived in the ERP, not in front of customers. A dedicated team managed thousands of customer-specific price lists that updated daily. Buyers couldn’t see their negotiated rates. Sales reps couldn’t check pricing on-site. Every price question meant a call back to the office.
- The multi-brand structure added friction. Northern Metalic operated four distinct businesses under one umbrella. Each served different customer segments, but all ran on the same manual processes.
- COVID exposed the dependency on in-person service. As an essential supplier, Northern Metalic stayed open but needed a different way to serve customers when face-to-face interaction became difficult.
The company started looking for an eCommerce platform in the summer of 2021. They needed something that could manage complex B2B pricing, handle multiple brands, and give sales reps the visibility they needed when talking to customers.
Jenna Heinz
Data Systems Manager, Northern Metalic
The Solution
Northern Metalic evaluated several platforms before launching their digital initiative. They selected OroCommerce because it offered the deep B2B functionality their operations demanded out of the box, allowing them to avoid heavy custom development.
The team launched three branded storefronts from a single instance, each with its own catalog and customer accounts, on a unified backend.
Integration with Amador ERP handles the heavy lifting. Product data from over 1000 suppliers syncs overnight to OroCommerce for enrichment. Pricing pulls live from the ERP, which matters when a dedicated team updates thousands of customer-specific price lists daily.
What Changed for the Sales Team and Customers
The most-used feature is customer impersonation. Reps log in as a specific customer and see exactly what that customer sees: negotiated pricing, available inventory, order history, and cart. A rep talking to a buyer can answer pricing questions, check stock, and review order history without putting the customer on hold or calling back to the office.
Logged-in customers see three price tiers: list, regular, and their negotiated rate. That transparency reduced routine pricing questions. Guest checkout is available for cash customers, keeping the door open for walk-in buyers.
Customized shopping lists give individual customers tailored product sets. Invoices appear in the portal regardless of how the order was placed, so customers who still call in can track everything online.
The Business Impact
Before the digital catalog, buyers only knew Northern Metalic for specific product categories. The new site exposed the massive breadth of their inventory.
The operational shift delivered concrete numbers:
- 25% year-over-year online sales growth.
- A steady, growing influx of new account requests.
- Increased sales capacity, allowing reps to focus on complex relationship management rather than manual data entry.
Growth was steady through 2023 and early 2024, then accelerated in 2025 as the compound effect of constant training and a platform that made buying easier finally tipped.
Northern Metalic was late to eCommerce by their own admission. They made up for it by treating the launch as a change management project, not a technology project.
James Claggett, their Regional Sales Manager, published a weekly internal blog during the entire 16-month build covering progress, features, and what the change would mean for daily work. After launch, he traveled to all 13 locations and trained every team in person. Weekly training sessions are still running today.
The platform gave them the B2B depth they needed. The people work through training, adoption, and ongoing support is what turned capability into real impact.
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