This article was based on the interview with OX’s Jenna Kennedy and Guy Gunter Home’s William Webster on e-commerce for both B2C and B2B by Greg Kihlström, AI and MarTech keynote speaker for The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. Listen to the original episode here:
The unenviable task of serving two masters is a familiar challenge for marketing leaders. In the world of e-commerce, this often manifests as a single digital storefront trying to cater to the disparate needs of both everyday consumers (B2C) and trade professionals (B2B). The former is on a journey of discovery, weighing aesthetics and reviews. The latter is on a mission of efficiency, seeking part numbers, inventory levels, and frictionless reordering. The conventional wisdom often leads to a compromised experience that fully satisfies neither, or a clunky, bolted-on solution for one audience that feels like an afterthought—because it usually is.
But what if this perceived conflict isn’t a zero-sum game? What if, instead of designing for a compromise, we could architect for a cohesive ecosystem? This was the central challenge facing PDI and its luxury appliance and plumbing fixture brand, Guy Gunter Home. Their journey to rebuild their digital presence, in partnership with the digital consultancy Office of Experience (OX), offers a compelling case study in transforming a potential point of friction into a strategic advantage. By digging into their approach, we can uncover a practical playbook for building a single, intelligent e-commerce platform that feels tailor-made for two fundamentally different buying modes, without sacrificing the integrity of the brand.
Reframe the Problem: From Two Audiences to One Ecosystem
The first and most critical shift in thinking is to move beyond the simple B2B vs. B2C dichotomy. In many industries, especially those involving complex projects like home renovation or construction, these audiences don’t operate in silos. They are interconnected nodes in a single value chain. A homeowner is influenced by their designer, who coordinates with a builder, who relies on a plumber. Recognizing this interconnectedness was the foundation of PDI’s strategy.
William Webster, General Manager at Guy Gunter Home, explains that the goal wasn’t just to serve two groups, but to facilitate their collaboration.
“The thing that we have learned in our experience at PDI is that this all overlaps. In our industry, the trade professionals, to the builder, to the designer, to the homeowner, they all overlap. They all work to one end goal. And so bringing that ability to look at the same products and agree to the right product selections and be able to offer that to all of our clients that are involved in the project was a priority.”
- William Webster, Guy Gunter Home
This perspective changes everything. The website is no longer just a store; it’s a project management and communication tool. The “consumer” side of the site, with its inspirational galleries and detailed product imagery, becomes a resource for the designer to share with their client. The “professional” side, with its technical specifications and inventory data, allows the plumber or builder to confirm that the selected items are viable and available. By designing for this ecosystem, PDI created a platform that adds value at each stage of the project, reinforcing its role as an indispensable partner rather than just a parts supplier.
Design for Duality: The Art of the Product Detail Page
Once the strategic frame is set, the tactical execution begins. Nowhere is the tension between B2C and B2B needs more apparent than on the product detail page (PDP). For a consumer, the page must be visually rich and emotionally resonant. For a professional, it must be informationally dense and functionally precise. The key is not to hide information from one audience to placate the other, but to structure it intelligently so each user can find what they need with minimal effort.
Jenna Kennedy, Senior Director of Client Strategy and PMO at Office of Experience, points to the specific content types that must coexist in harmony.
“On product detail pages… you want to make sure that the necessary information for consumers is there and easy to find and for the trade people. So for consumers, we’re talking about things like product dimensions, basic dimensions, having really good photos of the product… and having reviews. And then for professionals, you need totally different information. You need part numbers, inventory levels, you know, how do you buy, what types of quantities or bundles, things like that.”
- Jenna Kennedy, Office of Experience
This requires a sophisticated approach to information architecture and UX design. For PDI, the solution involved a clean, scannable layout where consumer-friendly content like high-resolution photos and “looks” are presented prominently. Meanwhile, technical details like spec sheets, CAD files, and installation guides are neatly organized in tabs or accordions, easily accessible to a professional without overwhelming a casual browser. This is further enhanced by an authenticated experience; when a trade pro logs in, the page can dynamically surface their specific pricing, reorder buttons, and project lists. This approach—progressive disclosure layered with personalization—ensures the PDP serves its dual purpose without feeling cluttered or compromised.
Know Your Platform’s Limits: When to Configure and When to Customize
Choosing the right technology foundation is half the battle. PDI selected Shopify Plus, a platform often typecast for its B2C prowess. However, its evolving B2B capabilities provided a strong core to build upon. As many marketing leaders know, the promise of an “all-in-one” platform rarely holds up under the weight of real-world business complexity. The crucial skill is identifying precisely where the platform’s native functionality is sufficient and where custom development is non-negotiable to close critical experience gaps.
While Shopify Plus handled the core catalog and checkout, the truly differentiating features for PDI’s professional audience required significant custom work.
“I think Shopify Plus did a great job up until the point where we needed, like, extra horsepower for the PIM integration, implementing custom order approval workflow, and we had to do a lot of extra work on the estimated lead time and delivery time messaging through the checkout process.”
- Jenna Kennedy, Office of Experience
This is the reality of enterprise MarTech. The “platform” is often the chassis, but the engine that drives the business is fueled by integrations with core systems like an ERP and a PIM. For PDI, this meant building custom bridges to their Eclipse ERP to surface real-time, location-specific inventory and customer-specific pricing—data points that are absolute table stakes for a trade professional. The investment in this custom integration work is what elevates the site from a standard e-commerce store to a true business utility, seamlessly blending the polished front-end of Shopify with the operational muscle of PDI’s backend systems.
Bridge the Physical and Digital Worlds with Trustworthy Data
For a business with a significant physical footprint like PDI—with over 25 showrooms and branches—the digital experience cannot exist in a vacuum. One of the most powerful ways to merge online and offline journeys is by surfacing real-time, local inventory. This feature is notoriously difficult to implement, as it requires airtight integration and a commitment to data integrity. But the payoff is immense. It transforms the website from a place of passive browsing into an active tool for project planning and procurement.
The challenge, as Webster notes, was not just technical but temporal. The data couldn’t be a day old or even an hour old; it had to reflect the reality on the ground, right now.
“The hardest part of that journey was the timing. We had to make that real time. As you can imagine, we are serving customers at the counter right now. We are constantly moving inventory across over 25 locations, and so getting, working with OX and an integration that allowed that to be real time was complex. And not just inventory, but pricing was super complex… Bringing that to life was probably the most challenging and biggest part of the entire work that we did.”
- William Webster, Guy Gunter Home
Making this data not only available but trustworthy is a massive leap forward in customer experience. It eliminates the frustrating phone calls to check stock. It empowers a plumber to confidently place an order for same-day pickup, knowing the part will be there. And as Kennedy astutely points out, this efficiency doesn’t replace the valued sales relationships; it enhances them. By automating the mundane (“Is this in stock?”), it frees up the sales team to focus on the meaningful: consultation, problem-solving, and strengthening client partnerships.
The success of PDI’s hybrid e-commerce platform lies in a series of strategic decisions that prioritized cohesion over compromise. They began by correctly identifying their B2B and B2C audiences not as separate targets, but as an interconnected ecosystem. This strategic insight informed every tactical choice, from the dual-purpose design of their product pages to an intelligent information architecture that reveals complexity based on user needs. They embraced a powerful platform in Shopify Plus but were clear-eyed about its limitations, investing in the custom integrations necessary to deliver a truly enterprise-grade experience for their most valuable clients.
The result is a blueprint for any brand grappling with a similar challenge. The future of commerce is not about building separate walls for separate audiences. It’s about creating a single, flexible foundation with smart doorways. It’s about understanding that the modern B2B buyer has B2C expectations for usability, while the informed B2C consumer increasingly craves the detailed information once reserved for the pros. By architecting for the ecosystem, not just the audience, brands can build digital experiences that are not only more efficient for their customers but also a more powerful engine for their own growth.
