Contractor Nation

CASE STUDY: Background and Requirements

Industry:  Residential construction – insulation, roofing, attic, basement, waterproofing, energy efficiency and more.
Market:  B2B – home improvement contractors (dealers) throughout the U.S.
Objectives:  Increase efficiency of placing orders, managing databases, supplying collateral materials, training, and more). Allow custom pricing based on dealer profile.
Technologies:  Magento 2 Commerce On-Premise (AWS hosting), Microsoft Dynamics GP, SalesPad
Solutions include: Six Stores on One Magento Instance, Custom-Built Pricing Extension

Contractor Nation is a “network of networks”, comprising home improvement contractor dealer networks across the U.S. Dealers must meet selection criteria to join a network for roofing, HVAC, etc. Once in a network, Contractor Nation provides access to ongoing training, marketing, financing & selling tools, and products from industry-leading brands Basement Systems, Total Basement Finishing, CleanSpace, Dr. Energy Saver, National Radon Defense, and Attic Systems.

Solution: Six Stores on One Magento Instance

Contractor Nation offers over 2,700 products from 6 product lines. Each dealer has unique pricing and product selection. The solution was to create an ecommerce B2B buyer portal system that:

• Maps to existing business rules and price books
• Includes a bi-directional integration with Microsoft Dynamics
• Can handle integration with a PIM system – to streamline online and print catalog creation
• Provides a modern buying experience

Once discovery was complete, the Harris Web Works team set about building an integrated ecommerce system, engineered as follows:

• Magento Commerce 2.3
• 3 Websites on 3 separate sub-domains, encompassing 6 separate branded website catalogs/stores (see screenshot at top)
• Custom pricing module
• Maps prices per product, per customer
• ERP Integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP
• Custom catalog creator – use product data to generate print catalogs

Solution: Custom-Built Pricing Extension

Harris Web Works engineered and built a custom extension to handle complex pricing rules, enabling virtually infinite per-product & per-customer price configurations.

• Complex B2B buyer pricing requirements
• 3 Business entities = 3 websites, each with their own domain
• 6 Total store views
• Multiple price groups per entity
• Product price levels defined by product and by price group

Result: B2B System Ready to Scale

Now, buyers enter orders directly, reducing errors compared to the previous phone-based ordering system and freeing up customer service representatives to focus on higher value tasks. Buyers see current info, rather than relying on print catalogs that may be outdated.

• Inventory and prices update in real time
• Manage products based on dealer profiles
• Promote products based on user groups
• Portal has advanced functionality and business-specific branding for each buyer