Mar 24, 2026 | 10 minute read
written by Elastic Path
Summary: Manufacturing commerce has never been more important — or more achievable. Manufacturers face genuinely unique digital commerce challenges: sprawling product catalogs, complex configurations, ERP integrations, multi-geo pricing, and the ever-present threat of SKU explosion. But buyer expectations have risen sharply, and B2B buyers now demand the same speed, personalization, and ease they experience on consumer channels. This post outlines why strong commerce matters for manufacturers, four practical tips to help get it right, and how a modern composable commerce platform can give manufacturers the flexibility to build exceptional digital experiences without choosing between rigid out-of-the-box tools and costly custom builds.
When we talk to manufacturers about how (or whether) they sell online, we often hear something like this: We know we need to offer better online shopping experiences if we're going to improve conversions and revenue and grow our business. But our products are complex, our requirements are rigorous, and our budget is limited. We're not sure if a commerce solution is capable of supporting our needs.
These feelings are natural. The products manufacturers sell — and the buyers being sold to — create unique challenges, which include but aren't limited to:
You just have more to consider when a single sprocket fits 27 different models of a bulldozer, or when you need personalized pricing for B2B buyers, or when launching your industry's first D2C site means supporting a custom-configured purchasing experience.
The good news is that manufacturers don't have to choose between a rigid, out-of-the-box platform or a costly, custom-built one. Modern composable commerce architecture is designed precisely for this kind of complexity — and it's become far more accessible.
At the end of the day, it's still just commerce. Sellers sell and buyers buy. If you're a manufacturer, your buyers are modern internet users — used to searching for products, engaging with dynamic product pages, and checking out quickly when it's time to purchase.
Just because your products and sales process are complex, it doesn't mean your digital storefront has to be. If your storefront is slow, clunky, and complicated, even a B2B buyer is less likely to tolerate it. You're selling to real people — a mindset of good-enough-for-a-manufacturer will depress conversions, revenue, and business growth.
Every buyer wants and deserves an exceptional online shopping experience. Just because we're a B2B seller doesn't mean we shouldn't offer D2C-level experiences.Jez Ashton Global Director of Digital & Marketing
Every buyer wants and deserves an exceptional online shopping experience. Just because we're a B2B seller doesn't mean we shouldn't offer D2C-level experiences.
Global motion control and fluid technology manufacturer IMI knows this well. Operating across dozens of countries with complex product specifications and regional pricing requirements, Norgren recognized that B2B buyers aren't looking for bells and whistles — they want clarity, speed, and accuracy. Their digital storefront had to deliver that, regardless of the complexity happening behind the scenes.
When manufacturers invest in a positive customer experience, the benefits compound over time.
1. Direct selling and digital relationship building with customers
Compared to selling through distributors, owning your digital storefront means customers engage on a platform you control and monitor. The result is a deeper relationship with your customers — one that isn't filtered through intermediaries.
2. Collecting and operationalizing customer data for personalization
Selling directly lets you collect first-party customer data. Over time, you learn about your customers' needs, preferences, and behaviors, making it progressively easier to offer relevant, personalized experiences. This is where AI is starting to change the game for manufacturers specifically. Intelligent commerce platforms can now use that catalog and customer data to automate personalization in real time — surfacing the right products, pricing, and content for each buyer without manual configuration for every segment. Manufacturers who invest in structured, clean product data today are building the foundation that makes this kind of AI-driven personalization possible tomorrow.
3. More revenue and higher customer LTV via stronger merchandising
With full control over pricing and discount strategy, you can set membership perks, loyalty pricing, and promotions that contribute to healthy margins. Manufacturers who rely solely on marketplaces or distributors risk having blanket discounts applied across their catalog regardless of customer behavior — eroding profitability over time.
4. The ability to maintain large, technical product catalogs
Selling directly from your own site means you can surface your entire product catalog, including the full breadth of configurations and SKUs. You can also scale reach without expanding any distributor networks.
If you're at a manufacturer that is launching, upleveling, or evaluating commerce solutions, here are four practical tips to keep in mind.
1. Support a rich product catalog, detailed product descriptions, and appealing product imagery
Your buyers should be able to self-educate. It shouldn't be normal for someone to visit your website and leave without finding the product or information they need — but that's the reality for many manufacturer storefronts. Missing product imagery, poor catalog filtering, and thin product detail pages can hurt conversions and buyer trust.. Treating your product content with the same rigor as your product engineering pays dividends.
2. Have a plan to mitigate SKU proliferation
Manufacturer products are often highly configurable, meaning a single product can have dozens or hundreds of associated SKUs. Without a deliberate strategy — whether that's SKU-less merchandising or separating product data from pricing data — SKU counts can spiral into something unmanageable for your merchandising team and your platform alike. This is worth planning for early, not after the catalog has already exploded.
3. Personalize with geo-specific experiences and membership programs
Many manufacturing buyers are repeat purchasers who benefit from membership programs, loyalty catalogs, and account-specific pricing. And many manufacturers sell products whose specifications, measurements, and pricing vary meaningfully by region. Both of these dimensions require a platform flexible enough to handle them without custom development work for every market or customer segment. IMI Norgren, for instance, needed to support multi-geo and multi-currency pricing across dozens of countries while still delivering a fast, consistent buying experience — and doubled their gross merchandise value (GMV) as a result.
4. Never forget you're selling to people who expect the experience they're used to
Whatever your business model, focus on what buyers actually expect when they shop online: a fast site, strong search and product discovery, multiple payment options, and easy checkout. The bar for manufacturing eCommerce is set by the experiences buyers already have everywhere else — and it keeps rising.
AI-powered search is a big part of this shift. Buyers increasingly use tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity to research products and compare options before they ever reach a storefront. For manufacturers with complex catalogs, this means product data needs to be structured and discoverable not just for humans navigating a website, but for AI systems interpreting it.
Manufacturers whose catalogs are well-organized and AI-ready will show up in those answers; those whose data is fragmented or unstructured may not. Johnstone Supply, the largest HVAC/R wholesale distributor in the U.S., saw this firsthand when they modernized their commerce platform to serve a mobile-first workforce of technicians. Orders placed through their digital channels now contain more line items on average than counter sales — a direct result of investing in a better digital experience.
Elastic Path's API-first, AI-ready composable commerce platform is built for the kind of complexity manufacturers deal with every day. Its modular architecture lets teams address specific commerce pain points incrementally — without a disruptive, all-at-once replatform.
Here are a few of the commerce use cases Elastic Path supports for manufacturers and industrial distributors:
Complex catalog management: Elastic Path helps manufacturers manage large, technically complex catalogs by separating product data from pricing data — a foundational move that prevents SKU explosion and makes merchandising far more manageable at scale.
Multi-geo pricing: IMI , a global motion control and fluid technology manufacturer operating in more than 50 countries, uses Elastic Path to support multi-geo, multi-currency pricing without accumulating technical debt or slowing down their commerce sites.
ERP integration: Pella Windows & Doors connected Elastic Path Composable Commerce to their ERP via an integration running in Amazon Web Services, enabling a lead and revenue-generating digital commerce experience that stands apart in their industry.
Managing millions of SKUs across distributed networks: Johnstone Supply manages over a million SKUs across independently operated store groups, each with its own ERP and localized product assortment. Elastic Path unifies these through a central commerce layer — so contractors always see the right products and pricing for their location, while corporate teams retain visibility across the network.
AI-powered catalog structuring and data migration: One of the less-discussed but most practical applications of AI for manufacturers is data management. Manufacturers often sit on large volumes of product data across legacy systems — inconsistently formatted, incomplete, or siloed. AI tools can now assist with cleaning and structuring that data, making it easier to migrate between systems, enrich product attributes, and ensure catalog data is organized in a way that both merchandisers and AI discovery engines can work with effectively.
According to Elastic Path's 2025 Digital Commerce Landscape Report, 86% of businesses believe they will fall behind competitors if they don't integrate AI into their store experience — and for manufacturers, a well-structured catalog is the prerequisite that makes everything else possible.
AI-powered merchandising and discovery: Elastic Path's Intelligent Commerce capabilities — including a Product Experience Manager for LLM-optimized catalog data and a Merchandiser Agent for automating routine tasks — help manufacturers prepare for a future where buyers increasingly rely on AI to find, evaluate, and purchase. IMI Norgren is already applying AI selectively to improve product search across their complex, acquisition-driven catalog and to automate common support queries.
The manufacturers winning online aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the most complex technology. They're the ones who've committed to treating their digital storefront as seriously as they treat their products — investing in clean data, thoughtful catalog architecture, and buying experiences that respect their customers' time.
The challenges are real, but so is the payoff: stronger customer relationships, better margins, and a platform that grows with the business rather than holding it back. The technology to support even the most demanding manufacturing requirements exists. The question is whether your platform is flexible enough to keep up.
Explore Elastic Path for manufacturers or book a demo to see how the platform handles the complexity your business demands.
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