Project context

As Medical Direct’s business grew, the need to better serve business partners (pharmacies, institutions, medical practices, and other entities) became increasingly clear. These partners buy at a different pace and under different terms than private customers. Cooperation with them already existed, but it took place outside the online store. Special terms were negotiated through other channels, orders often bypassed the web shop, and those terms then had to be configured manually in the E-racuni system. As the number of business customers grew, this way of working became increasingly complex to administer over the long term.

The goal was clear: keep the existing B2C store with all the functionality it already offers, and build a full B2B segment alongside it within the same platform. Because we know Medical Direct’s system and way of working firsthand, we were able to add the B2B functionality precisely and without disrupting what already works well.

Project challenges

The aim of the expansion was to automate what had until then been done manually and outside the shop, from assigning special terms to business partners to transferring those terms into accounting. Magento Open Source is already very strong in one key aspect of B2B selling: granular pricing by customer group. Instead of building a parallel pricing layer, we decided to use what the platform does well and extend it with what it lacks. The real challenge was everything else that makes for a quality B2B experience: deferred payment, correctly reconciling group prices with existing promotions, and the way a partner registers, manages their account, and moves through the store.

Our biggest challenge was not developing individual features, but connecting them into a single, unified user experience. The same store, the same catalog, and the same checkout simultaneously serve two different types of customer: a private customer who sees the retail price and pays immediately, and a business partner who sees their own prices and usually pays by bank transfer, often on deferred terms. All of this has to work without disrupting the existing shopping experience that B2C customers are already used to, and with a simple way to administer it.

Business account management

The core of the project is the business account system. Each partner receives their own business user account through which they manage their entire relationship with Medical Direct in one place. Instead of the previous communication outside the store (by phone or email), the partner now has independent access to their profile, order history, agreed terms, and payment status.

The business account lets the partner manage their own data and settings, track orders through the full cycle, and see at any moment the terms that apply specifically to them. This shifts the administrative burden from the Medical Direct team to a self service system, which saves both sides time and simplifies the process.

B2C simplicity, B2B capabilities

Business platforms often suffer from the same problem: they are powerful but clumsy to use. We wanted to avoid exactly that. The goal was for a partner to move through registration, account management, and store navigation with the same ease as a B2C customer, while gaining all the extra capabilities a business relationship requires.

We designed the business partner registration to be simple and clear, with no confusing steps, and we also enabled existing customers to register a company without having to create a separate business account from scratch. An interesting part of this work is the choice of business activity during registration: based on it, the partner is automatically placed into the appropriate customer group with predefined pricing rules and terms. This gives the partner their initial terms from the very first moment, and frees the Medical Direct team from manually sorting every new partner.

Account management and site navigation keep the familiar, clean feel of the existing store, the same one B2C customers are already used to, with an extended interface that gives the partner access to their prices, payment terms, and order history. The result is a B2B experience that does not feel like a separate, heavy system, but like a natural extension of the store partners already know.

Migrating existing customers

A large share of future business partners were already among Medical Direct’s customers, namely those who had been requesting R1 invoices (business invoices issued to companies) at checkout. Instead of forcing those customers to register again, we recognized them as natural candidates for the new B2B segment and automatically moved them into business customers.

We developed a migration that identifies existing customers with a history of requesting R1 invoices and converts them into business user accounts with no extra step. The partner keeps their existing data, order history, and access, and from the moment of transition automatically gains all the benefits of a business account: group prices, deferred payment, and extended account management. This let us avoid the most common obstacle in expansions like this: losing customers at the point where they would otherwise have to register again.

Group pricing and reconciliation with promotions

Here we used the strength Magento already has. The platform allows granular pricing by customer group, and because a partner is automatically placed into the appropriate group by selecting their activity during registration, each of them immediately receives the corresponding price list. When a partner logs in, they automatically see the prices that apply to their group, without retail prices that are not relevant to them.

The work Magento does not solve on its own arose at the point where a group price meets an active promotion in the store. We worked out discount reconciliation logic that is always on the customer’s side: if the current promotion is more favorable than the group discount, the partner gets the promotional price; if the group discount is better, the group price stays. The partner always pays the best possible price, regardless of whether it comes from their price list or from the store’s current offer. The same logic runs seamlessly through the catalog, the cart, and checkout, ensuring consistency across the entire purchasing process.

Deferred payment

Unlike B2C customers, business partners rarely pay immediately. The usual model in their business is payment on deferred terms, based on an approved credit limit. We implemented a deferred payment method that is available only to business accounts and that respects the terms agreed with each individual partner.

At checkout, a partner with approved deferral can complete an order without immediate payment, while the system keeps track of their terms. This option is completely isolated from the B2C part of the store: end customers never see it, and the available payment methods remain exactly as they were before the expansion.

Synchronization with with E-računi

As part of the original cooperation, we had already connected the Medical Direct store to E-računi (a web service for invoicing, payroll, and accounting) through a custom synchronization over a SOAP API. With the introduction of business partners, we further simplified that process so the synchronization would also cover their specifics.

Because business orders carry different data than retail orders, from prices specific to each partner to deferred payment terms and VIES validation of the OIB (the Croatian tax identification number), we adapted the data flow so that these orders transfer into E-racuni cleanly and accurately. This lets the client keep a single, reliable invoicing flow for both types of customer, with no additional manual work for business partners.