Ultraceuticals

Ultraceuticals is one of Australia's most recognisable cosmetics brands, with hundreds of B2B clients across the globe, and also hundreds of hours of B2B administration! Their wholesale growth was constrained by a reliance on work by pen, paper, and phone, so they were keen to open up new opportunities with an online marketplace. However, fully adapting unique B2B eCommerce rules can be a challenge for any business, let alone one with 500+ clients worldwide! Ultraceuticals wanted to fully align their offline and online selling practices, with no compromises except to maximise customer convenience - Kobe Creations was put on the job! We set out to produce a set of three SAP-integrated B2B eCommerce stores for Ultraceuticals' clients in Australia, New Zealand, and the USA.

The platform chosen was B2B edition BigCommerce, a foundation that not only provides a range of out-of-the-box wholesaling features but is also extremely flexible; the site was going to be heavily modified to accommodate Ultraceuticals' entire sales lifecycle: payment, credits, terms, and invoicing. Additionally, we set out to build a whole new product management workflow, enable dynamic customer-based content, enforce minimum order values, as well as including a SAP-integrated invoice management module for each customer. To add pressure, not only would we have to account for slight regional differences between stores but also between customers; different roles would have access to different product ranges, payment options, and shipping methods! It's a rare thing, but this project would see our full-feature product, customer, inventory, and order integrations become merely the base foundation for a much larger, much more customised, B2B build.

"We very quickly came to understand that not only would Kobe be more than capable of delivering this solution, but they delivered a no-nonsense proposal, worked very well with our team to meet our commercial expectations, and fully understood the complexities of our business processes and the critical systems which required integration to the Ecommerce platform."


JASH NAIDOO
ULTRACEUTICALS IT MANAGER

At Kobe Creations we developed a full-service B2B customer portal powered by BigCommerce B2B Edition, seamlessly integrated with SAP.

One of the biggest wins was the complete digital overhaul of Ultraceuticals' payment, credit, terms, and invoicing processes. With a new SAP-integrated order, pre-order, and invoice module, customers could check out using Pay on Account or credit card, with payments automatically aligned with their terms in SAP. If a customer had overdue balances, they were gently prompted to settle their invoices before placing new orders, ensuring a smooth and transparent financial process. To further enhance the customer experience, we expanded the customer account area with a custom-built module. This gave customers a clear view of all their online and offline orders, pre-orders, and invoices, with the ability to print, pay, and apply credit notes online. Our seamless SAP integration ensured all payments and reconciliations happened automatically, significantly cutting down on manual accounting work.

We also reimagined the pre-order functionality in BigCommerce to perfectly match Ultraceuticals’ business needs so now, customers can pre-order products up to 12 months in advance, with full SAP integration to handle order creation and invoicing. We implemented a minimum order value (MOV) check at checkout, making sure customers met the required spending threshold before finalising their orders.

To simplify product management, we built a custom integration with a protected shared spreadsheet, allowing Ultraceuticals to manage product categories and attributes across their three stores without the need for a PIM system. We also enhanced BigCommerce’s quick-order pad, making bulk ordering easier with a pre-populated CSV of product SKUs and we enabled modifiable custom shipping rules and a user switcher, making order management seamless for customers across different locations and business accounts.

This digital transformation didn’t just optimise operations, it created a more intuitive and efficient experience for Ultraceuticals’ B2B customers, setting them up for long-term success!

Apps & Integrations
  Full integration of product, order, inventory, and customer data between SAP and BigCommerce
  Custom invoice module for online management of SAP invoices
  Customer credits and terms integrated from SAP
  Purchase order payment method
  Advanced customer-based shipping rates
  Company switcher enables multiple locations and accounts for customers



Benefits
  Complex offline ordering processes brought online, saving over 150 man-hours each week.
  New ways for Ultraceuticals' 500+ business clients to pay invoices online with SAP-integrated customer credit and Pay-On-Account.
  Hundreds of per-week hours automated with a full-cycle integration, including inventory level updates, payment reconciliation, and more.

Outcomes
Although this project is only recently live, it is already having a transformative impact, taking a global B2B business that relied heavily on phone-and-pen-and-paper processes and bringing it all into a highly specialized BigCommerce store.

You can see the site for yourself at ultraceuticals.com.au.

The results of this transformation were incredible! Ultraceuticals now has a seamless and efficient B2B system that not only brought their operations online but also freed up significant resources that were previously tied up in manual processes. By integrating SAP with BigCommerce, we streamlined their entire order-to-cash process, saving hours on accounting and administrative tasks every week. Customers now have a much more intuitive and automated way to interact with their accounts, thanks to the custom order, pre-order, and invoice module. Payments, credits, and invoices are fully integrated with SAP, making transactions smoother than ever. The new pre-order system allows customers to place orders up to 12 months in advance, processing them just like regular orders with integrated payment and invoicing. The addition of a minimum order value (MOV) check encouraged customers to increase their order sizes, boosting sales across different regions. Product management also got a major upgrade, with a custom integrated PIM allowing Ultraceuticals to manage over 150 products across multiple regions effortlessly. This reduced the time spent on product data management and improved inventory and catalog efficiency.

Overall, our solution empowered Ultraceuticals with a modern, efficient, and fully integrated B2B system. Customers now enjoy a better experience, and Ultraceuticals benefits from improved internal efficiency. The automation of payments, invoicing, and credit note reconciliation has saved countless hours of manual work, while full account visibility has enhanced transparency and customer engagement. With this new digital infrastructure in place, Ultraceuticals is set up for long-term success, ready to scale their B2B operations globally while continuing to innovate and grow.

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