Notions Marketing: orders in minutes, not hours
Discover how Notions Marketing, a leading international arts and crafts supplies distributor, replaced a rigid legacy ecommerce platform with a composable Virto Commerce B2B self-service portal.
In short
Notions Marketing, a leading international distributor of arts and crafts supplies serving thousands of retailers, ran on a legacy platform where orders still went through phone and email, catalog restrictions were enforced by hand and the catalog was hidden behind a login. With implementation partner Luminos Labs it moved to Virto Commerce: out-of-the-box features covered 90%+ of what it already had, and 20+ isolated module extensions added the rest. Customers now self-register, see only their authorized products at contract prices and check out in about 5 minutes instead of 2–4 hours.
Virto wasn’t just a technology vendor for us, they were a true partner throughout the entire transformation. Many platforms say they value customer feedback, but Virto genuinely listened and acted on it.
Challenge: a platform built for simpler wholesale
- Rigid legacy architecture: the platform couldn’t support multi-site expansion, dynamic catalog personalization, or modern integrations
- Manual order processing: customers placed orders online, but pricing confirmation, payment processing, and ERP entry all required manual intervention from the Notions team
- Poor search and discovery: basic keyword matching failed to surface relevant products
- Complex restrictions without dynamic enforcement: none of the catalog rules (e.g., country-based product restrictions, user group access levels, account-level catalog views) were visible on the storefront; sales teams communicated them manually
Solution: 90% out of the box, 20+ extensions
Notions Marketing selected Virto Commerce, implemented by Luminos Labs, for four specific reasons:
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Modular architecture for targeted extensions without monolithic rebuilds
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Out-of-the-box coverage of 90%+ of existing features
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Composable architecture ready for future B2C and multi-site expansion
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Dedicated hands-on Virto support throughout evaluation and build
The solution includes 20+ targeted module extensions across Orders, Search, Pricing, Customer, and Inventory domains — isolated from Virto’s core so platform updates don’t break customizations.
Key third-party integrations include:
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Inriver PIM (nightly product + restriction sync via file share)
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Klaviyo (email campaigns and registration confirmations)
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UPS (real-time address validation)
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Authorize.net (PCI-compliant saved payment cards)
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Azure AD SSO for the ‘My Notions’ portal
Result: order time from 2–4 hours to ~5 minutes
Key outcomes include:
- Order time reduced from 2–4 hours to approximately 5 minutes
- 90%+ of legacy features preserved through migration
- Contract-based pricing auto-applied at catalog level, eliminating manual pricing errors
- Seasonal restocking reduced to minutes via ‘purchased before’ filters and saved lists
Business Benefits
- Bulk ordering tools (CSV import, barcode scanning, SKU quick-add) are built for how wholesale buyers actually work — not adapted from B2C patterns — materially reducing the time to place large, complex orders.
- Public storefront without login enables search engine indexing for the first time, converting the catalog into an organic discovery channel for prospective buyers.
- inRiver PIM integration with nightly file-share sync keeps product content and restriction rules current without requiring manual catalog management in the ecommerce platform.
- Authorize.net tokenization enables saved payment cards for repeat bulk orders — critical for wholesale buyers who reorder regularly — without storing sensitive card data.
