Home Case Studies Royal Brass & Hose

Royal Brass & Hose

Find out how Royal Brass & Hose, a mobile equipment products distributor with 11 locations, partnered with Ntara and Virto Commerce to build their first B2B ecommerce platform from scratch.

months from kickoff to go-live

11%

increase in online sales in the first year

24/7

self-service ordering for customers

locations served

Key Achievement

Royal Brass & Hose launched its first-ever B2B ecommerce platform in just 10 months — faster than the industry average of one year — and achieved an 11% increase in online sales in the first year. Customers gained 24/7 self-service access to select, order, and track products, freeing RB&H’s customer service team to focus on higher-value work.

“

Virto Commerce offered Royal Brass & Hose an array of scalable and flexible B2B feature sets. Their technology helped us provide customers with a new, easily accessible ecommerce experience equipped with expansive product data.

Misti WhiteeCommerce Manager at Royal Brass & Hose

Challenge

Royal Brass & Hose had no digital infrastructure in place prior to this project. The company operated exclusively through direct sales relationships across 11 locations, with no online ordering capability for its customers.

The goal was clear: transform the business into a self-service B2B ecommerce company, giving customers 24/7 access to select, order, and track products online. After extensive stakeholder interviews, requirements gathering, data audits, and a pilot website, RB&H and Ntara identified the precise platform needs:

A powerful catalog management system
Customer-specific data storage
A powerful search experience for product discovery across a large SKU range
Custom payment handling, customer-targeted discounts, multiple price/rules-based price lists, bulk order creation, and event-based notifications

Solution

Virto Commerce was selected for its unique combination of B2B-native features, flexible APIs, and scalability. Ntara led the implementation using an agile, sprint-based approach that enabled the team to launch in 10 months.

Key platform capabilities delivered:

Customer-specific price lists and rules-based pricing across all accounts
Custom payment handling with alerts and event-based notification system
Customer-targeted discounts and promotions
Bulk order creation and real-time order and delivery tracking
24/7 self-service portal with full product catalog access
Real-time product and ordering information for RB&H’s internal team, including visibility into accounts receivable, payments, returns, credits, and adjustments

Result

Since launching the Virto-powered solution in 2020, Royal Brass & Hose achieved an 11% increase in online sales compared to the previous year’s pilot program. Customers can now instantly create and manage orders at their convenience. The internal team gained full real-time visibility into customer orders, accounts receivable, returns, and adjustments.

6+ years of ecommerce growth

Monthly sprints with new functionalities

Full order visibility

Scalable to meet future B2C needs

Business Benefits

Customer-specific price lists and rules-based pricing ensure every account sees the correct, negotiated pricing automatically.
Real-time order and inventory visibility for internal teams means customer service staff can respond to any account query instantly, without relying on offline records or separate systems.
24/7 self-service access expanded RB&H’s effective selling beyond business hours, enabling customers in different time zones or with non-standard schedules to order at their convenience.