The platform behind a top-50 US distributor's client stores
Approvals, budgets and proofing inside the order path
One platform, a new client store in days
A different kind of store
Why Promotional Products Need Their Own Kind of Ecommerce
Top 50 US promotional products distributor running on our platform5 published case studies from that one company-store program
A promotional products distributor does not run one store. It runs a program: a company store for each client, where that client's employees, dealers or franchisees order branded apparel, safety gear and merchandise against a budget, with the logo locked, the colours approved and every order checked by someone before it ships. The catalog multiplies with every decoration option, the price depends on who is buying and how many, payment is as often a purchase order or an allowance as a card, and a new client expects its store open in days, not months. Most of the market answers this with a turnkey vendor's platform, which works until the distributor wants its own margins, its own data and a feature the vendor will not build. The alternative is to own the platform: one commerce system, built for multi-store from the start, that opens a new client store from a template, carries approval flows and budgets in the core order path, and talks to the decoration, fulfilment and accounting systems the business already runs. That is what we build, and we have run one for a top-fifty US distributor since 2024.
What breaks a program
Six Problems a Promotional Products Store Has to Solve
A general ecommerce build handles none of these out of the box. A company-store platform is built around them.
Every Client Wants Its Own Store
Its own domain or path, its own catalog, its own prices, its own rules about who may log in and what they may see. Multiply by every client you win.
Orders That Need Approval, Not Just Payment
A manager signs off before an order ships, with the reason for the purchase recorded, and a refused order carries the reason too. Cash and check orders need the same path as cards.
Decoration Multiplies the Catalog
One polo shirt becomes sizes, colours, logo placements, imprint methods and minimums. Without a configurator and a proofing step, every order is a phone call.
Budgets, Allowances and Points
Employees spend an allowance, dealers spend co-op funds, and someone has to see what is left. A store that only knows card payments cannot run the program.
Platforms That Do Not Talk to Each Other
Legacy store builders, a separate order system, a decorator's spreadsheet and the accounting package, each with its own copy of the truth and none of them current.
A Vendor That Owns Your Data
Turnkey store platforms hold the client list, the order history and the margins. Leaving means starting again, which is exactly what their pricing counts on.
Model, build, launch, grow
How We Build a Company Store Program
Store Types and Access
Catalog and Decoration Rules
Pricing, Budgets and Payment Methods
Roles and Approvals
Multi-Store Platform
Configurators and Proofing
Approval Workflows
Integrations
Stores Rolled Out per Client
Training for Your Team
Reporting Across Stores
Support After Launch
New Stores in Days
Seasonal and Event Programs
Program Analytics
A Roadmap, Not Tickets
The proof
What We Built for a Top-50 Distributor and Its Clients
3 months from plan to rollout of the unified platform40+ categories on one store's menu, past the PWA's default of fifteen
Stran is one of the top fifty distributors in the US promotional products market, running marketing programs for clients across industries. When we met, its client stores sat on a fragmented estate of Magento 1 and WebJaguar sites. We consolidated them onto one Adobe Commerce Open Source platform with PWA storefronts, chosen for how it handles multi-site setups, and built in the approval flow the business runs on: a reason recorded when a manager raises an order, and another when one is refused. The rollout took three months and became a long-term partnership. The client stores followed on the same platform: Badger Infrastructure Solutions' merchandise store, rebuilt with a PWA storefront, PCI DSS compliance and an approval workflow for cash and check orders; USS On Demand, moved onto its own domain with a reviewer notified on every approval and a menu rewritten to carry more than forty categories; Axiom Space Gear, which kept checkout on native Magento while the rest went PWA; and Culture Pop, which needed a corporate ordering hub and a consumer site at once, both shipped in under six months.
Verified reviews
What Our Clients Say
2.1s
faster largest contentful paint
This team consistently goes above and beyond in terms of helping to ascertain the most viable and feasible outputs and outcomes for our evergrowing business needs.
Anthony Perrotta
E-Commerce Operations Manager
4 yrs
as their sole technical partner
They designed for where the product was going, not just what we asked for. Early on we described a single-company setup; they built the data model and permission layer so multi-tenancy wouldn’t require a rewrite later.
Alex Tee
CTO
Pick the shape
Three Programs We Build
Company Store Programs for Distributors
One platform behind every client store, with private access, budgets, approvals and decoration rules in the order path, and a template that opens the next store in days. The shape we built for Stran and its clients.
Branded Merchandise Stores
A single store for one brand's merchandise, public or private, with the catalog, decoration options and approval rules that brand needs. Fast on a phone, secure at checkout, and ready to grow into a program later.
Corporate and Consumer Storefronts Together
When a brand needs a corporate ordering hub for partners and a consumer store for its fans, both run from one platform with shared catalog and separate rules: guest-friendly on one side, restricted on the other.
Platforms we build on
Platforms We Build Company Stores On
Trusted by 100+ companies
Keep reading
Reading Before the Call
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions?
Tell us about your store and we will come back with straight answers.
Talk to us
Which platform is best for a company store program?
For a distributor running many client stores, Adobe Commerce Open Source with a PWA or Hyvä storefront, because it runs many websites and store views on one admin with shared or separate catalogs, prices and customer groups, and it is what we built Stran's program on. For a single brand's merchandise store, Shopify or BigCommerce can be the quicker fit. The model we draw up first says which.
Can one build run many client stores?
Yes. That is the point of the program model: one platform, one admin, and a template that opens a new client store with its own domain or path, catalog, prices, access rules and approvers. Stran's estate went from a fragmented set of Magento 1 and WebJaguar sites to one platform behind every store.
How do decoration options and proofing work in the order?
Decoration is modelled as configurable options on the product: imprint method, logo placement, colours, sizes and minimums, with pricing rules attached. Where a proof is required the order waits for approval of the artwork before it goes to production, and the proof and its approval are recorded against the order.
Can clients pay with budgets, points or purchase orders?
Yes. Allowances and budgets per employee or per department, points programs, purchase orders, and cash or check orders that route to an approver all live beside card payments. The store shows what is left to spend, and the approver sees why the order was raised.
How do order approvals work?
An order that needs sign-off, by payment method, by amount or by store rule, goes to the right approver, who is notified automatically and sees the reason the order was raised. Approval releases it; refusal records the reason too. Badger, USS On Demand and Axiom Space Gear each run a version of this flow.
Do you integrate supplier catalogs and decorator systems?
Yes, as part of the build. Supplier product data, decorator and fulfilment systems, shipping carriers and the accounting package are connected through their APIs or data feeds, so product data, orders and invoices move without re-keying. Which integrations are in scope is set in the model.
How is a company store program priced?
Individually, after we see the catalog, the client stores and the rules they run on, because the number of store types, the decoration complexity and the integrations decide the work. The model we draw up first carries an estimate per part. There is no price list on this site because no two programs look alike.
How fast can a new client store open once the platform exists?
Days. The template carries the storefront, the approval flows and the payment methods; opening a store is a matter of its domain, its catalog, its prices and its people. The three-month figure on this page was the first rollout of the whole platform, not one store.
Can you take over a program another vendor or agency built?
Yes. Stran's program began exactly that way, as a set of stores on platforms built by others. We read what exists, keep what works, and move the stores onto one platform in an order that keeps every client trading. Our project rescue service describes how a takeover runs.
Do you build the consumer side as well as the corporate store?
Yes. Culture Pop needed a corporate ordering hub for partners and a consumer site for its customers, both on one platform with separate rules, and both shipped in under six months. A guest-friendly homepage in front of a restricted store was the hardest part of that brief, and it is a pattern we reuse.
Can client stores be private?
Yes. Private stores sit behind a login, with access by invitation, by email domain or by customer group, and nothing from them appears in search engines or in the public catalog. Public, private, dealer and employee stores can all run on the same platform.
Who runs the program after launch?
Your team opens and runs the stores; we train them to do it and stay on for support, upgrades, security patches and the next features. Stran's rollout became a long-term partnership, and most programs follow that path, but nothing in the platform depends on us.
Let’s build something great together!
Ready to Own the Platform Behind Your Client Stores?
Send us the links to your top three client stores and the rules they run on. We come back with the program model, the first stores it would open with, and the dates.