Jonathan Bird Web Design & Development
  1. Website Solutions
  2. Office Supplies eCommerce

Office Supplies & Furniture eCommerce Development

Office products is a repeat-ordering industry with pricing that is different for every customer. A generic online store cannot express that: it has one price per product, no approval workflows, and no idea what a pricing contract is. That is why so many office supplies dealers are still taking orders by phone and email.

We built and still run the eCommerce platform behind Impact Office Supplies, one of Australia's leading independent office supplies dealers. It serves B2B and B2C customers from the same catalogue, spanning stationery through to office furniture, with pricing driven per customer from their ERP. The platform runs at a 33.5% B2B conversion rate on 3.4 million annual pageviews, with over 60% of business orders placed online and website sales up 200% since launch. The same foundation powers their education booklist portal for Queensland schools.

Impact is not the only name in the industry that trusts us. We built the new Blue Ink Office Supplies website in Canberra with its Options ERP integration and Algolia search. Our custom delivery-management software runs daily delivery operations at both Impact and Blue Ink, complete with shipment tracking for customers. We also provide the ongoing website maintenance retainer for Rapid Line (FurnX), Australia's biggest office furniture supplier.

Customer pricing, contracts, quantity tiers, order approvals, user management, reordering automation, Algolia-powered search, and a 10-million-row nightly ERP sync: the hard parts of office products eCommerce are the parts we have already built.

A good fit when

Repeat purchasing needs to be fast, controlled and account-aware.

Office-products commerce works best when the website understands customers, contracts and reordering.
  • Customers have contracted pricing

    Accounts, tiers or product ranges differ between organisations.
  • Orders follow internal controls

    Approvals, users, budgets and cost centres must be reflected online.
  • Reordering should be effortless

    Lists, history and favourites need to support high-frequency purchasing.
  • ERP accuracy is essential

    Customer, stock, product and order data need reliable synchronisation.

What clients say about working with us

“Digital Bird was excellent to work with. After countless attempts with speaking with agencies and other web design contractors, we finally found Jonathan and the team, and what a blessing that was. The project was handled end to end, with clear communication the entire time. We have now engaged Jonathan and the team for on-going website management and work due to how well things turned out. If you are on the fence about which direction to go, I highly recommend just taking a call with Jonathan and the team and seeing what you can achieve together.”

Will Cross ROH Wheels
Head of Marketing & Partnerships, ROH Wheels
Google reviews

“We have used Jonathan for a number of years to develop and maintain our rather complicated Online Portal and website. Jonathan is always extremely responsive to requests and proactive in ensuring our online presence is safe, presents well and is functional to our customers needs. We would definitely recommend Jonathan for your custom web development needs.”

Nathan Smith East Coast Bullbars
Marketing Manager, East Coast Bullbars

“Digital Bird is my first pick for delivering web projects on time, on budget and to the brief — every time.

Beyond being a delight to work with, Jonathan Bird is that rare breed of developer who is both masterful on the tools (an absolute Laravel whizz!) while also being adept at engaging the client in UX-thinking, to which he applies expert insights, gained through years of experience, to help further improve the end design for the target user’s experience.

This powerful combination of skills means that 4 years on and a variety of projects later (from search directories to corporate website developments), Digital Bird firmly remains my first pick for developer.”

Emma Keller Brisbane South PHN
Communications Manager, Brisbane South PHN

“We’ve been working with Jonathan Bird for our website maintenance, and he has been nothing short of exceptional. Jonathan consistently goes above and beyond, responding quickly whenever we need help and resolving issues with impressive turnaround time. His communication is clear and thorough — he always explains what the problem was, how he fixed it, and provides helpful recommendations for long-term solutions. It’s rare to find someone this reliable and proactive. Highly recommend!”

Nichola Ross Rapidline (FurnX Commercial Furniture)
Marketing Manager, Rapidline (FurnX Commercial Furniture)

“Digital Bird has had a huge influence on our business providing many solutions besides just a fantastic reliable website. Jonathan is great to work with and has a solution to every challenge. Jonathan also has the ability to “dumb it down” and provide timely advice and assistance if something goes astray. With Jonathan we have in excess of 99% uptime on all three websites.”

Jeff Ross Impact Office Supplies Logo
Director, Impact Office Supplies

“Velg Training has had an excellent experience working with Digital Bird. Jonathan has supported us with a complex Laravel/PHP website and has brought a rare mix of deep technical knowledge, practical problem solving, and clear communication.

He has assisted with major infrastructure and platform work across AWS, Laravel Forge, Cloudflare, Redis, S3, Sentry, PayWay, Mailchimp/Mandrill and related integrations. His work has included setting up and migrating infrastructure, improving performance, resolving production issues, monitoring errors, modernising legacy code, and strengthening the reliability of key business workflows such as checkout, invoicing, membership exports, PDF generation, transactional emails and background queues.

What stands out most is that Jonathan does not just “fix the ticket”. He investigates properly, explains the cause in plain language, and looks for the right long-term solution rather than quick patches. He has helped us move away from fragile legacy processes, improve automated testing, reduce errors, improve email reliability, address performance bottlenecks, and make the platform easier to maintain into the future.

He is responsive, thorough and highly professional, with an obvious understanding of business-critical websites and custom web applications. We would happily recommend Jonathan to any organisation needing a skilled, reliable and commercially minded Laravel/PHP web developer.”

Leonie Davis Velg Training
Director, Content and Strategy, Velg Training

“Was an absolute pleasure to work with Jonathan. Could not be happier with our new website! Professional, responsive, brilliant communication from the beginning to go live. If you are fortunate enough to be in a conversation with Jonathan for a new site - just do it!”

Alex Brennan Blue Ink Office Supplies
Director, Blue Ink Office Supplies

“I’ve worked with Jonathan from Digital Bird for several years and found him to be a highly competent developer who often exceeds expectations.

Together, we’ve collaborated on a number of medium-sized platforms serving hundreds of thousands of users, including learning management systems, a widely-used school well-being platform, trade promotion competition sites, and more.

Jonathan is very skilled in API and platform integration, payment systems (such as Stripe), AWS, internet security, and more. As a Project Manager/Product Owner, I feel very confident working with Jonathan and recommending his services to our clients.”

Zachary Bavas Invision Media
Technical Operations, Invision Media

“Highly recommend Jonathan for anything web development in Brisbane and Australia-wide. Have worked with a lot of developers over the years and Jonathan’s work and communication on projects has been a clear standout. A very talent developer if you’re looking for anything from WordPress, Shopify, Laravel, or anything in-between.”

Brodie Clark Brodie Clark Consulting Logo
Director, Brodie Clark SEO Consulting

“Jonathan Bird is one of the best I have worked with in this space. He is responsive, clever and contributes to the brief, and most importantly, he is a great person to work with. It can be hard to find the right people who can take on something and lift it to another dimension. Jonathan does that and more.”

Mark Gold AMA Group Logo
Director of Corporate Affairs, AMA Group Ltd
What matters

What this work needs to deliver

Proven in the office products industry

The Impact Office Supplies platform runs at a 33.5% B2B conversion rate with a $250 average order value and website sales up 200% since launch, and over 60% of their business orders are placed online. Not a demo store: a platform an office products dealer runs their business on. We also built the Blue Ink Office Supplies website, and Australia's biggest office furniture supplier, Rapid Line (FurnX), keeps us on a maintenance retainer for theirs.

Customer pricing, contracts & tiers

Customer-specific pricing per product, quantity price breaks, contract pricing with from and to dates, and B2B or B2C pricing by customer type, all driven from your ERP. The price a customer sees on the website is always the price your reps agreed.

Order approvals & user management

Accounts with multiple users and roles, order approval workflows, users who order on behalf of several customer accounts, and online accounts payable. The platform fits how offices, schools, and businesses actually purchase, instead of forcing everyone through a lone-shopper checkout.

Reordering automation

Recurring orders, persistent carts that follow the customer across devices, wish lists, online quotes, and automated abandoned cart recovery. In office products the margin lives in the repeat order, so the platform makes reordering the easiest possible path.

Turning orders into B2B leads

Business buyers ordering through the public store are surfaced to your sales team as trade account leads, so a B2C checkout becomes a pipeline for managed B2B accounts with negotiated pricing, instead of staying an anonymous one-off order.

ERP sync & admin panel

A nightly ERP sync of 10 million rows runs at a 100% success rate, with real-time updates for new customers, products, and pricing. Your staff manage orders, customers, and pricing from a purpose-built admin panel instead of juggling the ERP and spreadsheets.

Straight advice

The right answer may be smaller than a rebuild.

We will explain the trade-offs and recommend the level of change the problem actually warrants.

You may not need a rebuild

If the current foundations can be improved properly, we will say so.

Requirements choose the platform

We do not force a preferred tool onto a brief it does not suit.

Fix the source of recurring failures

Understanding the cause is more valuable than charging to patch the same symptom again.

How we work

A senior team stays close to the work.

Strategy, design and development work together, with direct access to the people responsible for the decisions and the outcome.
  • Direct access to senior people
  • Design and development working closely together
  • Technical advice from the people responsible for implementation
  • Senior developers remain involved throughout delivery
  • The same team supports the site after launch
“Digital Bird has had a huge influence on our business providing many solutions besides just a fantastic reliable website. Jonathan is great to work with and has a solution to every challenge. Jonathan also has the ability to “dumb it down” and provide timely advice and assistance if something goes astray. With Jonathan we have in excess of 99% uptime on all three websites.”
Jeff Ross Director, Impact Office Supplies Impact Office Supplies Logo
Process

From the first decision to ongoing improvement

We keep strategy, design, development, and technical ownership close together. Your team is involved at the decision points, with clear recommendations and visible progress throughout.
  1. Step 1: Understand

    Clarify the audience, business problem, constraints, content, and measures of success.

  2. Step 2: Recommend

    Explain the viable options and trade-offs, then recommend the simplest sound approach.

  3. Step 3: Plan

    Agree priorities, responsibilities, scope, timing, and the decisions your stakeholders need to make.

  4. Step 4: Design and build

    Work in visible increments while strategy, user experience, content, and engineering remain connected.

  5. Step 5: Validate and launch

    Test the important journeys, performance, accessibility, content, integrations, and operational readiness.

  6. Step 6: Improve

    Monitor the live system, resolve issues, and continue improving it as requirements change.

FAQ

Common Office Supplies eCommerce Project Questions

Common questions our team is asked about Office Supplies eCommerce.
Yes, this is the heart of office products eCommerce. Pricing is set per customer and product, with quantity price breaks and B2B or B2C pricing by customer type, all driven from your ERP. On the Impact Office Supplies platform every trade customer logs in to their own negotiated pricing.
Yes. Contract pricing is date-bounded with from and to dates, so an agreed price applies for exactly the period your reps negotiated and falls back automatically when the contract lapses. No one has to remember to update prices by hand, and no customer keeps an expired discount.
Yes. Accounts can have multiple users with roles, order approval workflows for purchases that need sign-off, users who order on behalf of several customer accounts, and online accounts payable. This mirrors how offices and schools genuinely buy, rather than forcing procurement through a single shared login.
With a sync designed for the scale office products actually runs at. The Impact platform synchronises 10 million rows from their ERP nightly at a 100% success rate, with real-time updates for new customers, products, and pricing during the day. Algolia-powered search keeps that catalogue fast to navigate, and best sellers and featured products put your most-bought lines in front of customers.
Yes, and it is a strength of the model. The public store serves retail customers at retail pricing, trade customers log in to their negotiated pricing, and business buyers coming through the public store are surfaced as B2B leads for your sales team. Impact Office Supplies has run this combined model since 2018.
The numbers say yes. Over 60% of Impact Office Supplies' business orders are now placed online, and logged-in trade customers convert at 33.5% because they arrive to order, not to browse. Your team keeps the relationships and the complex quotes, while the website absorbs the repetitive rekeying.
Yes. We provide the ongoing website maintenance retainer for Rapid Line (FurnX), Australia's biggest office furniture supplier, and we built and maintain the Options ERP integration behind their platform. The Impact Office Supplies catalogue also spans stationery through to office furniture. Across the industry the fundamentals are the same: ERP-driven catalogues, customer-specific pricing, and repeat B2B ordering.

Bring us your Office Supplies eCommerce decision

Book a free strategy session with the senior people who scope and deliver the work. We will help clarify the problem, test assumptions and identify a practical next step—without turning the session into a generic sales call.

Planning a project?

Free Strategy Session
Free Strategy Session