Over the past eighty years, Russell Hendrix has become Canada's largest food service equipment supplier, serving everyone from independent operators to national chains. Their success comes from their deep expertise, extensive sales team, and taking projects from blueprint to finished installation. But their legacy ecommerce platform, which was heavily customized over a decade, couldn't keep pace with rising customer expectations. That's when Russell Hendrix turned to Shopify to modernize their operations while preserving the consultative approach that built their reputation.
Since launching Shopify B2B just 12 months ago, Russell Hendrix has achieved:
- 24% increase in revenue
- 43% increase in B2B online order volume
- 5x faster order processing for sales reps using draft orders vs. their ERP
Challenge: A Legacy Platform That Couldn't Evolve
Russell Hendrix was an early adopter of ecommerce, heavily customizing their platform to meet their needs. But over time, that customized system couldn't keep pace with their growth, as every new feature required custom development. "You had to build a business case before moving forward because you're investing in custom development. The ability to test or experiment with new functionality just wasn't part of it," says Paul Roy, Director of Ecommerce and Marketing. Hosting also created massive overhead, draining their technical resources.
Their sales team avoided using the system entirely, preferring to enter orders into their ERP. This meant they weren't promoting online ordering to customers either. Meanwhile, the customers who were using the site faced their own challenges navigating the 10,000+ products they offer. "The search capabilities were not great, and the user experience was outdated. We knew that we needed to modernize and upgrade," says Stan Dabic, Chief Executive Officer.
In their search for alternatives, Russell Hendrix considered a B2B-specific ecommerce vendor, but they were worried about repeating past mistakes. "It felt like a similar path where in eight years we'd say we've backed ourselves into a corner on development," says Paul. Then, they turned to Shopify, a platform they were already using successfully for their DTC operations.
Solution: A Scalable Platform That Grows With Your Business
Shopify offered something their previous platform couldn't: scalability. "That's what's big about Shopify B2B. Never worrying about the server going down. It's a lot easier to sleep at night," says Paul. Shopify's SaaS model eliminated the need to manage infrastructure, updates, or code bases.
Native companies and catalogs features also solved Russell Hendrix's most complex challenge: managing 300+ different customer groups, each with unique pricing, terms, and product availability. Catalogs ensure each customer only sees products they're authorized to buy at their negotiated rate, while companies centralize management of even their largest customers under a single profile.
I think everyone is worried that you need to run a bunch of apps on Shopify, but you don't. 90% of our needs are covered by the platform and first-party Shopify apps.
Perhaps most importantly, Russell Hendrix never had to worry about building features from scratch. "We have the ability to try features with a one-click integration from the App Store. The ability to experiment is dramatically higher, and the risk is low," says Paul. They implemented Shopify Flow to automate backend tasks like email notifications and order routing, Checkout Blocks to implement business rules at checkout, and Shopify Search & Discovery to deliver relevant search results to every buyer.
Results: Better Customer Experience, Measurable Results
The switch to Shopify delivered immediate improvements for customers. "The feedback's been overwhelmingly positive. Our customers are used to sites that match what they get as consumers when it comes to convenience, ease, and speed and that's what we're delivering," says Stan. Better search and product recommendations help customers navigate their extensive catalog. "Being able to surface something as simple as the lid that goes with a pot, that makes it so much easier to buy from us."
Beyond the feedback, the numbers are equally impressive. Revenue has increased 24% since launch, and average order values are up 9%.
Processing orders in the admin helps our sales team bypass so many steps we used to have to go through before. It's probably five times faster than using our ERP.
Russell Hendrix has also started bringing their inside sales and customer support teams onto Shopify. Teams can now enter orders faster using the same platform customers use, freeing them up to focus on complex consultative sales instead of routine orders. Learning the platform also helps sales reps show customers how to use it, driving adoption that the previous platform never achieved. But for Russell Hendrix, this is just the beginning. "We feel like we're only at the starting point. We want to triple, quadruple our volume through Shopify," says Paul.