The shop ran on a boxed e-commerce platform. It worked, but anything outside what it shipped with meant a third-party extension or a patch that broke at the next update.

A second brand and wholesale selling would have meant a second and third installation — each with its own catalogue, its own prices and its own admin. Three shops, three places to do everything three times.

A product, a category, a coupon and a price rule all carry the list of shops they belong to. Stock is filed once, and the operator sees on every row where it is published.

The third shop is wholesale: it shows no prices until you sign in. Customer groups and price rules handle discounts per customer and per product, with minimum quantities and validity windows.

Catalogue filters count their results on the server, so a value with nothing behind it cannot be ticked. The whole filter state lives in the URL, so it can be sent as a link.

Almost eight thousand products came across along with categories, customers and order history. The new shop did not open with an empty catalogue.

Orders go out to accounting and invoices come back attached to them. Stock reconciles with the warehouse records, the shop floor with the till. The price on the site and the price in the books are the same number.