Most manufacturers who try to sell online fail within the first year. Not because the market isn’t there, but because they try to force custom, configured, or made-to-order products into platforms designed for t-shirts and phone cases. Standard ecommerce platforms assume every product has a fixed SKU, a fixed price, and ships from a shelf. Manufacturing doesn’t work that way. This guide breaks down why the standard approach fails, what manufacturers actually need, and how to choose the right platform strategy for products that don’t fit neatly into a shopping cart.
Why Manufacturers Struggle with Standard Ecommerce
The core problem is a model mismatch. Platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and even BigCommerce were built around a simple concept: a product has a name, a price, and a quantity in stock. A customer adds it to a cart, pays, and you ship it. This model works beautifully for consumer goods. It breaks completely for most manufacturers.
Consider a company that makes custom metal enclosures. A single product line might have:
- 12 base sizes
- 4 material options (mild steel, stainless 304, stainless 316, aluminum)
- 6 finish options
- 3 mounting configurations
- Optional cutouts, knockouts, and hardware
- Quantity-dependent pricing that changes at 10, 50, and 100 units
That’s potentially thousands of combinations before you even get to the custom options. In a standard ecommerce platform, you’d need to create a separate variant for every valid combination, or you’d need to use a generic “contact us for pricing” button that kills the buying experience.
Neither option works. The first is operationally impossible to maintain. The second turns your “ecommerce” site into a glorified brochure.
The Three Types of Manufacturing Products Online
Not all manufacturers face the same challenges. Where you fall on this spectrum determines what kind of ecommerce approach you need:
Standard catalog products. These are fixed-specification items that a manufacturer produces repeatedly. Think fasteners, fittings, standard brackets. These can work on traditional ecommerce platforms with some B2B extensions for pricing and ordering.
Configurable products. These have a defined set of options that customers combine to create their specification. Custom enclosures, modular furniture, configurable machinery components. These need a product configurator that understands valid combinations and can generate accurate pricing or quotes.
Fully custom products. These are engineered to order from a customer’s specifications or drawings. Custom fabrication, one-off machinery, bespoke industrial components. These need a quoting workflow, not a shopping cart. The goal online is to capture detailed requirements and route them to engineering.
Most manufacturers have a mix of all three. The platform strategy needs to handle each type appropriately within a single experience.
Configure-to-Order Requirements
Configure-to-order (CTO) is the middle ground that most manufacturers occupy, and it’s the hardest to serve with standard ecommerce tools. CTO means the customer specifies what they want from a defined set of options, and the manufacturer builds it. It’s not fully custom (no engineering required), but it’s not a shelf item either.
Here’s what a CTO ecommerce experience actually needs:
Option Dependencies and Validation
When a customer selects 316 stainless steel, certain finish options become unavailable. When they choose a panel mount configuration, specific cutout patterns become required. A real configurator enforces these rules automatically. Without it, you get invalid orders that waste engineering time and frustrate customers.
Standard ecommerce variant systems have no concept of conditional logic between options. You can show all variants, but you can’t make Option C disappear when Option A is selected. Every platform that claims to handle “product options” means simple dropdowns, not business-rule-driven configuration.
Visual Feedback
Buyers configuring a $5,000 custom product need to see what they’re building. Even a simplified 2D rendering that updates as they select options builds confidence that they’re ordering the right thing. This is particularly important for products where dimensions, materials, and features interact visually.
Some manufacturers invest in full 3D configurators with real-time rendering. For most, a well-designed 2D visualization that shows the selected configuration is sufficient and far more cost-effective to build and maintain.
Dynamic Pricing or Quote Generation
The output of configuration needs to be one of two things: a calculated price that the customer can accept and purchase, or a quote request that captures all the configured details and routes to your sales team. Many manufacturers use a hybrid: show estimated pricing during configuration, then generate a formal quote for review before the order is finalized.
The key point is that the configurator needs to connect to your actual pricing logic. That might be a formula based on material weight, manufacturing time, and margin targets. It might be a lookup table maintained by your sales team. Either way, it can’t be a static price attached to a SKU.
Integration with Manufacturing Systems
A configured order needs to flow directly into your manufacturing process. That means generating a work order, bill of materials, or at minimum a structured specification that your production team can work from. If someone on your team has to manually re-enter configuration details from a web order into your ERP or production system, you’ve just moved the bottleneck from sales to operations.
The integration layer between the configurator and your backend systems is often the most complex and most valuable part of the entire project. It eliminates the manual translation step where errors creep in and time gets wasted.
Variable Pricing Challenges
Pricing is where manufacturer ecommerce gets genuinely difficult. Consumer ecommerce assumes one price per product, visible to everyone, same for all buyers. Manufacturing pricing is almost never that simple.
Customer-Specific Pricing
Your distributor in Dallas pays a different price than your distributor in Chicago. Your OEM account that orders 10,000 units per year gets a different rate than a first-time buyer ordering 10. This isn’t a nice-to-have feature. It’s fundamental to how manufacturing businesses operate.
Implementing customer-specific pricing requires:
- Account-based login where each customer sees their negotiated prices
- Price lists or pricing tiers that can be assigned per customer or customer group
- Contract pricing that overrides standard pricing for specific products during a defined period
- A fallback strategy for non-logged-in visitors (typically “contact for pricing” or MSRP display)
Most standard ecommerce platforms support basic customer groups with percentage discounts. Very few handle the complexity of per-product, per-customer contract pricing that manufacturers need. Shopify Plus gets closer with its B2B features. BigCommerce has stronger native support. But for complex pricing scenarios, you’re typically looking at a custom pricing engine or a headless approach where your ERP serves as the pricing authority.
Quantity Break Pricing
A manufacturer pricing model almost always includes volume discounts, but not the simple “buy 3 get 10% off” variety. Manufacturing quantity breaks reflect actual cost differences in production:
- 1 to 9 units: setup costs are spread across few items, highest per-unit price
- 10 to 49 units: setup costs amortize, material buying power improves
- 50 to 99 units: dedicated production run, significant per-unit savings
- 100+ units: optimized production, best material pricing, lowest per-unit cost
These breaks aren’t arbitrary marketing incentives. They reflect real manufacturing economics. Your ecommerce platform needs to display these breaks clearly and calculate pricing accurately at each tier, including when a configured product’s base price varies.
Material Cost Fluctuations
Steel prices move. Aluminum prices move. Resin prices move. A manufacturer selling products with significant material cost components can’t commit to a fixed online price for months at a time. Some manufacturers handle this with:
- Quarterly price updates where online prices are refreshed to reflect current material costs
- Material surcharges that are added as a line item and updated more frequently
- Real-time pricing that pulls current material costs and calculates on the fly (complex to build, but eliminates the pricing lag)
- Quote-based selling where the quoted price reflects material costs at the time of quotation, valid for 30 days
There’s no single right approach. The choice depends on how volatile your material costs are, how price-sensitive your customers are, and how much operational overhead you’re willing to accept in keeping prices current.
Lead-Based vs. Cart-Based Selling
This is the most important strategic decision a manufacturer makes when building ecommerce. It shapes everything else: the platform choice, the user experience, the integration requirements, and the operational workflow.
When Cart-Based Selling Works
Add-to-cart with online checkout works when:
- Products have fixed or calculable prices that don’t require human review
- Order values are below $2,000 to $3,000 (the threshold where buyers expect a human conversation)
- Products are standard or simply configured with well-understood specifications
- Production lead times are predictable and can be communicated automatically
- The buyer doesn’t need terms (can pay by credit card or has established net terms through an account)
Many manufacturers have a subset of products that meet these criteria. Standard parts, accessories, replacement components, and consumables can often sell through a traditional cart flow, even when the company’s primary products require quoting.
When Lead-Based (RFQ) Selling Works
Request-for-quote workflows are appropriate when:
- Products are highly configured or fully custom with pricing that requires engineering or sales review
- Order values are high ($5,000+) and buyers expect negotiation or discussion
- Specifications need validation before pricing can be determined
- The sale involves contractual terms, custom payment schedules, or blanket orders
- Regulatory or compliance requirements mean orders need human verification
The mistake many manufacturers make is treating RFQ as a dead end. A form that says “tell us what you need and we’ll get back to you” with no structure or guidance is a terrible experience. The best RFQ flows guide the buyer through a structured specification process, capturing all the details your team needs to quote accurately, and provide an estimated timeline for the quote response.
The Hybrid Approach
The most effective manufacturer ecommerce sites use both models on the same platform. Standard and simply configured products go through a cart and checkout flow. Complex and custom products go through a guided RFQ flow. The customer experience should make the transition seamless.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Customer browses the product catalog and selects a product line
- If the product is standard: they see pricing, configure options, and add to cart
- If the product is configurable with calculable pricing: they use the configurator, see the price, and add to cart
- If the product requires quoting: the configurator captures their specifications and generates a quote request with all the structured data your team needs
- Your sales team receives the structured request, generates a quote (often faster because the data is clean), and the customer receives it in their account portal
This hybrid approach captures the full range of buying intent. The customer who knows exactly what they want and is ready to buy can complete the transaction immediately. The customer who needs a custom solution gets a guided, professional experience that accelerates the quoting process.
Quoting Tools for Manufacturers
The spectrum of quoting tools ranges from a basic contact form to a full Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) system integrated with your ERP. Where you land on that spectrum depends on your product complexity, order volume, and operational maturity.
Level 1: Structured RFQ Forms
The simplest improvement over “email us for a quote” is a structured form that captures the specific details your team needs. Instead of a blank text field, you present dropdown menus, dimension inputs, material selections, and file upload for drawings or specifications.
This costs very little to build and immediately improves quote quality. Your team gets structured data instead of vague email requests, which means fewer rounds of clarifying questions and faster quote turnaround.
Level 2: Guided Configurator with Quote Output
The next level adds a visual configurator that walks the buyer through their options, validates combinations, and generates a structured quote request. The buyer sees what they’re specifying. Your team receives a complete, validated specification.
This is where most manufacturers should start their configurator investment. The configurator doesn’t need to calculate final pricing (though it can show estimates). Its primary job is to capture a complete, accurate specification that your team can quote quickly.
Level 3: CPQ Integration
A full Configure-Price-Quote system connects the configurator to your pricing engine and generates formal quotes automatically. The buyer configures their product, the system calculates the price based on your actual cost models and margin rules, and a quote PDF is generated instantly or within minutes.
CPQ integration typically requires connecting to your ERP for material costs, labor rates, and margin targets. It’s a significant investment, but for manufacturers processing hundreds of quotes per month, it transforms the sales operation. Sales people stop doing math and start closing deals.
Level 4: CPQ with Instant Checkout
The most advanced level combines CPQ with the ability to accept the quote and convert it to an order immediately. The customer configures, receives an instant or near-instant quote, accepts the terms, and the order flows directly into production.
This level requires high confidence in your pricing models, automated credit checks or pre-established terms, and tight integration between the commerce platform and your manufacturing systems. Few manufacturers reach this level across their entire product line, but many achieve it for their most standardized configured products.
Platform Approaches
There is no single platform that handles every manufacturer’s needs perfectly. The right approach depends on your product complexity, your existing systems, and your growth trajectory.
Shopify Plus with Custom Apps
Best for: Manufacturers with a mix of standard products and moderately configured items, who value speed to market and a large app ecosystem.
Shopify Plus offers B2B wholesale channels, customer-specific pricing through company accounts, and a well-documented API for building custom functionality. Its limitation is that it’s fundamentally a product-per-SKU platform. For complex configuration, you’ll need a custom app or a third-party configurator (like KiwiSizing, Product Options by Bold, or a fully custom solution) that sits on top of Shopify’s product model.
The advantage of Shopify Plus is ecosystem maturity. Payment processing, shipping, tax calculation, and basic B2B features work out of the box. You’re adding manufacturing-specific functionality on top of a solid commerce foundation.
Typical cost: $2,000/month for Shopify Plus + $20,000 to $80,000 for custom configurator app development, depending on complexity.
BigCommerce B2B Edition
Best for: Manufacturers with strong B2B requirements who need customer-specific pricing, purchase orders, and quote management without heavy customization.
BigCommerce B2B Edition includes native features that Shopify requires apps for: company accounts with multiple buyers and approvers, customer-specific price lists, purchase order support, and a built-in quote management system. For manufacturers whose primary selling motion is B2B, BigCommerce often requires less customization to reach a functional state.
The tradeoff is a smaller app ecosystem and fewer third-party integrations compared to Shopify. If your needs align with BigCommerce’s built-in B2B features, this gap matters less.
Typical cost: $400 to $1,500/month for B2B edition + $15,000 to $60,000 for customization and configurator development.
Headless Commerce
Best for: Manufacturers with highly complex configuration needs, multiple sales channels, or existing systems (ERP, PIM, CPQ) that need to serve as the source of truth.
A headless approach separates the frontend (the website and configurator your customers interact with) from the backend commerce engine (product data, pricing, orders, inventory). This gives you complete control over the buying experience while using a platform like Commercetools, Medusa, or Saleor for commerce operations.
For manufacturers, headless architecture is particularly valuable because it lets your ERP or product information management system remain the source of truth for pricing, specifications, and inventory. The frontend pulls data from your existing systems rather than forcing you to duplicate and sync everything into a monolithic platform.
The tradeoff is higher development cost and complexity. Headless projects typically take 2 to 3 times longer than platform-based implementations and require ongoing development resources to maintain.
Typical cost: $50,000 to $200,000+ for initial build, plus ongoing development resources.
Fully Custom
Best for: Manufacturers with truly unique selling processes that no existing platform can accommodate, even with heavy customization.
A fully custom build (typically using a framework like Next.js or Astro with a custom backend) gives you complete control over every aspect of the experience. This path makes sense when your product configuration is so specialized, your pricing logic so complex, or your integration requirements so specific that adapting a platform would cost as much as building from scratch.
The risk is higher. You’re building and maintaining everything yourself: payment processing, security, order management, and all the commerce fundamentals that platforms handle out of the box. This path requires a strong development team and a long-term commitment to maintenance.
Typical cost: $100,000 to $500,000+ for initial build, plus $5,000 to $15,000/month for ongoing development and maintenance.
Choosing the Right Approach
The decision framework comes down to three questions:
How complex is your product configuration? If your products have fewer than 50 valid combinations, a platform with custom options can work. If you’re in the hundreds or thousands of combinations with conditional logic, you need a dedicated configurator regardless of the platform.
How complex is your pricing? If every customer sees the same price with standard quantity breaks, any platform works. If you have customer-specific negotiated pricing, contract pricing, and material-based calculations, you need either a B2B-native platform (BigCommerce B2B) or a headless approach where your pricing engine is the authority.
What systems do you need to integrate? If you’re running an ERP like NetSuite, SAP, or Epicor that manages your production and inventory, the integration between your ecommerce platform and your ERP is the most critical (and most expensive) part of the project. Choose the platform that integrates most cleanly with your existing systems, or go headless and let your ERP drive the experience.
The performance team at Umbral builds product configurators and custom buying experiences specifically for manufacturers and other product companies with complex selling requirements. If you’re evaluating platform approaches and want a second opinion, schedule a consultation.
What Success Looks Like
Manufacturers who get ecommerce right see measurable results within 6 to 12 months:
- 30 to 60% reduction in time-to-quote through structured RFQ or CPQ workflows
- 15 to 25% increase in quote volume because the online experience captures buyers who previously bounced
- Higher average order values because configurators encourage customers to explore options they wouldn’t have asked about over the phone
- Reduced order errors because configured specifications are validated before they reach production
- New customer acquisition from organic search, as product pages and configurators create indexable, findable content for every product variation
The manufacturers who struggle are the ones who treat ecommerce as a bolt-on project rather than a strategic investment. Getting it right requires understanding your products, your customers, and your operations at a level that most generic web agencies simply don’t have. That’s why specialized partners who understand manufacturing selling patterns deliver better outcomes than generalists who’ve only built consumer checkout flows.
For a deeper look at how manufacturers generate leads and build digital revenue channels, read our guide to manufacturing lead generation. If you’re evaluating your current site’s performance and speed, the performance service overview covers the technical layer that sits underneath everything discussed in this guide.