Gutter Supply has replaced a two-decade-old custom ecommerce platform with BigCommerce and Feedonomics, modernizing its digital storefront for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) customers. The water-management products distributor says the change reduces its dependence on custom development, expands self-service purchasing options for contractors and improves product-feed management for Google Merchant Center. The implementation illustrates a broader challenge for distributors: moving away from legacy systems without losing the specialized pricing, product configuration and ordering workflows that distinguish their businesses.

A 20-Year-Old Platform Became a Barrier to Growth

Gutter Supply launched its first ecommerce website in 2004. As the business and its digital requirements expanded, the company found that its custom-built platform had become difficult to maintain and update.

According to the company, feature implementations that should have taken days or weeks sometimes stretched beyond a year. Even a shopping-cart upgrade reportedly took nine months to a year, slowing marketing initiatives and delaying new customer experiences.

The new BigCommerce storefront is intended to give the business more flexibility while reducing its dependence on a single developer. Gutter Supply says its marketing team can now launch campaigns and update landing pages more directly, while developers can concentrate on capabilities that differentiate the business rather than maintaining basic ecommerce functions.

The transition is significant because distributor ecommerce involves more than publishing a product catalog. Contractors may require negotiated pricing, account-specific terms, bulk orders and compatibility between components purchased for a single job. A platform that cannot accommodate these needs without extensive customization can become a constraint on both operations and customer experience.

Native B2B Capabilities Support Contractor Purchasing

Gutter Supply selected BigCommerce for its built-in B2B capabilities, including tiered and bulk pricing, contractor-specific experiences, invoicing, net payment terms and account management. The company says these capabilities reduce the need to recreate standard commerce functions through custom code.

It has also retained specialized workflows through features designed around how contractors buy materials.

Its QuickShop interface guides customers through selections such as gutter size, material, color and style, then presents compatible components together. Rather than navigating thousands of individual stock-keeping units (SKUs), contractors can assemble a more complete order from a guided selection process.

Shopping lists allow customers to save frequently used configurations and reorder materials for recurring jobs. The company has also brought its Custom Cutting process online, allowing contractors to specify required gutter lengths while the system checks those cuts against the total quantity ordered.

These capabilities target practical purchasing problems: missing components, manual ordering errors and repeated communication with sales teams. Their value will ultimately depend on whether contractors adopt the workflows and whether they reduce order errors, support costs and time spent placing repeat orders.

Feedonomics Improves Product-Feed Management

Alongside the platform migration, Gutter Supply is using Feedonomics to manage the product feed sent from BigCommerce to Google Merchant Center.

The company says the system allows it to adjust product attributes and values for Google's requirements without changing the underlying product records in BigCommerce. It has also used the feed-management platform to address shipping-data issues, remove discontinued products and resolve Merchant Center disapprovals. Gutter Supply reports a significant improvement in product approval rates since launch, although it has not disclosed a percentage or baseline.

The separation between core product data and channel-specific feed transformations is important for distributors selling through multiple digital channels. It allows teams to tailor product information for a destination without necessarily changing the source catalog that supports other storefronts or integrations.

Google's documentation reinforces why these details matter: missing, inaccurate or incorrectly formatted product attributes can lead to disapprovals, restricted eligibility or incorrect product displays across Shopping ads and free listings.

For Gutter Supply, feed optimization complements the storefront migration. A modern commerce platform can improve the buying experience, but product data still needs to meet the requirements of the channels where customers discover merchandise.

Market Landscape

The implementation reflects two related priorities in B2B digital commerce: replacing costly legacy infrastructure and making product information more manageable across sales channels.

BigCommerce's B2B capabilities include company accounts, buyer permissions, bulk-ordering tools, shopping lists and invoice management. These features support self-service purchasing for business customers while allowing sellers to manage account-specific workflows.

Feedonomics addresses a different part of the commerce stack. Rather than managing the customer-facing buying experience, it helps retailers and distributors prepare and maintain product data for external commerce and advertising destinations.

The Gutter Supply example shows how these functions can work together: the commerce platform supports complex purchasing, while feed management helps keep product information aligned with external channel requirements.

Strategic Outlook

Gutter Supply says its next phase will focus on contractor retention and repeat orders. Plans for 2027 include a free-shipping program for contractor accounts based on order value and shipping zone, along with stronger carrier partnerships and further testing of promotions and loyalty initiatives.

These plans extend the replatforming project beyond replacing legacy technology. They point toward using digital commerce to strengthen customer relationships and make recurring purchasing easier.

The results will depend on execution. Relevant measures include contractor-account adoption, repeat-order frequency, order completion, time spent building a purchase, product approval rates and the cost of maintaining integrations. The company has described operational improvements but has not published quantified revenue growth or conversion results from the new storefront.

For other distributors considering a similar move, the lesson is to identify which workflows should become standard platform capabilities and which genuinely require custom development. Modernization creates value when it reduces maintenance overhead while preserving the specialized experiences customers depend on.

Top Insights

• Legacy infrastructure was slowing change: Gutter Supply says some feature implementations took more than a year, prompting its move to BigCommerce.

• B2B capabilities support contractor workflows: Account-specific pricing, invoicing, net terms, shopping lists and guided buying are designed around recurring business purchases.

• Custom features remain important: QuickShop and Custom Cutting address product compatibility and material-length requirements that generic storefronts may not handle well.

• Feed management supports product discovery: Feedonomics lets the company adjust channel-specific data and troubleshoot Merchant Center issues without altering the underlying product catalog.

• Retention is the next focus: Planned shipping incentives and loyalty initiatives are intended to encourage repeat contractor orders, though their commercial impact has not yet been reported.

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