Hornby Organic
A Comox bar-maker selling to Whole Foods, Save-On, and a hundred independents — running wholesale through an application form and an orders@ inbox. We rebuilt the whole flow.
Platform
Shopify + wholesale app
Sells
Organic bars, by the case
Buys wholesale
Grocers, cafés, gyms
Today
Apply → approve → email
The tell
On the same day, the same six SKUs read “sold out” on one collection page and “in stock” on another.
That’s what happens when a wholesale layer is bolted on with a discount app instead of built. A buyer planning a reorder can’t trust what they see — so they email to confirm. Every order becomes a conversation.
How wholesale works today
Find the wholesale page
“Discounted Pricing · Free Shipping · Dedicated Support Team.”
Benefits listed. No prices, no minimums, no specifics.
Fill out an application
“Fill out the form HERE… we will activate your account if you qualify.”
Name, company, website, phone — then wait.
Wait for manual approval
“We will reach out shortly with the next steps.”
A human reviews every applicant before one price appears.
Order & re-order by email
“…contact our team at orders@hornbyorganic.com.”
Samples, POS material, volume pricing — all by inbox.
A self-serve portal on their Shopify
Same catalog, same fulfillment. Approved buyers run their whole account themselves — and it thinks in cases, not units, because that’s how Hornby sells.
Pemberton Valley Grocery
Tier 2 · multi-location
- In stock$21.50/cs–4+
Chocolate Espresso
Hornby Bar · 12 × 80g
- In stock$21.50/cs–3+
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter
Hornby Bar · 12 × 80g
- In stock$21.50/cs–2+
Oatmeal Raisin
Hornby Bar · 12 × 80g
- Low · ships ~5 days$13.20/cs–3+
OSnack Peanut Butter & Jam
OSnack · 12 × 45g
- In stock$13.20/cs–0+
OSnack Chocolate Chip Banana
OSnack · 12 × 45g
- Backordered$21.50/cs–0+
Pumpkin Fudge
Hornby Bar · 12 × 80g
line minimum: 2 cases / SKU · enforced before checkout
drops straight into fulfillment · 0 emails
Wholesale prices illustrative — Hornby hides real wholesale rates behind approval; retail/case prices observed live.
One buyer, one minute
Pemberton Valley Grocery logs in. Their dashboard shows Reorder: November mix. One click loads it. The portal flags “OSnack PB&J — low stock, ships ~5 days” live, so they swap a case. The cart nudges them toward $350 for free freight, they add one more, and submit — straight into Shopify.
The numbers, on the table
To build
$4,000
Teardown → scoped → shipped on your Shopify.
To run
$300/mo
Hosting, maintenance, support, ongoing fit.
Payback
~4 accounts
Year one (~$7,600) is covered by roughly 4 new wholesale accounts ordering monthly — or a handful of extra reorders the self-serve flow makes frictionless.
Payback is illustrative — modelled on a ~$400 average wholesale order at ~40% product margin; we’ll run it on Hornby’s real numbers on the call.
This is a spec teardown