Teardown 001 — Shopify B2B · Spec, from public pages · Observed June 2026
Hornby OrganicSold out and in stock, the same day.
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
Pemberton Valley Grocery
Tier 2 · multi-location
- –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
In stock$21.50/cs - –3+
OSnack Peanut Butter & Jam
OSnack · 12 × 45g
Low · ships ~5 days$13.20/cs - –0+
OSnack Chocolate Chip Banana
OSnack · 12 × 45g
In stock$13.20/cs - –0+
Pumpkin Fudge
Hornby Bar · 12 × 80g
Backordered$21.50/cs
Line minimum: 2 cases per SKU, enforced before checkout.
Lands in your store. Zero emails.
Wholesale prices are illustrative — Hornby hides real wholesale rates behind approval; retail and case prices were observed live.
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.
The problem
How wholesale works today
01
Find the wholesale page
“Discounted Pricing · Free Shipping · Dedicated Support Team.”
Benefits are listed, but no prices, minimums, or specifics anywhere.
02
Fill out an application
“Fill out the form HERE… we will activate your account if you qualify.”
Name, company, website, phone — and then you wait.
03
Wait for manual approval
“We will reach out shortly with the next steps.”
A human reviews every applicant before a single price appears.
04
Order and re-order by email
“…contact our team at orders@hornbyorganic.com.”
Samples, POS material, and volume pricing all run through the inbox.
The rebuild
A self-serve portal on their Shopify
Same catalogue, same fulfilment. Approved buyers run their whole account themselves — and it thinks in cases, not units, because that's how Hornby sells.
Application gating + manual approval
Approved buyers log straight into a live catalogue.
Pricing invisible until approved
Customer-specific tiered pricing, shown live per SKU.
No real MOQ — just a $175 free-ship line
Line + cart minimums enforced before checkout.
Inventory you can't trust
Real-time stock per SKU, synced from Shopify.
No self-serve reorder
One-click reorder + saved order templates.
Custom & volume orders by inbox
Quote-to-order in-app, 24/7, logged.
The result
One buyer, one minute
Pemberton Valley Grocery logs in. Their dashboard shows a saved 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.
Under a minute0 emails
What it costs
The numbers, on the table
- $4,000
To build
Teardown → scoped → shipped on your Shopify.
- $300
A month to run
Hosting, maintenance, support, ongoing fit.
~4 accounts
Payback
Year one (~$7,600) is covered by roughly four 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.
Spec teardown
Built from public pages.Yours would be built from yours.
Nothing here came from Hornby Organic: every quote was read off a public page, and the money is marked illustrative. Your store, your platform, how buyers order today. If we can rebuild it, you get the teardown — what’s broken, the portal rebuilt on your store, and the price — before any pitch.
This site is the demo.