Today we’re speaking with Francisco Reyes, Director of Sales at Atwix. With 200+ certifications, Atwix is the complete Shopify partner for manufacturers and distributors, delivering B2B functionality, ERP integration, and buyer portals that transform operations. Francisco spends his days working with manufacturers and distributors who are tired of losing business to competitors with better digital ordering experiences. His perspective is practical, direct, and grounded in what actually moves the needle for B2B commerce teams.
At DentiMax, we serve dental practices navigating an increasingly complex technology landscape. We know firsthand how much the purchasing experience matters when dental teams are evaluating vendors. We sat down with Francisco to understand what modern B2B eCommerce looks like for dental product suppliers and why the ordering experience has become a competitive differentiator.
Q: Francisco, be direct with me. Is a dental product distributor actually losing business because their ordering system is outdated?
A: Yes. And most of them know it but underestimate how fast it’s happening.
Here’s the reality. The person ordering dental supplies today is also ordering on Amazon, managing their own subscriptions, and tracking deliveries in real time. When they sit down to order for their practice and get a PDF order form, a 1-800 number, or a clunky web portal from 2012, the experience creates friction. Friction creates doubt. And doubt costs you the renewal.
We’ve talked to distributors whose longest-tenured accounts switched suppliers not because of price or product quality, but because a competitor offered online ordering with real-time inventory and one-click reordering. That’s a relationship lost over convenience. It’s preventable, and it’s happening more than people realize.
Q: Dental product catalogs are notoriously complex. Consumables, equipment, software subscriptions, compliance-sensitive items. How do you actually build an ordering experience that handles all of that without overwhelming the buyer?
A: The answer is personalization at the account level, not a one-size-fits-all catalog.
When a practice manager logs into a well-built B2B buyer portal, they don’t see your entire catalog. They see their catalog: the products their practice actually buys, at their contracted pricing, with their order history front and center. Reordering gloves takes seconds because the system knows what they ordered last time and surfaces it immediately.
Complex equipment works differently. A purchasing decision for a digital imaging system involves the dentist, the practice manager, potentially a DSO procurement team. That shouldn’t go through a standard checkout. It should trigger a quote workflow, attach relevant compliance documentation, and route to the right people for approval.
The key is building a system that understands how different product types actually get purchased and responds accordingly. That’s not standard Shopify out of the box. It requires custom development and deep understanding of B2B purchasing behavior, which is exactly what we build.
Q: DSOs are consolidating purchasing across dozens of practices. What does that mean for the distributors trying to serve them?
A: It means the bar just got significantly higher.
A DSO managing 30 practices needs one vendor relationship, not 30 individual account conversations. They need centralized contract pricing applied automatically across every location. They need individual practice managers to order day-to-day within approved parameters without corporate losing visibility or control. And they need consolidated reporting that tells their procurement team exactly what every location is spending and on what.
That’s not a sales problem. That’s an infrastructure problem. If your ordering system can’t support multi-location hierarchies, spending controls, and consolidated reporting, you’re not going to win the DSO contract regardless of how good your products are.
We’ve built buyer portals specifically for this scenario, where corporate procurement sets the rules and individual locations operate within them. Real-time ERP integration means pricing, inventory, and order data stay synchronized across every location automatically. That’s what DSOs are asking for from their suppliers, and right now most distributors can’t deliver it.
Q: What’s actually involved in connecting a B2B buyer portal to an existing ERP? Most distributors we talk to seem nervous about that piece.
A: The nervousness is understandable. ERP integration done poorly is painful. Done right, it’s what makes everything else work.
Here’s what good integration actually looks like. Your buyer portal talks to your ERP in real time. When a practice manager logs in, their pricing pulls directly from the customer record in your ERP, not from a static spreadsheet someone updated last month. When they check inventory, they’re seeing live warehouse data. When they place an order, it flows directly into your fulfillment system without anyone re-keying anything.
The complexity depends on your ERP. Some systems have clean APIs and integration is relatively straightforward. Others require middleware layers, custom connectors, and careful data mapping. Either way, the investment pays back fast in reduced customer service calls, eliminated order errors, and freed-up time for your internal teams.
The distributors who get nervous and avoid integration end up with two systems that don’t talk to each other. That creates more problems than it solves. Our advice is always to treat ERP integration as the foundation, not an afterthought.
Q: What’s the one thing dental product manufacturers and distributors should do differently when approaching B2B eCommerce?
A: Stop thinking about it as a website project.
A B2B buyer portal is operational infrastructure. It’s as important to your business as your warehouse management system or your ERP. When you treat it like a website, you optimize for how it looks. When you treat it like infrastructure, you optimize for how it performs: how accurately it reflects your pricing, how reliably it connects to your operations, how efficiently it handles the way your customers actually buy.
The dental distributors winning right now have made that mental shift. They didn’t launch an online store. They built a buying experience that made their customers’ lives easier, reduced their own operational overhead, and created switching costs that protect those relationships long term.
That’s the difference between eCommerce as a feature and eCommerce as a competitive advantage.
Learn more about how Atwix builds B2B buyer portals and Shopify Plus solutions for manufacturers and distributors at atwix.com.
