B2B commerce depends on customer-specific pricing, complex catalogues, account structures, approvals, invoices and ERP-connected data. A successful migration must preserve the workflows the business relies on while removing the technical limitations holding it back.
When “still working” is no longer enough
Shopify defines a legacy system by the value it returns compared with the cost of maintaining it. Warning signs include heavily customised environments, fragmented data, difficult integrations and teams spending more time maintaining systems than improving the customer experience.
For B2B businesses, this can appear as:
Slow and expensive feature development
Manual pricing and catalogue updates
Orders or quotes processed through email
Limited customer self-service
Disconnected ERP and ecommerce data
Difficulty supporting new channels or brands
The platform may still process orders, but it is no longer helping the business move forward.
B2B migration goes beyond the storefront
B2B replatforming is more complex than moving products and redesigning pages.
Shopify’s B2B ecommerce replatforming guide highlights the importance of customer-specific catalogues, contract pricing, account roles, approvals and ERP integration.
These requirements are often deeply connected to existing systems and business processes. Removing the legacy platform without understanding those dependencies can result in lost functionality, unreliable data or new manual workarounds.
Before migration begins, businesses need to identify:
Which system owns products, pricing, inventory and customer data
Which workflows must remain connected to the ERP
Which legacy customisations are still necessary
Which processes can be standardised or automated
What customers and internal teams need from the new platform
This discovery work determines what should be migrated, redesigned or retired.
How Shopify and Pocketknife work together
Shopify Plus provides the modern commerce foundation. It gives businesses a scalable platform for storefronts, customer experiences, cart and checkout.
Pocketknife extends Shopify into the operational systems and B2B workflows running behind the storefront. The ERP can remain the operational source of truth, while Pocketknife keeps relevant pricing, inventory, customer, invoice and order information aligned with Shopify.
This allows businesses to modernise the buying experience without replacing every system supporting their operations.
A migration should not recreate every legacy process exactly as it exists.
It is an opportunity to remove duplicated data, retire unnecessary customisations and move manual workflows online.
A structured migration typically includes:
Discovery: Understand business requirements, users, systems and current pain points.
Data mapping: Identify what needs to move and which system will own each data type.
ERP integration: Design how products, pricing, inventory, customers and orders will move between systems.
B2B workflow design: Configure the customer portal, account structures, quotes, approvals, invoices and ordering processes.
Testing and launch: Validate data, integrations and real customer scenarios before migration.
The result should not just be a newer storefront. It should be a more efficient way for customers to buy and teams to manage commerce.
How Soundbay moved from Commerce Vision
Soundbay operates a multi-brand retail ecosystem that includes Store DJ, Manny’s Music and Derringers.
Its existing Commerce Vision platform was connected to a long-standing Pronto ERP environment, but limited the flexibility and scalability required to grow its omnichannel operations.
Pipelabs designed and delivered a reusable, headless Shopify Plus and Pronto platform powered by Pocketknife.
The architecture created a shared integration foundation across all three brands while allowing each storefront to maintain its own customer experience. Pocketknife synchronises data across Shopify, Pronto and the different storefronts, supporting inventory, pricing and complex retail logic.
The new environment provides real-time inventory visibility, omnichannel gift cards, open-box product support and the flexibility to introduce future brands and platform capabilities.
Most importantly, Soundbay modernised its commerce platform without losing the ERP functionality and operational processes its business depended on.
Read the complete Soundbay case study.
So, is it time to move?
Businesses evaluating their current platform should ask:
Are manual workarounds increasing?
Is feature development becoming slower or more expensive?
Can customers access pricing, orders, quotes and invoices themselves?
Does ecommerce remain reliably connected to the ERP?
Can the current platform support new channels, brands or B2B requirements?
Is the team maintaining the platform instead of improving it?
If the existing environment is limiting what the business can deliver, replatforming can create a stronger foundation for growth.
Shopify Plus provides that modern commerce foundation. Pocketknife connects it to the ERP and operational workflows that make enterprise B2B commerce work.
