A B2B e-commerce platform designed around NDIS, home-care, aged-care, and hospital procurement.

The brief

The client serves four materially different B2B buyer types: NDIS plan-managers purchasing on behalf of participants, home-care agencies purchasing on behalf of clients, aged-care operators purchasing for residents, and hospital procurement teams purchasing to specification.

Each segment has distinct pricing, approval flows, payment terms, and reporting requirements. Operating through the B2C store with manual price overrides was placing significant strain on the team and producing a poor experience for buyers. The brief was to design and deliver a dedicated B2B experience — channel-aware in the user interface, but supported by a single shared backend.

What we found

• NDIS plan-managers required plan-aware pricing and reporting. Every order had to map to a participant’s plan, with reportable line items.
• Home-care agencies required multi-recipient ordering. A single agency, multiple clients, distinct delivery addresses, and distinct billing arrangements.
• Aged-care groups required contract pricing and bulk reorder capability. Standing arrangements, scheduled orders, and group-level reporting roll-up.
• Hospital procurement required catalogues and specification-based ordering. Approval gates, formal documentation, and internal order numbers.
• Accessibility was a non-negotiable requirement. Care workers, plan-managers, and buyers operate across a wide range of ability and device profiles.

What we did

Conducted user-centred discovery with eight buyers across the four channels — observed task sessions rather than workshop discussion. Documented the procedures each role actually performs, not the procedures we assumed they performed.

Designed four distinct journeys on a shared platform shell: navigation, search, cart, checkout, and post-purchase tuned per channel. The same product catalogue underpins all four channels, with different surfaces presented above it.

Delivered a design system in Figma with tokens that remained intact through engineering handover — components mapped one-to-one to a Storybook and Next.js implementation.

Implemented plan-aware pricing, multi-recipient cart, contract pricing, and procurement-document handling in the storefront — connected to the Odoo ERP backend through the integration spine.

Three rounds of usability testing were conducted with real buyers from each channel prior to general availability. WCAG AA baseline was achieved across the storefront, with AAA targets met on critical flows.

The phased rollout

Every engagement is delivered using The Ascent Method — Map, Architect, Build, Operate.

1. P1
   Map (weeks 1–3). Observed task sessions with NDIS plan-managers, home-care agencies, aged-care operators, and hospital buyers. Mapped each journey and recorded points of friction.
2. P2
   Architect (weeks 2–6). Information architecture, navigation, channel-aware design tokens, and four distinct journey wireframes on a shared shell.
3. P3
   Build (weeks 4–22). Next.js storefront on the integration spine with the Odoo backend, channel-aware features per journey, and the design system handed over as Storybook.
4. P4
   Operate (weeks 18–26). Three rounds of usability testing, an accessibility audit, and a phased rollout by channel.

Outcomes

Each B2B channel operates through a dedicated journey rather than working around a B2C store. NDIS plan-managers, home-care agencies, aged-care groups, and hospital procurement teams transact against the same backend without sharing a single user interface.

Customer-service ticket volume reduced significantly as buyers ceased requesting capabilities the store had previously not supported. The current platform supports those capabilities directly.

The accessibility audit confirmed WCAG AA compliance across the storefront and AAA compliance on critical flows.

The design system remained coherent through twelve months of subsequent iteration; tokens and components were reused in later phases rather than re-skinned.