Posted in Digital Commerce
June 8, 2026
field analysis
Lustre Products: a custom manufacturer's commerce build on Acumatica
Lustre Products makes custom elevator handrails and safety barricades, the high-volume, one-off work most shops turn down. It runs on Acumatica, but about 85% of orders still arrived on a 25-column paper worksheet the ERP couldn't validate. Its VAR, Aktion Associates, brought Acro Commerce in to build the commerce layer: a visual configurator, a headless Shopware storefront, and an Acumatica connector, while Aktion kept the ERP.
Key takeaway
Lustre shows the co-delivery model working: the VAR keeps Acumatica and grows the ERP scope, Acro builds the commerce, and the manufacturer gets a buying experience shaped around how it actually sells.
Lustre Products makes custom elevator handrails and safety barricades, engineered more precisely than anything a competitor sells, including the exotic, one-off installations other shops turn down. It's a small, high-margin market, and Lustre already runs on Acumatica. The problem wasn't the ERP. It was how orders got into it.
A 35-year-old worksheet the ERP couldn't read
About 85% of orders arrived as a 25-column paper worksheet that had been the industry standard for 35 years, a visual document the shop floor reads and builds from at a glance. Acumatica could store the order data, but its configurator produced text, not a validated visual build, and moving entry into the ERP actually made it slower, because the same specs got keyed twice. Every order needed a manual math check, and a person re-entering specs by hand is a person who can put 38 inches of hardware on a 37-inch rail.
Two competitors had started winning on buying experience rather than product. Their handrails aren't better, but their ordering is cleaner and less likely to produce a wrong order. When a customer can't see the quality difference, they choose on what they can see.
Software shaped around the business, not the other way around
Rather than stretch the ERP into something it wasn't built for, the work is structured in phases, architecture first. A visual configurator comes first, so no order can be built from an invalid combination. Then a headless Shopware storefront connected to Acumatica, and the Acumatica connector that pushes clean, structured orders straight into the ERP with no re-keying. Standard parts and configured products share one cart, and customers get self-service order tracking and purchase history. Acumatica stays the system of record; the commerce layer reads live pricing, inventory, and customer data from it.
"Light years ahead."
Lustre Products sales team
On an early prototype of the visual configurator
The VAR kept the ERP and grew it
Aktion Associates already ran Lustre's Acumatica. When the ordering problem turned out to be a commerce problem, Aktion didn't stretch into unfamiliar scope or hand off the relationship. They brought Acro Commerce in and stayed the lead on Acumatica, growing the ERP work the project created: custom tables, two entities for US sales and Canadian manufacturing, and tax across both. Acro built the visual configurator, the Shopware storefront, and the Acumatica connector. One engagement, more ERP scope for the VAR, and a client who never had to manage two vendors pointing at each other. For how to spot and qualify a deal like this, see our framework for Acumatica VARs.
Status: a story in motion
This is a live engagement, shared as a story in motion rather than a finished case study. Lustre is fully current on Acumatica, on a tightening lead time, and deliberately still building on paper while the commerce layer is phased in. The goal is to remove that friction without disrupting the operational truth that makes the product possible. We'll add results as they land.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How is Lustre Products building commerce on Acumatica?
Lustre runs Acumatica as its system of record and is adding a commerce layer around it: a visual product configurator, a headless Shopware storefront, and an Acumatica connector that pushes clean, configured orders into the ERP. Acro Commerce builds the commerce; Lustre's VAR, Aktion Associates, keeps the Acumatica relationship. The work is phased, architecture first.
What problem is the configurator solving?
About 85% of Lustre's orders arrived on a 25-column paper worksheet the ERP couldn't validate. Acumatica's configurator produced text, not a validated visual build, so specs were keyed twice and errors got through. The visual configurator makes order specs binding, so no order can be submitted from an invalid combination, and clean orders flow into Acumatica without re-keying.
Does Lustre have to replace Acumatica?
No. Acumatica stays the system of record. The commerce layer reads live pricing, inventory, and customer data from it, so orders are entered once and nothing is duplicated. The point of the build is to remove ordering friction without disrupting the operational truth the ERP holds.
What did the VAR keep, and what did Acro build?
Aktion Associates kept the Acumatica relationship and grew the ERP scope the project created: custom tables, two entities for US sales and Canadian manufacturing, and tax across both. Acro built the visual configurator, the headless Shopware storefront, and the Acumatica connector. One outcome for the client, no two vendors pointing at each other.
Why Shopware rather than a native connector?
Lustre's orders are configured to build rules a packaged storefront and a config-only connector can't express, so the build is decoupled: a headless Shopware storefront reading live data from Acumatica through a connector. That carries the configuration logic a native connector couldn't, while keeping Acumatica as the source of truth.
Is the Lustre build finished?
No. It's an active engagement, shared as a story in motion. Lustre is fully current on Acumatica and the commerce layer is being phased in deliberately, so the business keeps running on its existing process until each phase is ready. Acro will add measurable results as they land.
Next step
Get the foundation right before you build.
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