Cin7 ecommerce: how to architect commerce on Cin7

Ecommerce on Cin7 works through one of three architectures: a native connector to a third-party platform like Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magento; a decoupled architecture where the storefront calls Cin7’s APIs at request time; or a middleware-led pattern that consolidates API calls and applies business rules between the two. The right choice depends on how many channels the brand runs, how much of the buyer experience depends on logic that lives only in Cin7 (customer-specific pricing, contract terms, multi-warehouse availability), and how much capacity the team has to own the integration.

Cin7 ships native B2B portal functionality inside both Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni for wholesale-focused sellers, but it is not a self-contained DTC storefront. Brands still pick a commerce platform (typically Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, or Drupal Commerce for the DTC and richer B2B channels) and connect it to Cin7 through a native connector or a decoupled architecture. The Cin7 B2B portal is a strong starting point for simple wholesale operations; more complex buyer experiences typically run on a storefront platform with Cin7 behind it.

Cin7 maintains native integrations with Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Squarespace, and WooCommerce on the storefront side, and with Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Faire, and Joor on the marketplace side. Drupal Commerce and other catalogue-led platforms typically pair with Cin7 through custom integration on top of Cin7’s REST API. The phrase "native" covers a wide range, so check what the specific connector actually syncs (the entities, the cadence, the field coverage) before assuming parity with your business logic.

Cin7 Core (formerly DEAR Systems) is the cloud inventory and order management platform pitched at small to mid-market product sellers, especially DTC brands that have grown past Shopify’s native inventory. Cin7 Omni is the enterprise track aimed at mid-market and lower-enterprise sellers who need deeper EDI, 3PL orchestration, and multi-warehouse capability. Core is faster to implement and cheaper; Omni carries deeper operational scope. Brands often start on Core and migrate to Omni as wholesale and EDI grow.

Yes, and customer-specific pricing is one of the highest-leverage places to get the architecture right. The pattern that holds is to keep pricing logic in Cin7 (where customer terms, price tiers, and effective dates already live) and to call Cin7 at cart and quote time rather than caching prices nightly. Naive integrations that flatten Cin7’s customer-specific pricing into a nightly export consistently end up wrong, and wholesale customers notice within a quarter.

When the commerce scope crosses into territory the standard connector does not carry cleanly: multi-storefront brands that need a common business-rule layer across DTC, wholesale, and marketplace channels; multi-tier customer-specific pricing with effective dates; configurator-to-quote workflows; real-time inventory orchestration across multiple warehouses; or multi-currency, multi-language storefronts that read live Cin7 truth. The pattern Acro Commerce recommends is that the Cin7 partner keeps the customer relationship and the inventory scope, and the architecture partner takes the commerce build. Both sides bill for what they do best.

Cin7 fits product-making manufacturers with multi-channel sales (DTC plus wholesale, often with marketplaces) better than it fits traditional discrete or process manufacturers with deep ERP needs. Cin7 Core suits brands in the eight-figure range running multiple channels through inventory orchestration; Cin7 Omni suits mid-market manufacturers with EDI and 3PL complexity. Manufacturers with traditional ERP scope (multi-entity accounting, deep MRP, complex production scheduling) typically use Cin7 alongside an ERP rather than instead of one.

A focused B2B or DTC build on top of a stable Cin7 deployment typically runs three to seven months from discovery to first production release, with phased releases continuing after launch. Single-channel native-connector builds run on the shorter end; multi-channel decoupled builds with custom business-rule layers run on the longer end. The cheapest accelerator is discovery: a few weeks of structured work that prevents the integration from being designed against a moving target.

Often, yes. If the storefront already carries the buyer experience your customers expect and the integration to your current inventory platform is brittle, the highest-leverage work is on the integration layer rather than a replatform. Discovery should always test the keep-and-improve path before recommending replacement, because the cheapest successful project is the one that does not rebuild what already works.

A B2B portal on Cin7 is the layer where Cin7’s inventory and order truth meets the buyer, covering account access, order history, reorder, customer-specific pricing, and quote-to-cash flows. Four portal patterns show up in production: the Cin7 B2B portal itself; a storefront platform’s native B2B layer (Shopify B2B Edition, BigCommerce B2B Edition) connected through the standard Cin7 integration; a decoupled portal that runs as a separate front end against Cin7 APIs; and a hybrid pattern. The right one depends on the depth of B2B features the buyer expects and the team capacity available to maintain the experience.