Background
Nature’s Path is a family-owned, organic, non-GMO food brand with a range of sub-brands within their portfolio - all sharing the same commitment to making organic food more accessible.
Alongside their retail presence, they’ve built a fast-growing B2B channel that supports smoothie shops, schools, camps, and manufacturers with flexible, self-serve wholesale ordering.
The challenge
In late 2024, due to increased demand from their growing customer base, Nature’s Path began exploring new ways of managing their wholesale.
While Nature’s Path offered bulk products through their direct-to-consumer Shopify store, there was no dedicated wholesale experience for business buyers. Customers who wanted to buy wholesale had no way to see pricing, place orders independently, or access volume discounts.
“We didn’t have a proper wholesale solution, just a B2C site that wasn’t built for business buyers. With buyers constantly reaching out, we knew the demand was there but we had no scalable way to support them.” explains Deanna Gee-Wing, eCommerce Digital Marketing Associate. “It wasn’t scalable, and we knew we needed better tools to serve that side of the business.”
The team would manually create and customise invoices for each order, applying tiered discounts or custom pricing on a case-by-case basis. This process ate up valuable time and pulled focus from more strategic initiatives.
They needed a better way to manage customer-specific pricing across a diverse range of buyer types - including employee discounts, schools, daycares, camps, smoothie shops, and food manufacturers. With buyers spread across the US and Canada, it was important to Nature’s Path to deliver a personalised, efficient experience tailored to each group’s needs.
On top of this, they needed a way to manage the payment methods that their different types of buyers could use to place orders. They also wanted to continue supporting their legacy customers who preferred to order through a Sales Rep rather than online.
The solution
One of the most important features of SparkLayer has been the self-serve ordering portal. Their customers are able to process and manage their orders in their own time, 24/7. This has helped relieve a level of pressure for the Nature’s Path team to be online at all times, and speeds up the overall buying process for end buyers, creating an enhanced customer experience.
In addition to this, the Sales Agent feature allows the team to place orders on behalf of their customers, which has been hugely successful for some of their legacy customers who prefer their existing ordering methods.
Using SparkLayer’s Customer Group feature, the team has built tailored price lists for a wide variety of buyers, including employees, schools, smoothie shops, and manufacturers, allowing each group to see the products and pricing that are most relevant to them.
They’re also able to assign discounts, tiered pricing, and order rules at a customer level. “We have a huge product catalogue, so creating a shopping experience that feels effortless is key,” says Deanna. “SparkLayer’s segmentation tools let us show each customer the pricing and products that actually fit their business.”
Creating these customer groups also simplified invoicing. Instead of editing pricing manually each time, invoices now automatically pull from the correct price list.
“A lot of our buyers, like smoothie shops and camps, are small teams juggling a lot,” she explains. “They don’t have time to deal with clunky systems. SparkLayer makes it easy for them to place orders on their own time, without the back and forth.”
The ability to establish different price lists has also helped them maintain and grow their community outreach. Their School Breakfast initiative ensures that schools within the programme are able to order from Nature’s Path, regardless of their location or how close they are to a distributor - something that had been a barrier previously.
The results
Since implementing SparkLayer, Nature’s Path have seen 10x growth across their wholesale channel. A large proportion of businesses ordering through SparkLayer were already placing orders with Nature’s Path, but they’ve also attracted new retailers and distributors thanks to their new, streamlined bulk-buying options.
SparkLayer has not only empowered end customers to buy in bulk but has streamlined internal processes and synced their Customer Service, Sales, and Operational teams, too.
“For us, the big unlock has been reach. We’re no longer limited to selling bulk through large distributors. Now, a mom and pop smoothie bowl shop, a school in a remote town, or a local daycare can order directly from us,” says Deanna Gee-Wing, eCommerce Digital Marketing Associate. “SparkLayer opened the door to a whole segment of buyers we couldn’t easily serve before.”
“Since we started using SparkLayer, we’ve transformed how we serve B2B customers. We’ve seen 10x growth since launch by simply removing friction. Businesses that already loved our products finally had a clear, customised and direct way to order in bulk.
Beyond our B2B customers, SparkLayer allows us to offer special pricing to all our segments. From employee pricing to region-specific audiences, we’ve built out a system that feels personal and efficient. What used to take hours of manual work is just baked into the experience.
For example, our Breakfast School Program used to only serve schools that had access to distributors. Now, with SparkLayer, any school can log in, place an order, and get cereal to their students. We’re able to support them in a much more direct and meaningful way,” ~ Deanna Gee-Wing, eCommerce Digital Marketing Associate
Explore more
To learn more about Nature's Path, their product range, and the story of their brand, visit their website. Interested in stocking their products? Check out their wholesale programme.
To see how SparkLayer works with Shopify, you can explore via the links below: