The challenge
Bunzl had a clear ambition: to build a European marketplace platform that seamlessly brings together products from different sources, systems and countries.
The complexity lay in:
- Diverse ERP systems and data structures
- Wide variation in product information and suppliers
- European differences in VAT structures and logistics rules
- The need to organise dozens of brands and vendors centrally
- Scaling existing e-commerce into a future-proof marketplace model
In short: how do you create one uniform marketplace platform for an international organisation with an enormous diversity of data, systems and processes?
The choice
For Bunzl it was essential to build a solid foundation that is scalable, flexible and future-oriented. That is why we chose an architecture based on:
- Mirakl as the marketplace engine
- Magento 2 as the front-end platform
- A series of custom integrations to centralise data from ERP and PIM systems
- An MVP approach to deliver value quickly and scale up step by step
The execution
The execution consisted of three tracks: technology, integration and scalability.
1. Technical foundation
E-Tales developed a custom Mirakl integration, in which among other things:
- Product data from different systems is brought together
- Category and attribute structures are standardised
- Vendor processes are centralised
- Prices, stock and fulfilment are synchronised automatically
In addition, we built a marketplace frontend on Magento 2 that fits Bunzl’s brand identity and makes the large product range clear and manageable.
2. Integrations & automation
To enable international scalability, we implemented among other things:
- Automatic order and return routing
- Split payments per vendor and country
- Extensive tax and VAT logic for European markets
- Connections with multiple ERP systems
- Custom modules for vendor management and catalogue enrichment
3. MVP to growth
We started with a Minimum Viable Product, which allowed Bunzl to go live quickly. After that we expanded step by step: more product categories and brands, additional European countries, extra modules for catalogue management and improved UX flows for vendors and end users.
The result
The result is a robust marketplace platform that can serve all of Europe:
- One central ecosystem for vendors, products and data
- Automatic synchronisation of assortment, prices and stock
- Streamlined order handling across multiple countries
- Scalable integrations that support further growth
- An efficient and future-proof foundation for all Bunzl marketplaces
Bunzl can now expand faster, add new categories and onboard vendors without technical barriers.
