CONTEXT / PROBLEM

Dealers defaulted to phone & email orders

Planet Eclipse sell into independent paintball retailers (“dealers”) who typically place frequent, relatively small replenishment orders.

“A lot of dealers were still calling up or emailing to place orders as opposed to using the portal from our previous service provider because it was difficult to use.”

Each phone or email order interrupted a sales rep’s day, then had to be manually keyed into the CRM – line by line. Depending on order size, that could take up to 30 minutes per order.

On the IT side, keeping product and stock information up to date required regular manual intervention, which pulled time away from other work.

WHY TURIS

A better fit for B2B than Shopify Plus

Planet Eclipse already use Shopify successfully for B2C, so extending it to B2B was an obvious option.

As they evaluated Shopify Plus, they ran into practical limits around multi-currency ordering and dealer-specific pricing. Covering those gaps would have meant extra complexity and ongoing management with plugins.

“The big dealbreaker was that Shopify couldn’t do our dealer ‘pricebands’ (variable discounts based on a customer tag) … Even when testing Shopify plugins we struggled to find something that worked the way we wanted, whereas Turis had it built-in already” 

Ease of setup mattered too – Chris wanted something he could configure without rebuilding themes or navigating a complex admin.

“The consensus was that Turis was a lot more approachable and easier to get a store set up and running. We liked that it only required a few tweaks to get it looking in line with our branding, as opposed to building out an entire Shopify theme.”

“With Turis, the interface and the customization of the site is just so much more straightforward than something like Shopify, which has a billion buttons and 20,000 menus.”

SOLUTION

Dealers self-serve online; orders go straight to the CRM

Today, Planet Eclipse uses Turis as its B2B storefront and directs dealers there as the first option.

Dealers place orders themselves. Those orders automatically appear in Planet Eclipse’s CRM, removing the need for manual order handling. Sales reps can review and edit orders before confirming.

“The integration of all this being able to be pulled into our CRM without any sort of manual processing and it just be there and ready for somebody to click on is fantastic. The guys who actually deal with those orders… have sung the praises about that happening.”

To support adoption, Planet Eclipse emailed dealers about the new system with screenshots and made help available during the first weeks. Only a handful of dealers needed assistance signing up.

IMPACT

Sales & IT teams have won time back

The most visible change was a drop in phone and email orders. Today, only around 5% of dealer orders still come in ‘the old way’, which means the storefront is now the default ordering channel for the vast majority of dealers across the UK and US.

“We’re definitely getting less calls and email orders now. I had that feedback from the people who were taking those calls within the first month or two.”

“With Turis live and dealers placing orders through it, our sales team can spend time on other things… they’ve had more time now to focus on their relationships with the dealers and go to events.”

On the IT side, the impact was reliability. Product and stock uploads stopped failing regularly, which removed a recurring source of disruption and freed time for other internal work.

“Unlike the previous setup, I don’t have to spend three hours each week fixing Turis!”