Executive Summary

The marketplace experts at McFadyen Digital helped ChemDirect, a leading marketplace for on-demand chemical supplies transform their B2B shopping experience. The new marketplace website provides a B2C experience for companies and enables them to transparently shop, compare and purchase hundreds of thousands of chemicals in just a few clicks.

The key components of this transformation are creation of fresh & intuitive customer journeys, implementation on PWA based Vue Storefront that leverage capabilities of Magento Commerce & Webkul Marketplace, and lastly implementation of advanced seller portal features and shipping capabilities.

About the Client

ChemDirect is an innovative online marketplace that connects businesses with trusted chemical suppliers, offering a streamlined platform for sourcing chemicals directly from manufacturers. By simplifying the procurement process, ChemDirect provides transparent pricing, real-time inventory visibility, and fast, reliable shipping, helping companies across industries find the right chemicals quickly and efficiently. With a commitment to safety, quality, and compliance, ChemDirect ensures that customers receive only the highest-grade products, empowering businesses to optimize their supply chains and focus on growth.

The Challenge

The chemical industry in United States is one of its largest manufacturing industries that serves a sizeable domestic and global demand. US currently accounts for 18 percent of the global shipments. The total size of the chemical industry stands at $5 trillion. The Specialty Chemicals is one of the industry subsectors that includes adhesives and sealants, water treatment chemicals, plastic additives, catalysts, and coatings.
Even with strong investments happening on the R&D front and strong enforcement of intellectual property rights the industry is saddled with many problems. On one hand manufacturers do not own their customer data and fall way short in terms of providing stellar user experience.

On the other hand, customers are forced to buy chemicals blindly from distributors, which lacks both product and price choice. ChemDirect took on this challenge by providing transparent pricing, product availability at speed and scale by creating an innovative B2B marketplace solution.

The Solution

ChemDirect recognized the need to improve both the customer and supplier experience on its 1.0 marketplace, as well as to future-proof its technology stack and revamp its digital marketing efforts. Partnering with McFadyen Digital, ChemDirect benefited from expertise across key areas, leading to significant improvements in its marketplace.

McFadyen redesigned the user experience, creating more intuitive and efficient customer journeys, including integrated checkout links and streamlined guest registration. The new 2.0 interface ensured a unified purchasing experience with cross-platform functionality, while suppliers gained digital storefronts, marketing support, and real-time analytics to optimize sales.

Site performance was enhanced through the implementation of the Atomic Design System, resulting in a more robust and scalable platform. McFadyen also upgraded ChemDirect’s marketplace with the latest version of Magento, including customizations for seamless data migration and advanced analytics integration with Google Analytics 4, Avalara for tax calculations, and Stripe for payments.

On the digital marketing front, McFadyen conducted a comprehensive marketing audit and strategy development, leading to a successful multi-channel campaign launch. A dedicated task force was also established to provide ongoing support in digital strategy, project management, and marketing consultancy, ensuring ChemDirect’s continued success in the digital commerce space.