It all started with a question: “What’s the best way to put our B2B hardware online?”
Launched in 2015, Glass Warehouse has become a leading seller of shower door kits through retailers like Home Depot, Lowes, and Wayfair. Their business model had historically centered on selling to consumers, but in recent years, they had begun to get an increasing amount of B2B inquiries. The only problem was: their website wasn’t set up to handle ecommerce transactions.
This led to a highly manual sales process—it was the norm to get asked for quotes from hand-written notes and sketches—and they desperately wanted to streamline.
For this endeavor, they approached Teifi with the idea for a dedicated B2B arm for their business—Future Glass. After learning about their needs, Teifi recommended Shopify B2B.
While the product had everything they needed to sell to their B2B buyers, they didn’t stop there. Together, they dreamed up a custom railing configurator built on Shopify’s Hydrogen framework. Now, online buying isn’t just possible—its enjoyable.
Since launching their B2B site and custom configurator in 2024, Future Glass has seen incredible success compared to the entirely manual process they had the year prior:
- 340% growth in B2B sales
- 83% increase in conversation rate
- 80% decrease in time to quote railing jobs
The challenge: Time-consuming & error-prone manual processes
Before starting Future Glass and implementing their Shopify solution, Glass Warehouse’s B2B sales process was entirely manual.
“There was no do-it-yourself option,” said Parker Vitek, Glass Warehouse’s content manager.
Every customer interaction required phone calls or emails, with pricing handled through spreadsheets and individual negotiations. It also wasn’t uncommon for their buyers to submit hand-drawn diagrams or written notes that required careful interpretation by the sales team.
When asked how this approach impacted things like order accuracy, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction, Parker candidly told us: "All were below the standard we set for ourselves."
The worst part about these inefficiencies though? It was hindering their ability to grow their B2B arm at a time when they were noticing increased demand. “Customers were coming and asking for a wider selection of hardware,” said Parker. “We saw a big opportunity there.”
Everything was completely manual. There was no do-it-yourself option for our customers. It led to a lot of errors and discrepancies.
The solution: Shopify B2B plus a Hydrogen-powered configurator
Inspired by that opportunity, Glass Warehouse approached Teifi with their idea for Future Glass, and they got to work bringing it to life on Shopify B2B.
Reducing manual processes with Shopify B2B
Now on Shopify B2B, they’ve been able to reduce manual processes and streamline workflows, leading to more efficiencies and cost savings for the company. Customers can simply go online, find the parts they need, and place their orders right away.
One feature in particular that’s really helped Future Glass has been the custom catalogs, which allows them to give each of their customers a unique pricing structure. No manual adjustments to invoices or quotes required.
According to Parker, customers can “just go through the checkout process, select their terms, and go on with their day. Because of this new efficiency, we’re getting 90% of our orders out the same day.”
Because of this new efficiency, we’re getting 90% of our orders out the same day.
Eliminating uncertainty with a Hydrogen-powered configurator
As if that wasn’t great enough, Future Glass didn’t stop there. They took it up a notch, building a custom configurator powered by Hydrogen.
Even with Shopify B2B taming a lot of complexity, Future Glass’s ordering process was still highly nuanced. “There’s different sizes of glass depending on what sort of hardware system you’re using, and a lot of math involved,” said Parker, adding that this can make it “a bit confusing to figure out exactly what you need for any particular job.”
According to Jordan Binotto, Teifi’s Head of Growth, the team chose Hydrogen for this project because “it gave us the flexibility and the tools in a very controlled way to do all the incredible things the Future Glass team wanted it to do.”
Now with the designer, customers can simply input their basic dimensions and see all the options available, as well as have the ability to add all those items to their cart in one click. Not only is this more efficient, but customers can check out with confidence knowing they’re getting exactly what they need for their space.
Seamless integration with existing systems
A critical aspect of the solution was integration with Future Glass's product information management system, Salsify, which serves as their central data repository.
“We’d been using Salsify for a number of years, before we launched the Future Glass Shopify site,” said Parker. “Due to the amount of data we have, that was definitely the best solution we could find, so we’ve been very happy to have that direct connection capability with Shopify.”
This integration ensures that the configurator always works with up-to-date inventory information, allowing customers to create custom configurations based on what's actually available.
As Jordan from Teifi explains, "We pull all the data from Salsify into the back end of Shopify, then render that as an incredible front-end experience.”
Partnering with experts to bring the vision to life
All of this work required specialized expertise, which Future Glass found in their partnership with Teifi.
"We could not have done this without Teifi," Parker emphasized. "Their team has experts in everything along the way, from UI and visual appeal to complex dimensional rules for layout and selecting correct items."
This collaboration was essential in translating Future Glass's unique business requirements into a functional digital solution that could handle the complexity of their product offerings while providing an intuitive user experience.
The results: Dramatic growth and operational efficiency
Accelerating sales and improving conversion rates
The implementation of the Shopify-powered configurator has yielded impressive results for Future Glass, with significant growth in their B2B operations.
"We've seen 340% total sales growth in 2024 over 2023," Vitek reports, highlighting the dramatic impact of their digital transformation. The configurator has also improved their ability to convert prospects into customers, with "conversion rates continuously rising since store launch, up 83% in 2024 over 2023."
We've seen 340% total sales growth in 2024 over 2023.
Enhancing the customer experience
The configurator has transformed how customers interact with Future Glass, receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback for its ease of use and efficiency.
"Customers react by asking, 'This is great but how much do I have to pay monthly to use it?' and are amazed it's a free service," Vitek shares. The tool's intuitive design allows both customers and the internal team to "quote a railing job in 15%-25% of the time it would take to do so manually."
This dramatic time savings has been particularly valuable for professional customers who need to quickly generate accurate quotes for their own clients, enhancing their ability to win business and complete projects efficiently.
Streamlining internal operations
Beyond the customer-facing benefits, the configurator has transformed internal workflows at Future Glass, reducing the manual effort required to process orders and generate quotes.
"We've seen massive improvements," Vitek confirms. "The railing quoting speed for our internal team has been transformative."
The system has also enabled Future Glass to set up individualized self-serve pricing for different customer segments, further streamlining the sales process and ensuring consistency in pricing and product specifications.
Building a foundation for future growth
Looking ahead, Future Glass has ambitious plans to build on this foundation. "After the massive success on Shopify for the Future Glass B2B side of things, we’re working on moving the Glass Warehouse DTC side over to Shopify as well,” said Parker.
They’re also working on further expanding their selection in Australia, having already deployed a version of their railing designer for that market. “The project is never done, in a great way,” added Parker. “We’re going to continue to evolve.”
By embracing digital transformation through Shopify, Future Glass and Glass Warehouse have positioned themselves for continued growth and innovation in the competitive glass and hardware market.
