Afida

Context

Afida supplies eco-responsible food packaging to hospitality businesses across the UK. Its customers order in volume, come back at regular intervals, and expect from a B2B supplier what they know from B2C: a fast site, frictionless payment, an account that remembers everything.

The problem

Generic e-commerce platforms model B2B poorly. Quantity-tier pricing, UK VAT rules that vary by product type, recurring orders and client-branded packaging don't fit comfortably in a Shopify theme. Every workaround adds a plugin, and every plugin adds slowness and one more dependency.

The solution

A custom Rails 8 application, where every business rule is code I control rather than a plugin I endure. Payments run through Stripe Checkout: hosted payment pages, three shipping options, UK VAT calculated automatically. Regular customers schedule reorders: the order prepares itself, with a validation window before any charge. A branded-product configurator handles design upload and quantity tiers. A free sample request feeds lead capture. And a Google Merchant XML feed keeps the catalogue continuously exposed to Google Shopping.

The stack

Rails 8, Hotwire for interactivity without JavaScript weight, Postgres, Stripe. One application, one deployment, no microservices to orchestrate: the stack is sized to the team that runs it.

Results

The platform is used daily by more than 500 British hospitality businesses, including Mandarin Oriental, Marriott and Hawksmoor. The site, SEO, email and analytics are operated by the same person who wrote the code: when something needs to change, there is nobody to convince between the request and production.