From Stove to Scale: Building an Ecommerce Site That Grows With Your Manufacturing

From Stove to Scale: Practical hosting and ops guidance for makers scaling manufacturing ecommerce

Hook: You started with a pot on a stove and a product people love — now orders are growing, and the tech and ops gaps are keeping you up at night. How do you build a storefront and infrastructure that support artisanal craft now and wholesale scale next?

Why the Liber & Co. story matters for makers in 2026

Liber & Co.’s arc — from a single test batch to 1,500‑gallon tanks and international customers — isn’t just an inspiring origin story. It’s a practical blueprint: start hands‑on, instrument every process, and evolve systems only when they start to constrain growth. In 2026, that disciplined, staged approach is more valuable than ever, because commerce technology has become both easier to adopt and more complex to integrate.

“It all started with a single pot on a stove.” — Chris Harrison, Liber & Co. founders’ story

Overview: The three stages of manufacturing ecommerce growth

Design your technology and operations with explicit staging in mind. Each stage has different priorities, costs, and risk tolerances.

Stage 0: Proof-of-concept (Artisanal DTC)

Typical profile: low weekly order volume, direct-to-consumer focus, founder-run fulfillment, limited capital.

• Priorities: Lean cost, fast time to market, simple inventory control.
• Hosting & storefront: Hosted SaaS storefront (e.g., hosted builders or entry-level plans) with built-in payments and shipping integrations.
• Ops: Manual pick/pack, spreadsheets or light inventory app, founder or small team handling customer service.

Stage 1: Growth (50–1,000 orders/week)

Typical profile: steady SEO/ads traffic, repeat wholesale interest, larger batches, need to tighten margins.

• Priorities: Reliability, performance, inventory accuracy, stable fulfillment.
• Hosting & storefront: Either upgraded hosted e‑commerce plan (with higher API limits) or a headless commerce front end on an edge platform for faster pages and easier integrations.
• Ops: Dedicated order management solution (OMS), integration with basic WMS or 3PL, begin automating shipping rules and inventory syncs.

Stage 2: Scale (wholesale + B2B sales, 1,000+ orders/week or large B2B contracts)

Typical profile: recurring wholesale contracts, marketplaces and international customers, higher SLAs, and complex order routing.

• Priorities: Uptime, throughput, auditability (traceability for food/manufacturing), EDI/portal for wholesale, forecast-driven replenishment.
• Hosting & storefront: Enterprise commerce (Shopify Plus / BigCommerce Enterprise / headless with scalable cloud infra) with a robust OMS/WMS/ERP integration. Consider multi-region hosting, CDN + edge compute, autoscaling application tiers.
• Ops: Warehouse automation, EDI or B2B storefront for wholesale pricing, dedicated account portals, SLAs for shipping and returns.

Choosing hosting and architecture: tradeoffs and decision framework

Hosting architecture choices directly affect your TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), time to market, and ability to handle sudden order volume spikes. Use this decision framework to choose a path that matches business risk and resources.

Decision factors

1. Order volume & concurrency: Estimate peak orders per minute and concurrent site users during promotions.
2. Integration complexity: Do you need EDI, ERP, or custom workflows for packaging and lot tracking?
3. Engineering availability: Do you have developers to maintain a self‑hosted stack, or will you rely on third‑party SaaS?
4. Budget for predictable vs variable costs: SaaS adds per‑transaction fees; self‑hosted adds ops and infra labor.
5. Compliance and traceability: Food & beverage manufacturing may require batch traceability and audit logs.

Hosting options — pros and cons

1) Fully hosted SaaS storefront (managed)

Pros: fastest launch, minimal ops, bundled payments and shipping. Cons: platform fees, limited backend customization for wholesale workflows or complex EDI.

2) Headless commerce with managed front end (edge) and managed backend

Pros: best of both worlds — fast UX using CDNs/edge functions, extensible integrations, lower frontend TTFB (time‑to‑first‑byte). Cons: requires some engineering for integrations and deployment pipelines.

3) Self-hosted/cloud native (Kubernetes, microservices)

Pros: ultimate control, optimized TCO at very high scale, custom security and compliance. Cons: highest ops cost and complexity; requires experienced SREs.

2026 trends that change the calculus

• Edge Compute for Commerce: By late 2025, edge platforms widely support serverless functions that run commerce logic close to the user — reducing latency and improving conversion during peak traffic.
• Composable & Headless Commerce Maturation: More out‑of‑the‑box connectors between headless storefronts and OMS/WMS/ERP vendors streamline B2B and wholesale workflows.
• AI‑assisted Ops: Generative AI tools are commonly used to optimize inventory forecasts, create personalized product pages, and automate support triage — lowering labor TCO.
• Friction around payments and fraud protection: Robust fraud tools and regional payment options are now essential for cross‑border manufacturing ecommerce.

Concrete architecture patterns by stage

Below are practical reference architectures. Use them as templates and adapt to your product, compliance, and team size.

Pattern A — Artisanal DTC (fastest path)

• Hosted storefront (SaaS) + built‑in payments and shipping.
• Lightweight inventory app (SaaS) synced via built‑in integrations or Zapier.
• Manual fulfillment; spreadsheet or simple WMS for batch control.
• Cost structure: monthly SaaS fee + payment processing per transaction + shipping costs.

Pattern B — Growing B2C with wholesale interest

• Headless front end on an edge platform (e.g., Next‑style static site + serverless API) for speed and SEO.
• Commerce engine (hosted or self‑hosted) with a mid‑tier OMS that supports multi‑channel routing.
• Integrate an inventory service with lot/batch tracking for manufacturing traceability.
• Set up a wholesale portal that supports account‑based pricing and net terms.

Pattern C — Enterprise wholesale + international scaling

• Multi‑region deployment with CDN + edge compute for localized storefront performance.
• ERP at the core for finance, inventory and demand planning; OMS/WMS tightly integrated to ERP.
• EDI or modern API‑based B2B portals for wholesale buyers and distributors.
• Automated replenishment, SLA tracking, and disaster recovery across regions.

Practical TCO and ROI guidance for small manufacturers

TCO is more than hosting sticker price. Include software, infra, labor, fulfillment, payments, and opportunity costs.

Cost buckets to include in your TCO

• Hosting & Infrastructure: CDN, compute (serverless or reserved), storage, backups, data transfer.
• SaaS Subscriptions: Commerce platform fees, OMS/WMS, accounting/ERP modules, analytics tools, fraud prevention.
• Integrations & Development: Initial integration costs and ongoing maintenance (developers/agency).
• Operational Labor: Customer service, fulfillment, warehouse labor, SRE or devops.
• Third‑party Fees: Payment processing, gateways, shipping contracts, EDI/3PL fees.
• Capital & Equipment: Packaging automation, tanks, pallet jacks — critical for manufacturing scale.

3‑year TCO example (high level)

Use this as a worksheet — adjust with your actual costs.

• Year 1: SaaS storefront ($6k–$24k), basic OMS/WMS ($6k–$18k), dev/integration ($10k–$40k), infra & CDN ($1k–$6k) = Year 1 total $23k–$88k.
• Year 2: Add automation, improved WMS, more infra (autoscaling), hiring (1 ops/fulfillment lead) = incremental $30k–$120k.
• Year 3: ERP onboarding for wholesale, multi‑region infra, advanced monitoring = incremental $50k–$200k.

Key insight: TCO often shifts from variable per‑transaction fees toward fixed labor and capital as the business scales. Investing earlier in flexible integrations reduces migration costs later.

Planning for order volume and peak events

Manufacturing ecommerce must be resilient to seasonal surges (holiday cocktail demand) and one‑time spikes (press mentions). Plan infrastructure and operations together.

Operational checklist for handling order volume

• Forecast order volume using historical sales + marketing calendar + AI assisted projections.
• Set a threshold for autoscaling triggers (e.g., page latency > 300ms or CPU > 60%).
• Implement CDN + edge caching for product pages and assets to reduce origin load.
• Separate checkout and cart APIs to keep checkout performant under load.
• Queue heavy tasks (invoice generation, label printing, ERP sync) to async workers.
• Test failover plans and practice incident drills with your 3PL and payment provider.

Metrics to monitor

• Site performance: TTFB, Largest Contentful Paint, checkout time.
• Business KPIs: conversion rate, Average Order Value (AOV), churn for wholesale accounts.
• Operational KPIs: orders per minute, picking accuracy, days of inventory on hand (DOH).
• Financial KPIs: contribution margin per channel, cost to fulfill per order.

Wholesale storefronts and B2B sales: practical build steps

Wholesale is a different animal — buyers expect account pricing, purchase orders, net terms, and fast replenishment. Don’t retrofit a consumer checkout; build or enable B2B features early if you expect wholesale growth.

Must‑have wholesale features

• Account‑based login and price‑lists by customer or tier.
• Purchase order (PO) support and net terms workflow.
• Minimum order quantities, pallet pricing, and bulk fulfillment rules.
• EDI or API access for larger distributors.
• Order review/approval workflows and invoice generation integrated with your ERP.

Implementation options

• Enable B2B modules on your hosted platform (fastest)
• Build a dedicated headless B2B portal that integrates to your OMS/ERP (flexible)
• Expose API/EDI endpoints for buyers and integrate with distributor systems (enterprise)

Operational playbook: from artisanal batches to reliable supply

Technology alone won’t scale your manufacturing ecommerce. Parallel investments in ops are required.

6 practical actions you can start this week

1. Map every touchpoint: orders, production batches, inventory, shipping, returns. Document manual steps and time spent.
2. Forecast 3 scenarios (baseline, growth, spike) and define what success looks like for each (e.g., 99.95% uptime, same‑day fulfillment for DTC).
3. Implement a single source of truth for inventory — even a simple SKU system with batch IDs is better than inconsistent spreadsheets.
4. Choose a pilot hosting/commerce path that buys you time (hosted SaaS or headless starter) and budget a migration to enterprise when your forecast crosses the threshold.
5. Set up async processing for non‑critical background jobs and apply rate limiting to protect checkout APIs during traffic spikes.
6. Negotiate shipping contracts and 3PL SLAs before you sign large wholesale deals — fulfillment cost and reliability determine profitability.

Security, compliance, and traceability — non‑negotiables for manufacturing ecommerce

Food and beverage makers must be able to track batches, manage recalls, and protect customer data. These requirements affect architecture and TCO.

• PCI Compliance: Use hosted payment pages or certified payment gateways to limit scope.
• Traceability: Store batch IDs and production metadata alongside orders in your OMS/WMS.
• Backups & DR: Regular backups and tested restore plans for databases and order history.
• Access control: Role‑based access for warehouse, finance, and customer service teams.

Final checklist: readiness to scale

• Have you modeled TCO for 3 years including labor and capital?
• Can your commerce platform support B2B flows or do you need a dedicated portal?
• Do you have an OMS that supports lot/batch tracking and returns?
• Is your hosting architecture designed for peak events with CDN and async queues?
• Are shipping and fulfillment partners contractually ready for higher volume?

Closing: translating Liber & Co.’s mindset into your technical plan

Liber & Co. didn’t let perfect technology slow them down — they started manual, measured constraints, and invested where it mattered. In 2026, you can follow that same path: launch quickly with hosted tools, instrument thoroughly, and design modular architecture so you can swap components as you scale without a forklift migration.

Actionable takeaway: Build a 12‑month roadmap that ties platform choices to concrete volume thresholds and TCO triggers (e.g., migrate to headless when monthly API calls exceed X, or onboard ERP when annual revenue reaches Y). Make decisions based on constraints rather than aspirations.

Next step — get hands on: a simple three‑page TCO worksheet

Want a practical template to calculate hosting, SaaS, labor, and fulfillment costs for your product? Contact our team for a tailored TCO worksheet and architecture review that maps your stovetop beginnings to a scalable commerce platform — with cost projections and migration gates set to your business milestones.

Call to action: Reach out to TopShop Cloud for a free 30‑minute assessment to map your current stack, identify the single largest scalability risk, and get a prioritized roadmap that balances TCO and time‑to‑market.

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