Blue Badger is up for Best B2B Website of the Year. Here’s how we built it.

Blue Badger has been shortlisted for Best B2B Website of the Year (up to 50 Employees) at the eCommerce Awards, which take place at eCommerce Expo in September, and it’s a project we’re genuinely proud of.

Blue Badger is a UK-based wholesaler supplying dealers in commercial catering, laundry, and refrigeration equipment, with 5,000+ products and trade buyers across Europe. 

When they came to us, their Magento site had accumulated so many extensions and customisations that it could no longer be upgraded easily. That meant potential security risks, missed fixes, and a stuck development team. Something had to give.

Getting to know the business together

Eight weeks before a line of code was written, the Rixxo and Blue Badger teams sat down together to work out what the business needed.

That meant joint workshops, warehouse tours, and running the project through our Foundations™ research and planning process, with Blue Badger involved at every stage.

A particular mention goes to Sam at Codenorth, who worked closely with the Blue Badger team on the client side, getting product data in order and making sure the business was properly prepared for the build. That kind of groundwork on the client side makes a real difference, and it’s rarer than it should be.

Together, we separated the features that genuinely served the business from the ones that had accumulated over the years. We identified places where tweaking internal processes could shrink the scope of the build and its cost.

What came out the other side was a bespoke Magento site built around how Blue Badger operates: less admin, better self-serve for trade customers, and a platform with room to grow, built on eight weeks of groundwork.

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It’s also worth some context: digital maturity in commercial catering wholesale is generally pretty low. Plenty of competitors treat eCommerce as an afterthought. Blue Badger made a different call.

The results

The numbers reflect that. Since the relaunch, active web users have increased by 68%.  

Online sales as a proportion of total revenue rose from 21% to 32%, a 56% relative increase. 

The result: increased revenue and less admin. 

In the client’s own words

Blue Badger’s Operations Director Alison Harvey put it better than we could: 

“Rixxo took the time to get to know how we operate, and that’s what’s made this project such a success. The impact on me personally? Since the site went live, I’m no longer fighting fires, meaning for once, I get to go home on time.”

Recognition beyond the eCommerce Awards

The project has been recognised beyond the eCommerce Awards, too. Blue Badger won Best Supplier Growth at the Cedabond Award Ceremony and was shortlisted for Catering Insight Supplier of the Year, recognition within their own industry. 

You can read the full story on the Blue Badger project page.

Rixxo’s other 2026 nominations

Alongside the Blue Badger shortlist, Rixxo was also nominated for B2B eCommerce Agency of the Year at both theB2B eCommerce Industry Awards — run by the B2B eCommerce Association — and the National Digital Awards. Three nominations across three separate bodies is a good place to be.

The eCommerce Awards results are announced at eCommerce Expo in September. We’ll be there.