How DEMA Group Unified 5 Brands on One Platform

DEMA Group operates 5 distinct brands in the building materials industry, each with their own product catalog, pricing structure, and customer base. They came to us with a challenge: "We need one platform that serves all our brands without forcing them to look or feel the same."

The Challenge

5 brands , each with unique branding, product lines, and pricing
10,000+ products across all brands combined
Shared customers who buy from multiple brands
Single ERP (SAP) that needed to stay as the source of truth
Multi-language requirements (NL, FR, EN)
B2B pricing with customer-specific discounts and minimum order quantities

The Architecture Decision

We evaluated three approaches:

5 separate shops — Easy to build, nightmare to maintain
One monolithic shop — Doesn't allow brand differentiation
Multi-tenant platform — Shared core, brand-specific frontends ✓

We chose option 3: a shared backend with tenant-aware routing. Each brand gets its own domain, design system, and product catalog — but shares user accounts, order processing, and inventory management.

Tech Stack

Frontend: Next.js with dynamic theming per tenant
Backend: Node.js API with tenant middleware
Database: PostgreSQL with row-level security per tenant
ERP Integration: Real-time SAP sync via custom middleware
Search: Elasticsearch with per-tenant indexing
CDN: Cloudflare with brand-specific caching rules

Key Features Delivered

Single sign-on — Customers log in once, see products from all brands they have access to
Unified cart — Order from multiple brands in one checkout
Customer-specific pricing — Pulled from SAP in real-time
PDF catalog sync — New supplier catalogs auto-extracted and published
Admin dashboard — One panel to manage all 5 storefronts

Results After 6 Months

42% increase in online orders (vs. phone/fax)
3.2x faster product catalog updates
€180K/year saved in admin labor and error correction
23% higher AOV due to cross-brand discovery
99.9% uptime across all 5 storefronts

Lessons Learned

Start with shared data model — Get the product/customer schema right before building UI
Invest in tenant isolation early — Retrofitting security boundaries is expensive
ERP sync is the hardest part — Budget 30% of project time for integration testing
Let brands own their frontend — Shared backend doesn't mean shared UX