Materialbank.jp: Centralizing B2B sales with a Commerce Operating System

Material Bank is a global unicorn that has raised over $300M to transform how architects and designers source material samples. In 2023, Material Bank Japan, operated by DesignFuture Japan, launched a platform that now centralizes over 70,000 samples from 210 brands, all available with free overnight shipping nationwide.

However, the Japanese market required more than a direct replication of HQ’s commerce experience. To meet the needs of customers ranging from small studios to some of Japan’s largest design firms, the local team needed full control over their tech stack and the agility to build commerce features tailored to their market.

When Global Templates Don’t Fit Local Markets

Before Medusa, Material Bank Japan operated within a globally managed commerce platform. The system’s performance and mobile experience limited flexibility, and integrations with their WMS and PIM required frequent maintenance. The Japanese team had no backend access, leaving them unable to localize or adapt the platform.

Most importantly, the global template did not reflect local workflows. For instance, Japanese designers require far more detailed product data, often more than 200 attributes per item, compared to around 120 in the US. On top of this, strict customer verification flows were essential: new users had to be whitelisted, reviewed by the team, and approved through a tiered system before gaining access. The result: The Japanese team struggled to tailor the experience to local customers, spending more time fixing legacy system issues than building the features users actually needed.

We needed the flexibility and operational ownership to move at our own pace. Medusa gave us the autonomy to localize and ship features that truly match our users’ needs.

Tuvshinbayar Naran-Ochir

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Tech Lead - Material Bank Japan

From Kickoff to Launch in Four Months

In early 2025, the Japanese team decided to migrate. Medusa’s open-source flexibility and built-in framework gave them the ability to go beyond traditional commerce operations and support project management and design workflows.

With high ambitions and little tolerance for long timelines, the 7-person development team partnered closely with the Medusa team and used the Cloud Platform as their central development hub. The managed infrastructure enabled them to focus on building features instead of managing systems, while features such as automatic deployments and instant previews allowed them to iterate and test new features in minutes, not days. Additionally, the team used Medusa Supportto resolve any issues and iterate quickly.

The result was a full launch in just four months, delivering a highly customized platform that integrated seamlessly with all of Material Bank Japan’s existing tools.

Medusa Cloud made it fast for us to iterate. Also the Medusa Support was incredibly - they helped with multiple support inquires per day, which made it easy to keep moving fast.

Tuvshinbayar Naran-Ochir

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Tech Lead - Material Bank Japan

Building Autonomy with the “Material Bank OS”

With Medusa at the core, the team built a system referred to as the “Material Bank OS”, a system powering everything from product and orders to customer management and invoicing. What previously required several independent systems, a commerce platform, PIM, and custom routing, now runs mostly on Medusa, simplifying data and workflow management.

The OS connects a modern stack around Medusa: Next.js for the storefront, Sanity for content, Algolia for search, and AWS S3 and Amazon Rekognition for image processing. On the operational side, HubSpot and Slack handle CRM and support, while MoneyForward, their Made4Net WMS, Locus Robotics, and shipping partners automate invoicing and overnight fulfillment.

Medusa sits at the core of these operations, making all systems operate as one. Workflows keep data consistent across services, custom modules encapsulate integration logic, and a customized Admin gives the team direct control over approvals, regulations, and brand processes.

Material Bank Japan now runs on a platform designed entirely around the local market. With full operational autonomy, the team controls its roadmap end-to-end. Instead of waiting on global priorities, they can develop and iterate at their own pace to meet local needs, at the speed their market demands.

Building a Platform for Designers, by Designers

With Medusa, the team built features tailored to the local Japanese design workflows. Below are some of the highlights:

• Image Search lets designers upload anything from a lobby photo to a paint swatch. Images go through Amazon Rekognition, labels are cleaned up with custom AI logic, and then Algolia matches them against Material Bank’s catalog to return relevant samples instantly.
• Moodboards work like Pinterest, allowing designers to collect materials, import inspiration, and then export project details or order everything on the board with one click.
• Project Workflows capture all the context design firms need to manage, project name, prefecture, city, type (restaurant, office, hospital), square meters, and budget, with orders linked directly to projects.
• Invoicing & Contracts are handled through an integration with Japanese Money Forward. Contracts are uploaded as PDFs, parsed into Medusa for product and brand IDs, and then used to generate automated invoices for brand subscriptions and lead fees.
• Customer Verification is handled through a tiered system. Registrations are checked via Slack notifications, reviewed in HubSpot, and only then approved or assigned a user tier inside Medusa.

Looking ahead, the team is already developing new capabilities, including an AI-powered agent to recommend products and assist designers throughout their workflow. With full control of their platform, they are free to keep experimenting, innovating, and shaping the future of design sourcing in Japan.