About Work World
Work World is the largest specialty retailer of workwear, boots, and gear with over 30 stores in the Western U.S. Operating under Work World, Whistle Workwear, and Willy's Discount Workwear, the company provides premium brands, expert product knowledge, and exceptional customer service to outfit essential workers with high-quality gear.
The Challenge
Work World set out to modernize its retail operations by replacing its aging point-of-sale (POS) system and expanding its ecommerce presence. The company chose Shopify’s ecommerce platform and Shopify POS for their ease of use and ability to create a seamless omnichannel experience. But when it came to Work World’s most important business processes, Shopify’s standard features needed to do more.
Two major challenges stood out for Work World’s growing 40+ store business: replacing a paper-based voucher system with a digital, customer-friendly, omnichannel solution; and building new tools for managing purchase orders, cycle counts, and other inventory adjustments to integrate seamlessly with their NetSuite ERP system.
The voucher program was especially complex. Corporate customers use it to give employees workwear credits, and it needs to handle a variety of rules — from different discount structures and product restrictions to bulk distribution, revocation, and detailed reporting. It also has to connect in real time with NetSuite and support redemption both online and in-store usage.
At the same time, Work World needed to extend Shopify to better support its store operations. While Shopify includes basic tools for purchase orders, transfers, and inventory adjustments, it doesn’t natively connect those functions to external systems, and Shopify POS doesn’t support workflows like advanced shipping notices and cycle counts. Work World required enhanced Shopify extensions to provide store teams with a comprehensive view of inventory activity — all synced with NetSuite to ensure accurate data across every location.
In short, Shopify needed to be extended to meet the needs of an enterprise retailer, and Work World needed a partner who could make it happen without sacrificing ease of use while increasing flexibility.
The Solution
Red Van partnered with Work World to design and build custom Shopify solutions that addressed these enterprise needs while keeping Shopify at the center of the retail experience.
The first step was creating a proprietary voucher application. To address Work World’s complex needs, Red Van built a custom app that transformed paper vouchers into a digital, powerful, omnichannel system. The new platform allowed Work World to set up complex voucher programs, assign administrators to both manage and distribute vouchers , as well as ensure customers could redeem benefits both online and in-store. Behind the scenes, the app included use case specific business logic which simplified financial reporting and liability tracking.
Next, Red Van tackled the challenge of ERP integration and retail operations. An ERP-agnostic API layer was developed to ensure the Shopify customizations could communicate reliably with NetSuite, with Celigo managing real-time data mappings and synchronizations. This integration didn’t just connect systems — it unlocked new operational capabilities.
Red Van extended Shopify to handle advanced retail workflows like purchase order management, cycle counts with approval processes, and store-to-store transfers, complete with packing slips and status tracking. These enhancements gave store associates modern, intuitive tools while keeping NetSuite as the central source of truth.
By combining a custom voucher system with deep ERP integration and Shopify POS extensions, Red Van effectively turned Shopify into a scalable enterprise platform that could support both Work World’s day-to-day operations and its long-term growth.
The Results
Red Van elevated Shopify to meet Work World’s enterprise needs, which was launched in Fall 2025.
- Enterprise-ready Shopify. With ERP integration, voucher management, and inventory extensions, Shopify became a viable alternative to Work World’s legacy systems.
- Modernized Voucher Program. A once manual process is now digital, flexible, and omnichannel, driving efficiency for both corporate clients and employees.
- Smarter Retail Operations. Store associates now use modern tools for inventory, receiving, and transfers that are integrated with NetSuite for a single source of truth.
Reusable Enterprise Components. The custom apps and API framework created for Work World can be adapted for other enterprise retailers, showcasing Red Van’s unique ability to make Shopify enterprise-ready.
“Red Van took a look at our existing tech stack and then created an application that does exactly what we need: ERP generated Purchase Orders flow through to the POS, allows for easy receiving via ASN or Scan. The application also does inventory transfers, full and partial cycle counts, label printing and has a security matrix that allows us to give associates and managers the access they need. It's awesome!“