Which is the most suitable B2B eCommerce Platform

Aug 17, 2022

Do you provide services to help businesses grow, hire and manage teams? Do you provide products for companies? Do you sell items wholesale?

If you're in the B2B space -- or if you want to be -- you could be able to benefit from an eCommerce B2B platform. It can simplify processes for the clients you serve as well as your staff as well as help you expand quicker and faster.

Let's glance at the ways that an eCommerce store could benefit the B2B industry in deciding the best platform.

Why create a B2B eCommerce store

Most online shops that you've come across are B2C (Business to Consumer) which can provide your dog's meals, birthday gifts, or even the best specialty foods you've ever bought. Beware of thinking that eCommerce sites are exclusively intended for businesses that cater to the consumer. They could be a effective instrument to B2B businesses too.

According to a recent study, 41% of B2B shoppers indicated that capabilities for self-service will make it easier doing business online. That's a big number! and the capability for customers to control their accounts and perform other associated tasks is one of the highlights of eCommerce functionality.

As an example, instead of calling to ask for a quote the Sourcing Manager might make a request on the internet and receive the quote promptly, regardless of time of day. It is also possible to submit an order, or sign up to have your items delivered every month. Also, if you supply lawn care services for retail stores, a business proprietor could sign into their account to adjust the frequency of their services or check out the next time you're scheduled to visit.

B2B eCommerce stores can also can be a great help in automation of processes. They could take the strain from customer service agents as well as sales team members with certain self-service functions we just discussed. They can sync information between multiple distribution channels and ensure accuracy and up-to-date information. They can also eliminate the tedious task of manually sending invoices and quotes and then contacting every prospective client.

The online store is the brand's image and is the center of your marketing plans. The store can be linked directly to the products and services you offer in your emails to customers and in advertising campaigns. You can create valuable information that can guide prospects through the sales funnel. It is also possible to track the success of your efforts to steer the future direction of your business.

The factors to consider when choosing an B2B eCommerce platform

The eCommerce platform you pick is the base of your online storefront. Let's dive into some factors to consider when choosing one, and examine why is the top solution for B2B online stores.

Types of products that you're offering

There's a vast array of opportunities that are available to B2B companies. There are several items you may sell, along with some examples:

  • Physical goods. Think equipment, printed training booksand cleaning products.  Storage and Handling Equipment  For instance, Storage and Handling Equipment supplies eco-friendly shopping carts to the grocery and retail stores.
  • Digital products. Items like online courses ebooks that are downloaded, as well as software licences. TipoType For instance, gives font licenses to companies as well as freelancers.
  • Services. Services include graphics design, accounting as well as legal assistance. Your Benefit Store is a service provider, selling healthcare coverage which companies may offer as part of employee's packages.
  • Wholesale goods. The company sells large amounts of its products to retailers, essentially acting as their supplier. Porta Pro Chem, for example, provides portable restrooms to clients around the country.
  • Memberships. Access to a collection of benefits and resources, such as a training video library and online forums. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, as an example, has a membership program with resources, courses, event invites and more, specifically for marketing and media firms.
  • Subscriptions. Recurring products or services, for example, a annual license, weekly service for cleaning, or monthly box of coffee beans for your breakroom. Design Modo sells subscriptions to design tools, but subscriptions can also involve physical goods or even newsletters.

You can tell that they all vary widely from one another, but there can also be some overlap. You might sell both wholesale and retail products. You could sell both physical and digital publications in tandem. Perhaps you subscribe to a service that provides an annual office cleaning as well as a set of cleaning products.

The point here is, you may do business in a variety of ways -- ensure that the platform you choose supports all of them.

sells functionality on every product and services mentioned above, and more! Actually, every one websites mentioned use . Sell one type of product or multiple side by side. Let anyone purchase or limit access to certain clients or wholesale customers.

No matter what you want to market, make it feasible.

Design adaptability

Like your products or services are distinct Your brand, as well. Of course your site needs to reflect the personality and distinctive characteristics of the brand.

A good B2B eCommerce solution will offer you complete and total flexibility in the design and development of any kind of product you think of and not have the ability to alter code or engage a developer in the event that you do not want to.

Since is an extension of WordPress, you can harness the power to use Block Editor. Block Editor for the creation of all your pages and posts. The Block Editor lets you drag and drop elements -such as headings, paragraphs, images, videos, and columns -- to create your personal layout. Then, you can switch settings to customize colors, font styles, and other aspects of the design so that the layout is unique to you.

the block editor creating an About page

Ownership of Content

For online businesses, owning your content is absolutely critical. Your website is a source of income that you cannot risk that it will disappear. There are many exclusive eCommerce platforms can remove your website without notice if they decide that you've violated their terms and regulations. This means losing revenue, time, and hard labor!

However, WordPress is a software tools to help you achieve your goals. Your site is hosted where you'd prefer it to be, and you have full control and control over the site. You'll never have to worry about deleting your website. Since it's simplythe site is you own it..

Integration with payment gateways

Payment gateways let you take money from your customers as well as clients in a secure manner, and then transfer that money into your account at the bank. The pros and cons of each tool, and certain functions you'll need to have for your specific company. In particular, you could require recurring payment or accept multiple currencies. connect with express payment tools like Apple Pay, or offer finance options.

You'll want to make sure that the eCommerce platform you pick works with the platform you'd like to use -- especially in the event that your company already has some sort of payment processing or billing.

It is compatible with a variety of payment gateways. These include:

the  Payments dashboard

Shipping

If you sell physical products, then shipping is going to be a crucial factor when it comes to choosing an eCommerce platform. Shipping can be complicated therefore you'll need a software that allows you to make your fees as you'd like, and works with all shipping companies you deal with. This is especially true if you need to deliver large amounts of items at once or require specific requirements such as refrigeration.

calculating shipping rates with  Shipping

User experience

Experience for users is essential for any business, for a variety of reasons. For instance, if a prospective customer or client visits your website and finds it difficult to use, they'll most likely leave and choose to shop in a rival shop instead. The second reason is that search engines take into account the experience of users when ranking.

The challenge, at present is to identify the right platform to make the best user experience feasible. Here are some factors you should consider:

  • Content organization. Choose an eCommerce platform that helps you structure your menus to categorize your products and posts as well as add functions such breadcrumbs for navigation. Because WordPress was built as a blogging platform from the beginning the tools for content can't be beaten.
  • Mobile-friendly design. Your site should look great across devices of every size such as tablets, desktops, and phones on mobiles. WordPress is mobile-friendly by default. you can choose from a variety of mobile-friendly themes you can choose from.

Marketing and customer service

Marketing of course helps you reach new prospects as well as increase sales from your existing customers. Good customer service helps you maintain customers' loyalty and help them to spread the word about your company. They're both key to the success of your B2B eCommerce shop.

The system you're working with should make all of your marketing and customer service strategies possible, whether that means integrating seamlessly with tools you already use or making it simple to incorporate tracking codes.

Here are some of the marketing and customer service skills that are included in :

  • Integration with CRMs. Connect to the CRM of your preference with an extension to Jetpack CRM HubSpot, Salesforce, and more.
  • Integration with support forums and ticketing system. Add live chat to your site, create a support forum and integrate it with tools like Freshdesk and HelpScout
  • Content creation capabilities. Regularly create beautiful, effective blogs as well as landing pages and other content to complement your overall marketing efforts and educate potential clients.
  • Integration with a wide array of marketing tools. Track traffic using Google Analytics, connect to platforms for social media such as Facebook and TikTok and create Google ads directly on your dashboard, email messages, monitor abandoned carts and much more.
  • The simplicity for your team members. Give each member of your team their own account with access to the account based on the role they play. The accounts that have been approved are able to respond to queries from support, review and manage orders, handle refunds, write blog posts along with other.
Porta Chem Pro site
Product page from Porta Pro Chem which allows customers to get an estimate

Additional functionality

The functions you want for your eCommerce B2B store are particular to your organization. Consider any specific needs you may have. These are some of the examples:

Scalability

It is important to choose a B2B eCommerce platform you pick will not stop you from achieving your goals. Watch out for ones with fees based on the number of sales, customersor site visits. Your website should perform well, no matter if there are 100,000 visitors on one time or 100,000.

It can be scaled to any size. It's not limited to the quantity of items or variations you can have (in fact, this test site included 1 million!). It's designed to handle huge volumes of orders and traffic surges. It's a completely free platform however, you might want to purchase extensions and pricing is not dependent on sales or customers.

What's the best thing? You are able to select any provider you'd want. That means that, while you might have an existing shared hosting account in the moment, you could move to a virtual private server or dedicated server when your traffic increases without impacting the online shop you have.

User-friendliness and Management

In the business world, time is money. And you can't afford to spend time with a system that isn't user-friendly, difficult for new employees to understand, and requires a developer to make even the smallest of modifications.

While you can engage a professional to run your website if you'd prefer but you don't need to do so in order to get the most of your online store. We've mentioned before that Block Editor Block Editor enables you to arrange, change, or delete elements by simply dragging and dropping. Are you looking to modify your product? It's easy to do this through the use of buttons, and then making changes to fields -- no need for code!

Store managers have access to all of their inventory information, from site analytics to order information all in one place. When you're using products such as Jetpack CRM, Shipping, and Payments, they can manage label printing, payment, refunds, quotes, and more right via your dashboard.

If you're interested to engage a professional to develop, maintain the store, or even customize it, check out our list of WooExperts. They're vetted, high-quality agencies willing to assist!

Build and grow your B2B eCommerce store with

No matter if you're an established B2B company or new to the market, this platform provides the necessary tools and flexibility you need to develop. In addition, it could enhance the experience of customers and can improve the efficiency of your staff.

Are you ready to expand? Start with the best B2B eCommerce platform right now.