Which is the most suitable B2B eCommerce Platform

Aug 17, 2022

Are you able to provide services that help businesses grow, hire or manage their teams? Do you offer products to companies? Do you sell items wholesale?

If you're in the B2B space (or want to be -- it's possible that you'll profit from a B2B eCommerce platform. It can simplify processes for the clients you serve as well as your staff, and help you grow quicker and faster.

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

Why create a B2B eCommerce store?

The majority of online stores you've heard of are B2C (Business to Consumer) which can provide your dog's meals, birthday present, or perhaps the best specialty foods you've ever bought. But don't be lured into believing that eCommerce sites are exclusively intended for businesses that cater to the consumer. They can be an incredibly powerful device for B2B companies as well.

According to a recent study, 41% of B2B shoppers stated that self-service capabilities will make it easier making business transactions on the internet. It's an impressive amount! and the capability for customers to manage their accounts as well as perform similar tasks is an important aspect of eCommerce functionality.

As an example, instead of calling to request an estimate the Sourcing Manager might submit a request online and find out this information immediately, no matter the time of day. You can also place an order or sign up to have your items delivered every month. If you offer landscaping services for retailers, the business owner could log into their account to adjust the frequency of their service and also check the next time you're scheduled to drop by.

B2B eCommerce stores also go a long way towards automating processes. They can take the load off customer service reps and sales team members by completing certain self-service functions that we have discussed. They can transfer information across multiple distribution channels and ensure accuracy and up-to-date information. And they can take away the painful steps involved in manually sending invoices and quotes in the process of following up with every prospective client.

Finally, an online store acts as your brand's face and the hub of all the marketing strategies you employ. You can link directly to products and services in your marketing emails and advertisements. Create valuable content that guides prospects through the sales funnel. And you can track the success of your efforts in order to guide the future direction of your business.

Considerations for choosing an B2B eCommerce platform

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

Types of products you're selling

There are a huge variety of possibilities to consider for B2B companies. There are several products you can sell and some of the examples you can use:

  • Physical items. Consider equipment, printed manuals, as well as cleaning equipment.  Storage and Handling Equipment  is an example. It offers eco-friendly shopping carts to the grocery and retail stores.
  • Digital goods. Products like online course, downloadable eBooks, and software licences. TipoType is one example. It offers font licenses to businesses and freelancers.
  • Services. Offers include graphics design, accounting and legal help. Your Benefit Store is a service provider providing healthcare benefits that companies can add to their plans for employees.
  • Wholesale products. The company sells large amounts of its products to retailers, essentially serving as their suppliers. Porta Pro Chem For instance, offers portable toiletries to customers all over the world.
  • Members. Access to a variety of benefits and sources, such as a training video library, or an online forum. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, for instance, has the membership program, which includes tools including courses, invitations to events and much more, targeted at marketers and media companies.
  • Subscriptions. Services or products that are recurring, such as a year-long licence, weekly cleaning service, or monthly box of coffee pods to use in the room to break. Designs Modo offers digital subscriptions to design tools, however, subscriptions may also include physical goods or even newsletters.

These are all different between them, however, there may be the possibility of overlap. There is a possibility of selling retail and wholesale products. It is possible to sell physical and digital publications side by side. You could also offer a monthly subscription which includes an office clean-up every week, along with a bag of cleaning supplies.

The point here is, you may do business through a myriad of methods and be sure that your platform supports each of them.

provides selling functionality for every product and services listed above, and more! In fact, all websites mentioned make use of . Sell one type of product or multiple side by side. Let anyone purchase or restrict capabilities to specific customers or wholesale clients.

Whatever you wish to offer, it's possible.

Design flexibility

Just as your products and services are distinctive Your brand, too. Of course your website needs to reflect the character and traits of your brand.

A reliable B2B eCommerce system will give you complete and total flexibility to design and build any kind of product you think of -- without having to edit code or hire a developer if you don't want to.

Because it is an add-on to WordPress it is able to harness the capabilities to use Block Editor. Block Editor to build all of your blog posts and pages. The Block Editor lets you drag and drop various elementsincluding headings, paragraphs video, images, and columns -- to create your very own layout. Then, you can switch settings to customize colors, font styles, and other design characteristics to make the page your own.

the block editor creating an About page

Content ownership

If you are a business online, having control of your content is absolutely critical. Your website is a source of revenue that you cannot risk that it will disappear. It's true that many of the proprietary eCommerce platforms could shut down your site without warning in the event that they determine that you've broken their terms and regulations. That means loss of revenue along with time and labor!

However, WordPress is a software instruments to assist you in achieving your objectives. Your site is hosted where you'd like it to be and it is your complete control over and complete ownership of the site. There's no need to be concerned about taking down your site. Since it's simply- it's yours.

Integration of payment gateways

Payment gateways allow you to receive money from clients as well as clients in a secure manner, and later transfer it into your bank account. They have pros and cons for each tool, and certain functions you'll need to have to run your business. As an example, you might have to take recurring payments or accept multiple currencies. use express pay services like Apple Pay, or offer financing options.

It is important to ensure that the platform for eCommerce that you select is compatible with the platform you'd like to utilize, 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 are selling physical goods, then shipping is going to be a crucial aspect when selecting an eCommerce platform. Shipping can be a bit complicated, which is why you require a system that lets you set up fees the way you prefer, and works with all shipping companies you work with. This is especially true if you need to deliver large amounts of products at once, or require special features like refrigeration.

calculating shipping rates with  Shipping

User experience

The user experience is crucial to any company, and for various reasons. For instance, if a prospective customer or client visits your website but it's not easy to use, they'll likely give up and shop in a rival shop instead. Second, search engines consider the experience of users when ranking.

Your job, for now is to identify the right platform to make the best user experience feasible. Below are some things to consider:

  • Content management. Look for an online platform for eCommerce that lets to organize your menus to categorize your products and posts as well as add functions such breadcrumbs to help with navigation. Because WordPress was designed to be a blog platform right at the very beginning and its tools for creating content are unrivaled.
  • Mobile-friendly design. Your site should look great across all devices including tablets, desktops and even phones on mobiles. WordPress and are mobile-friendly by default. there are lots of great mobile-friendly themes you can choose from.

Customer service and marketing

Marketing is a must, as it assists you in reaching new customers as well as increase sales from existing ones. Excellent customer service can help keep buyers around and drive them to tell their friends about your brand. These two aspects are crucial to having the success of your B2B eCommerce site.

The software you're working with should make all of your customer service and marketing strategies possible, whether that is integrating easily with applications you're already using or making it easier to include tracking codes.

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

  • Connectivity to CRMs. Connect to the CRM of your choice with the help of extensions for Jetpack CRM HubSpot, Salesforce, and more.
  • Integration with ticketing and support forums platforms. Add live chat to your site, create an online support forum or connect with tools like Freshdesk and HelpScout
  • Content creation capabilities. Create regularly beautiful, efficient blog posts as well as landing pages and more to support the rest of your marketing strategies and help educate prospective clients.
  • Integration with a wide range of marketing tools. Check traffic through Google Analytics, connect to platforms for social media such as Facebook and TikTok as well as create Google ads directly on your dashboard, email messages, track abandoned carts, and many more.
  • The simplicity for your team members. You can give each member of the group a personal account, with permissions based on their role. The accounts that have been approved are able to respond to support questions, view and process orders, administer refunds, post blog entries as well as more.
Porta Chem Pro site
Page about the product from Porta Pro Chem which allows clients to request a quote

Additional functionality

The features you require for the B2B eCommerce site will be particular to your organization. Consider any specific specifications you might need to consider. Here are some examples:

Scalability

The B2B eCommerce platform you pick will never stop you from achieving your goals. Look out for platforms which base their fees on sales, number of clients, or the number of website visits. Your platform should also perform well, no matter if you have 100 visitors at one time or 100,000.

can scale with you to any size. There's no limit on the amount of products or variations you can have (in actual fact, this test site included one million!). It's built to handle large quantities of orders as well as traffic spikes. It's completely free however, you might want to purchase extensions and the pricing is never determined by factors such as the number of sales or clients.

The best part? It is possible to choose any hosting provider that you'd like. This means that even though you might be on the shared hosting option right currently, you are able to move to a virtual private server or dedicated server when you increase traffic without having to alter the online shop you have.

User-friendliness and Management

In business the concept of time is highly valued. You shouldn't spend time with a system that isn't user-friendly and difficult for employees who are new to understand, and needs a programmer to create every single modification.

While you can employ a web developer to handle your store if you'd like however, you do not have to do so in order to get the most out of your store. As we mentioned earlier, the Block Editor enables you to move, rearrange, and remove elements simply by dragging and dropping. Are you looking to modify your product? You can do so simply by clicking on buttons and editing fields -- no codes required!

Store managers have access to everything from inventory numbers and the site's analytics to information about orders all from one location. When you're using tools like Jetpack CRM, Shipping and Payments, you can manage label printing, payment invoices, refunds, quotes and more directly through your dashboard, too.

If you're interested to engage a professional to build, manage, or customize your store take a look at our selection of WooExperts. They're highly-rated, vetted agencies ready to help!

Develop and increase the size of your B2B eCommerce business with

Whether you're an established B2B company or just starting out, offers the necessary tools and flexibility needed to grow. Plus, it can improve your user experience for customers and can increase the efficiency of your employees.

Do you want to grow? Get started with the top B2B eCommerce platform right now.