E-commerce Strategies

Selecting the Ideal B2B Ecommerce Platform to Meet Today’s Buyers’ Expectations

Expectations have gone up significantly amongst both buyers and sellers. The trend is to demand that sellers get a modern B2B Ecommerce platform that is easy to use and meets their requirements, while buyers want online shopping experiences characterized by seamless checkout processes and good customer care services.

Starting an eCommerce business has become more complex due to these evolving expectations.

By 2024, Lance Olwide, BigCommerce’s B2B General Manager, foresees that ecommerce will be more integral to the B2B buying journey. He adds that businesses selling products from warehouses, those using EDI, and those selling their products through phone calls, emails, or trade fairs will have to replace these avenues with B2B ecommerce platforms.

Where all the transactions, like requesting quotes for items, repeating orders, and paying bills, can take place at once. Forrester Research indicates that businesses will need to adopt new strategies to meet these demands.

To excel in this setting, it is crucial to have a strong B2B ecommerce platform where companies can engage in internet-based transactions among enterprises.

Choosing the Right B2B Ecommerce Platform

A wealth of options are available when selecting the best B2B ecommerce platform for your business, but considering these factors can help you identify your specific needs and potential impacts.

Type of B2B Business Model

Different B2B companies have different needs. To acquire an adequate solution, one has to understand the differences between the various B2B models:

Wholesale: It is a B2B model in which products are sold in bulk at reduced prices to other businesses rather than selling them piece by piece to consumers.
Manufacturers: Manufacturers produce finished goods on a large scale using raw materials and labor. In the B2B context, these goods are sold to other manufacturers, suppliers, or wholesalers.
Distributors: Distributors interact with producers closely to improve the promotion and sales of their products further down the distribution chain.
B2B2C: Through e-commerce, business-to-business-to-consumer strategies (B2B2C) eliminate intermediaries, bringing together B2B organizations and end users directly.

How to Choose the Best eCommerce Platform for Your Business offers further insights into selecting the right platform based on your business model.

Choosing the Right B2B Ecommerce Platform

Business software integrations in B2B Ecommerce Platforms

When it comes to companies that depend on a wide variety of key business applications—ERP systems, PIM, CRM, among others—it’s very important to select a B2B ecommerce platform that goes well with these.

No organization would like to pour resources into an online selling medium just to find out it cannot be used in conjunction with what they are presently employing. It is simply a waste of effort and time; furthermore, money might be lost forever.

The most effective B2B ecommerce platforms provide all-encompassing packages linking your entire B2B software suite for unbroken transactions. WooCommerce vs. Shopify also offers a comparison that could guide your choice depending on your integration needs.

Security Features of B2B Ecommerce Platforms

When selecting a B2B ecommerce platform, security is a prime concern for a variety of clients. The success of an e-commerce platform critically depends on safeguarding customer data, averting swindling, and upholding compliance with SSL certificates.

The Importance of eCommerce Security cannot be overstated as a vital aspect of platform selection.

Moreover, solid security actions can guard your site against cyberattacks and advance its SEO ranking. It will take time to earn a return from investing in security.

Cost Considerations for B2B Ecommerce Platforms

When it comes to cost considerations, the B2B ecommerce platform is just the tip of the iceberg. Other internal expenses come with launching, maintaining, and scaling the website.

B2B sellers have multiple aspects they need to focus on, including managing sales channels and marketplaces like Amazon and payment gateways or product catalogs, hence a careful consideration of the total cost of these endeavors.

Customization Capabilities of B2B Ecommerce Platforms

The best B2B ecommerce platforms allow for customization and flexibility. One-size-fits solutions belong to the past; today, businesses require tailor-made solutions that meet their specific needs.

Merchants and customers tend to favor platforms that provide them with extensive customization options. This is particularly relevant for rapidly expanding businesses, which now require a solution that can grow along with them.

Consequently, demand for more customizable headless commerce is rising as companies seek additional functionalities plus design alternatives at no extra cost.

Essential B2B ecommerce platform features

Let’s conclude some of the vital aspects to consider while choosing a B2B ecommerce platform:

Access Control Options for B2B Ecommerce

B2B ecommerce platform is usually more elaborate than B2C, as it has peculiarities that require special treatment for buyers. The e-commerce platform you select should enable you to restrict certain sections on an individual basis.

Pricing, Payment, and Order Customization

Being in B2B means having a lot of factors at play. An all-encompassing approach is needed since managing customers, fulfillment centers, and punchout catalogs depends on one order customization system.

Make your platform’s transactional options comprehensive enough. When tools are scattered, they do not connect, leading to problems such as managing inventory or order fulfillment.

This is particularly important for hybrid businesses running both B2B and B2C channels. Cutting down channel conflicts and management is very key as well.

Purchasing and discounts based on individual buyers also appeal to B2B buyers; hence, finding such a platform could be helpful.

Customer Experience Focus

In the process of creating an e-commerce site, customer-orientedness is of utmost importance. This fact is true, especially for B2B customers who need to relate and feel good about their interaction with your brand.

It is therefore necessary to select a platform with appropriate personalization options as more B2B companies are now giving UX/UI optimization more priority than before.

When other businesses integrate customer reviews and provide great customer support, this enhances the overall experience for its clients.

Frictionless, secure checkout

A wonderful checkout experience is vital, more so if the buyer is in B2B. Besides the customary B2B functions such as PO invoicing or bulk ordering, buyers desire a hassle-free and safe process through which they can pay for their orders.

According to a BigCommerce survey, checkout security is not only one of the biggest issues faced by B2B buyers in the UK (30%), AU (21%), and US (20%).

Failure to provide a secure checkout would see businesses lose clients to their competitors.

B2B Ecommerce platform for Frictionless, secure checkout

Simple channel expansion

The omnichannel experience has transformed modern e-commerce, enabling businesses to utilize various avenues from physical shops to virtual portals and social media. An integrated experience across all channels will lead to more sales and increased satisfaction from the customers.

So when considering platform things, pick ones that support omnichannel experiences. It is necessary for the company’s success that it reaches its clients through all the routes.

Why Choose BigCommerce as Your B2B Ecommerce Platform?

Here are the reasons to opt for BigCommerce: The highly flexible APIs and cheap overall ownership costs earned BigCommerce a reputation as a leading worldwide open SAAS e-commerce platform.

It has various B2B features and add-ons that distinguish it from other platforms, thus providing a modern and seamless shopping experience.

This platform enables hybrid firms to cater to both B2B and B2C customers in one solution with different price lists or catalogs.

“BigCommerce provides us with the scalability, flexibility, and openness we need to make adjustments at any time,” stated Jed Simpson, General Manager at TYGRIS.

What Makes BigCommerce Stand Out Among B2B Ecommerce Platforms?

BigCommerce is unique from others. The B2B Edition offered by BigCommerce has advanced features that simplify the buying process for customers, including:

Pricing is defined per SKU, bulk purchase discounts, and promotions.
Re-ordering options for users to see products previously bought.
Control over how payment methods can be viewed by customers.
Buyer roles and permissions to create corporate accounts with multiple buyer tiers.

A buyer portal to manage orders, quotes, and workflows.
An invoice portal enabling online management of invoices and making payments via various methods.
Customer-requested quotes allow clients to directly request quotes from their carts.

Also, BigCommerce supports headless commerce and offers benefits such as:

Faster growth with unlimited expansion to new areas, languages, and currencies.
Online shopping experiences that are future-proofed with flexibility for adapting to technological changes in the future.
Customized front-end experiences lead to better personalization across different channels.

No other platform has the same range of features, modules, and marketing tools that BigCommerce offers. It was declared a “leader” in the 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment for IDC MarketScape: Worldwide B2B Digital Commerce Applications for Midmarket Growth.

Other B2B ecommerce platform options include Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento), NetSuite SuiteCommerce, OpenCart, OroCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shift4Shop, Shopify Plus, and WooCommerce.