Do you supply companies that assist companies develop, rent, or handle their groups? Do you provide merchandise particularly to corporations? Do you promote gadgets wholesale? Should you’re within the B2B area — or if you wish to be — you might very nicely profit from a B2B ecommerce platform. It will possibly simplify processes in your shoppers and your workforce, and assist you to develop quicker and extra effectively.
Let’s take a more in-depth have a look at how a web-based storefront will help your B2B enterprise progress, and the way to decide on the fitting ecommerce platform.
Why create a B2B ecommerce retailer
Nearly all of on-line shops you’re conversant in could also be B2C (business-to-consumer), supplying your canine’s meals, your son’s birthday presents, or your favourite specialty groceries.
However don’t be lured into considering that ecommerce shops are only for consumer-facing organizations. They are often an extremely {powerful} instrument for B2B corporations as nicely.
In a latest survey, 41% of B2B consumers acknowledged that self-service capabilities would enhance the method of doing enterprise on-line. That’s a giant quantity! And offering the flexibility for shoppers to handle their accounts and carry out different associated duties is a spotlight of ecommerce performance.
For instance, as a substitute of calling to ask for a quote, a sourcing supervisor may submit a request on-line and discover out this info instantly, regardless of the time of day. They might additionally submit an order, and even signal as much as have your merchandise delivered mechanically on a month-to-month foundation.
Or, if you happen to present garden care companies for corporations, a enterprise proprietor may log into their account to regulate the frequency of their companies, or see the subsequent time you’re scheduled to cease by.
B2B ecommerce companies additionally go a good distance in the direction of automating processes. They’ll take the load off of customer support representatives and enhance gross sales workforce members’ efforts by a few of the self-service duties we simply mentioned.
They’ll sync info between varied distribution channels, making certain that all the things’s up-to-date and correct. And so they can take away the painful steps concerned in manually sending invoices and quotes, then following up with each potential shopper.
Lastly, a web-based retailer acts because the face of your organization and the hub of all of your advertising and marketing methods. You’ll be able to hyperlink on to services in your advertising and marketing emails and promoting campaigns to spice up on-line transactions.
You’ll be able to create helpful content material that guides prospects by your gross sales funnel. And you may monitor the success of your efforts to steer future selections.
Concerns for selecting a B2B ecommerce platform
The ecommerce platform you select is actually the muse of your on-line storefront. Let’s dive into some elements to contemplate when selecting one, and study why WooCommerce is the highest answer for B2B on-line shops.
Varieties of merchandise you’re promoting
There are an enormous number of potentialities for B2B corporations. Listed below are a number of gadgets you might promote, together with some examples:
Bodily merchandise
Suppose gear, printed coaching books, and cleansing provides. Storage and Dealing with Gear, for instance, provides eco-friendly buying carts to retail and grocery shops.
Digital merchandise
Gadgets like on-line programs, downloadable eBooks, and software program licenses. TipoType, as an example, presents font licenses to companies and freelancers.
Providers
Choices akin to graphic design, accounting, and authorized assist. Your Profit Retailer is a service supplier, promoting healthcare protection that corporations can embrace as a part of their staff’ compensation packages.
Wholesale gadgets
Promoting massive volumes of merchandise to retailers, basically performing as their provider. Porta Professional Chem, for instance, sells transportable restroom merchandise to shoppers across the nation.
Memberships
Entry to a set of advantages and sources, akin to a coaching video library or on-line discussion board. The Interactive Promoting Bureau, as an example, has a membership program with sources, programs, occasion invitations and extra, particularly for media and advertising and marketing corporations.
Subscriptions
Recurring services or products, like a yearly license, weekly cleansing service, or month-to-month field of espresso pods for the break room. Design Modo sells digital subscriptions to design instruments, however subscriptions may also contain bodily merchandise or even newsletters.
As you may see, these all fluctuate broadly from each other, however there may also be overlap. You may promote each retail and wholesale merchandise. You might promote each bodily and digital books aspect by aspect. Or you might have a subscription that features a weekly workplace cleansing, and a field of provides.
The purpose right here is, you might wish to do enterprise in a wide range of methods on the identical platform — ensure that the platform you select helps all of them.
WooCommerce supplies promoting performance for the entire services listed above, and extra! In truth, the entire instance websites talked about are utilizing WooCommerce. Promote one sort of product or a number of aspect by aspect. Enable anybody to buy, or prohibit capabilities to particular shoppers or wholesale prospects.
It doesn’t matter what you wish to promote or the way you promote it, WooCommerce makes it attainable.
Design flexibility
Simply as your services are distinctive, your model is, too. And, after all, you need your web site to mirror the persona and traits of that model.
Good B2B ecommerce platforms will permit you full and whole flexibility to design and construct something you may think about — with out having to edit code or rent a developer if you happen to don’t wish to.
Since WooCommerce is an extension of WordPress, you may harness the ability of the Block Editor to construct your entire pages and posts. The Block Editor allows you to drag and drop components — like paragraphs, headings, photographs, movies, and columns — to create your individual customized format.
You’ll be able to then toggle settings to customise colours, font types, and different design traits to make the web page your individual.
You can even use blocks to construct and design international web site components, from headers and footers to product web page templates. For instance, you may add associated merchandise, movies, or specs to your product pages. Or maybe you wish to add filters to your class web page sidebar. All of that is attainable with out working with code or hiring a developer.
There are additionally plenty of free and premium themes you may select from as beginning factors in your web site design. Some are like clean slates, offering simply the fundamentals you can actually customise to your coronary heart’s content material. Others supply ready-to-go designs and layouts. Simply swap photographs, textual content, and colours and get promoting!
Content material possession
For on-line companies, proudly owning your content material is completely important. Your web site is a income — you may’t threat the opportunity of it disappearing.
You see, many proprietary B2B ecommerce platforms can take your web site down with no warning in the event that they determine that you simply’ve violated their phrases and circumstances. Which means lack of income, time, and laborious work!
However if you use WordPress and WooCommerce, you personal and management what you create! Your web site is hosted wherever you’d prefer it and also you’ll by no means have to fret about WooCommerce taking down your web site. As a result of it’s simply that — yours.
Cost gateway integration
Cost gateways allow you to gather cash from prospects and shoppers securely, then switch that cash into your checking account. There are execs and cons of every instrument, and sure performance you’ll want in your particular enterprise.
For instance, you might want to gather recurring funds, settle for a number of currencies, combine with categorical pay instruments like Apple Pay, or supply financing choices.
You’ll wish to be sure that the ecommerce platform you select works with the one you wish to use — particularly if your online business already makes use of one thing for cost assortment and invoicing.
WooCommerce integrates with a big selection of cost options, together with:
You can even use a fully-integrated cost gateway from WooCommerce, referred to as WooPayments. It has a person pleasant interface, permitting you to handle funds and refunds from the WordPress dashboard. Plus, it’s free to get began.However it nonetheless supplies world-class performance, like categorical pay choices, recurring cost assortment, and multi-currency help.
See a full checklist of gateways and study extra about selecting a cost gateway for your online business.
Transport
Should you promote bodily merchandise, then delivery goes to be an necessary issue with regards to selecting an ecommerce platform. Transport might be difficult, so that you want a instrument that lets you arrange charges the best way you need, and that integrates with any delivery carriers you’re employed with.
That is very true if you happen to ship massive volumes of merchandise directly, or have particular necessities like refrigeration.
With WooCommerce, you could have quite a lot of totally different choices. Combine with conventional carriers like USPS, FedEx, and UPS, or specialty suppliers like Purolator and Aramex. Cost flat fee delivery charges, supply free delivery, or cost based mostly on a wide range of elements like weight and cart whole.
You’ll be able to even arrange difficult guidelines with the Desk Charge Transport extension. Handle all the things out of your WordPress dashboard with WooCommerce Transport or connect with third-party instruments like ShipStation.
Learn extra in our ecommerce delivery information.
Integration with different software program
There are a big selection of instruments that you could be already use to run your online business, or know that you simply wish to implement sooner or later. A few of these could also be advertising and marketing and customer support associated — assume e mail advertising and marketing platforms or CRM instruments to prepare buyer information — however we’ll contact on these a bit later.
Others could embrace enterprise useful resource administration software program (ERPs), stock administration instruments, accounting software program, collaboration instruments, and so on. The purpose right here is that it’s best to take the time to confirm that the platform you select works seamlessly with the entire different forms of software program which can be important to your online business.
WooCommerce, for instance, presents high-quality extensions that make a lot of these integrations seamless and quick. And if, for some motive, one doesn’t exist already for the instrument that you simply want, you may benefit from the REST API and rent a developer to create one for you.
Person expertise
Person expertise is necessary for any enterprise, for a wide range of causes. First, if a possible buyer or shopper visits your web site and it’s tough to make use of, they’ll almost certainly quit and store with a competitor as a substitute. Second, search engines like google think about person expertise when figuring out rankings. Your job, for now, is to discover a platform that makes creating a superb person expertise attainable. Listed below are some elements to consider:
Website pace
Keep away from sluggish load occasions that can drive potential shoppers away! Your platform needs to be as light-weight as attainable by default, and supply the flexibility so that you can optimize for pace. Get prime pace ideas.
A streamlined checkout expertise
The checkout course of needs to be as easy-to-use and easy as attainable to stop deserted carts. WooCommerce supplies instruments for one-page checkout, categorical cost choices, on-site funds, and extra to assist with this.
Straightforward-to-use search instruments
Assist guests discover precisely what they’re on the lookout for with an intuitive search bar. WordPress has nice built-in search performance, however it’s also possible to use instruments like Jetpack Search, that gives a buyer pleasant interface with advantages that embrace on the spot filters and spelling correction.
Intuitive buyer accounts or self-service portal
The companies that you simply work with need to have the ability to replace their accounts and orders with out an enormous problem. Ideally, they need to be capable of make easy modifications with no need the assistance of your customer support workforce. Suppose altering subscription frequency, requesting a refund, updating cost info, and enhancing a password.
Content material group
Search for a B2B ecommerce platform that helps you construction your menus, categorize posts and merchandise, and add options like breadcrumbs to assist with navigation. Since WordPress was constructed as a running a blog platform from the start, its content material instruments are unmatched.
Cell-friendly design
Your web site ought to look nice on units of all sizes — desktops, tablets, and cellphones. WordPress and WooCommerce are responsive by default, and there are many nice mobile-friendly themes you may select from.
Safety
Safety is necessary for any ecommerce web site, however arguably much more so for people who have a enterprise to enterprise operation. Not solely do you wish to keep away from placing your shoppers’ info in danger, you additionally wish to shield your laborious work and content material. That’s why it’s so necessary to decide on a safe platform with loads of instruments to maintain your on-line enterprise secure.
To start, select ecommerce software program that’s constructed on a basis of safety. WordPress and WooCommerce, for instance, prioritize safety and, with a few easy steps in your finish, your web site and buyer info shall be locked down.
Additionally search for a platform that makes it easy to combine options like real-time backups, computerized malware scans, exercise logs, internet software firewalls (WAFs), and different comparable instruments. These work collectively to supply a complete safety answer in your complete B2B ecommerce retailer.
Jetpack Safety is a superb instance of this. In a single plan constructed particularly for WordPress websites, you may arrange:
- Spam safety
- Actual-time, off-site backups
- Automated malware scanning and one-click fixes
- An exercise log that exhibits all actions taken in your web site
- Brute pressure assault safety
- A robust web site firewall
- Downtime monitoring
- Two-factor authentication
Past incorporating a lot of these instruments, WooCommerce allows you to decide on your individual safe internet hosting supplier, which ought to ideally supply important options like SSL certificates, server-level backups, buyer help, and extra.
Customer support and advertising and marketing
Advertising and marketing instruments, after all, assist you to attain new prospects and encourage extra gross sales from present ones. Good customer support helps you retain patrons round and drive them to unfold the phrase about your organization. They’re each key to a profitable B2B ecommerce retailer.
The B2B ecommerce platform that you simply work with ought to make your entire customer support and advertising and marketing methods attainable, whether or not which means integrating seamlessly with instruments you already use or making it simple so as to add monitoring codes.
Listed below are some advertising and marketing and customer support capabilities included with WooCommerce:
Integration with CRMs
Hook up with the CRM of your selecting with extensions for Jetpack CRM, HubSpot, Salesforce, and extra.
Integration with help boards and ticketing techniques
Add reside chat to your web site, create a help discussion board, or combine with instruments like Freshdesk and HelpScout.
Shopper portal potentialities
Construct a shopper portal that permits prospects to entry sources and documentation, talk together with your service workforce, edit their purchases, and extra.
Content material creation capabilities
Commonly create lovely, efficient weblog posts, touchdown pages, and extra to help the remainder of your advertising and marketing efforts and educate potential prospects. The Block Editor lets you do all of this with out touching a line of code.
Integration with a big selection of selling instruments
Monitor site visitors with Google Analytics, connect with social media platforms like Fb and TikTok, publish Google adverts proper out of your dashboard, ship e mail messages, observe up on deserted carts, and extra.
Simplicity for workforce members
Give every member of your workforce their very own account with permissions based mostly on their position. Accepted accounts can reply to help questions, view and course of orders, administer refunds, publish weblog posts, and extra.
Electronic mail advertising and marketing
Electronic mail is without doubt one of the strongest advertising and marketing strategies at your disposal. Ship deserted cart emails. Keep prime of thoughts with related content material and updates. Welcome new shoppers to your online business.
And, with WooCommerce, you may combine all kinds of instruments that may assist you to accomplish this, akin to MailPoet. You’ll be able to even implement buyer segmentation, to market to patrons based mostly on earlier conduct, likes and dislikes, and different traits.
Extra performance
The performance you want in your B2B eCommerce retailer is particular to your organization. So assume by any particular necessities that you’ve. Listed below are some examples of important ecommerce options that will apply to you:
- Buyer particular pricing. You could wish to supply particular pricing for sure shoppers based mostly on the settlement you could have with their firm. This can be based mostly on person position (e.g. gold tier vs. silver tier) or every particular person enterprise you’re employed with.
- Invoicing. Let prospects place orders with out cost, then ship an bill to their firm at a later time.
- Quotes. You’ll be able to conceal costs and the “add to cart” button and require consumers to request a quote as a substitute. That is nice for initiatives or orders with customized pricing.
- Deposits. Let corporations place a deposit or begin a cost plan.
- Merchandise displayed based mostly on person position. Should you promote to various kinds of shoppers, you might wish to conceal sure merchandise or classes based mostly on their person position.
- Value calculation based mostly on measurements. Add a worth calculator based mostly on elements like weight, space, size, and quantity. That is good for gear producers or customized design initiatives.
- Wholesale capabilities. Arrange a wholesale ecommerce retailer with customized person roles and pricing, registration kinds, privatization, and guidelines for delivery, tax exemption, and extra.
- Quantity reductions. Supply bulk pricing and quantity reductions to prospects based mostly on the variety of merchandise they buy or the overall of their cart.
Scalability
The B2B ecommerce platform that you simply select ought to by no means maintain you again. Be careful for ones that base charges off of gross sales, variety of prospects, or quantity of web site visits. Your platform must also load rapidly, whether or not you could have 100 guests or 100,000.
WooCommerce can scale with you to any measurement. There’s no restrict to the variety of merchandise or variations you may have (the truth is, this check web site had a million!).
It’s constructed to deal with massive volumes of orders and site visitors spikes. It’s a totally free B2B ecommerce platform, although you might wish to use paid extensions, and the pricing isn’t based mostly on elements like gross sales or prospects.
The most effective half? You’ll be able to select any internet hosting supplier that you simply’d like. That implies that, whereas you might have a shared internet hosting plan proper now, you may at all times improve to a VPS or devoted server as your site visitors will increase with out impacting your on-line retailer.
With Woo, high-volume shops qualify for distinctive advantages like devoted help and discounted extensions. Study extra about how our workforce will help your online business develop.
Ease of use and administration
Within the enterprise world, time is cash. And you may’t afford to waste time on a platform that’s laborious to make use of, tough for brand new staff to study, and that requires a developer to make even the smallest of modifications.
When you can rent a developer to handle your web site if you happen to’d like, you definitely don’t must as a way to profit from your WooCommerce retailer. As we talked about earlier, the Block Editor allows you to rearrange, add, and delete components by merely dragging and dropping.
Wish to revise your merchandise? You are able to do so by clicking buttons and enhancing fields — no code crucial!
Retailer managers can entry all the things from stock administration and web site analytics instruments to order info all in a single platform. And if you happen to use instruments like Jetpack CRM, WooCommerce Transport, and WooPayments, you may deal with label printing, funds, refunds, quotes, and extra instantly out of your dashboard as nicely.
Plus, WooCommerce presents unmatched buyer help and thorough documentation that can assist you each step of the best way.
And if you happen to do wish to rent an expert to develop, keep, or customise your retailer, try our checklist of WooExperts. They’re vetted, high-quality companies prepared to assist!
Examples of B2B ecommerce companies
Do you could have a wholesale retailer or different B2B operation and need just a little little bit of inspiration? Let’s have a look at a number of examples of shops utilizing WooCommerce to run a B2B operation.
1. Porta Professional Chem
Porta Professional Chem is a provider for the transportable restroom trade, promoting gadgets like rest room paper, sanitizer, and cleaners to companies across the nation. Their store was constructed totally with their B2B shoppers in thoughts.
Utilizing instruments just like the B2B for WooCommerce extension, they hid pricing for almost all of their merchandise, making these simply seen to logged-in prospects. New guests can simply request a quote for an merchandise in the event that they’d like, or buy a number of choose merchandise with out creating an account.
Transport charges and pricing for present prospects relies on particular person roles assigned to every one. The web site additionally has {powerful} options like a mega menu to make discovering gadgets simpler, accounts that prospects can handle on the backend, and invoicing capabilities.
2. Fuji Electrical
Fuji Electrical has been an innovator in industrial energy electronics gear for a century! They serve industries akin to energy technology, automotive, manufacturing, and medical with gadgets from blowers and pumps to semiconductors and generators.
Contemplating their large scope, their web site wanted to attraction to a wide range of audiences. They’ve an easy-to-use product finder instrument that enables consumers to pick their trade and placement to find out the way to entry particular gadgets. Additionally they incorporate options like breadcrumbs, search instruments, and nested menus to information consumers to the fitting merchandise.
Lastly, they created detailed product pages that embrace all the knowledge their company shoppers may want. They embrace pictures, detailed descriptions, specs, manuals, efficiency graphs, and hyperlinks to their customer support workforce.
3. OKdo
OKdo is a expertise firm that sells merchandise targeted on single-board computing and the Web of Issues. They provide {hardware}, software program, improvement help, and manufacturing to hobbyists, enterprise house owners, industrial designers, and resellers.
They used APIs and customized integrations to hook up with all of the instruments that they want, together with cost mechanisms, e mail service suppliers (ESPs), third-party logistics (3PL) companies, and ERP integration options. OKdo additionally has totally different variations of their web site obtainable to worldwide customers based mostly on their location.
Their product pages are chock full of knowledge like pictures, movies, wishlist instruments, specs, opinions, reference docs, and extra. Plus, they’ve a information hub with tons of useful info for every sort of buyer.
4. ISC Gross sales
ISC Gross sales is an industrial gear provide firm with greater than 17,000 merchandise listed on their B2B ecommerce retailer. To make sorting by all of these gadgets simpler, they’ve a wide range of product selectors that slim down the product class based mostly on prospects’ wants.
Additionally they make use of filters, classes and sub-categories, search instruments, and detailed product listings to assist consumers discover the fitting match for them. For some merchandise, they’ve buttons to request a quote slightly than pricing.
5. Gorilla Printing
Gorilla Printing is a large-format printing firm based mostly out of New York. They ship nationwide, and promote all the things from banners and signage to flags and automobile wraps.
Their customization course of allows companies to pick particulars like measurement and materials, and even add their information instantly on the web site. If an organization isn’t fairly positive what they’re on the lookout for, they’ll fill out a quick quote kind to get some assist.
6. OTRUSA
OTRUSA is a worldwide wholesaler and retailer of tires for industrial gear. They function an easy-to-use filtering instrument that lets consumers slim down their search by measurement, ply ranking, and model — or they’ll merely sort in what they’re on the lookout for.
Different options embrace an intricate filtering sidebar on product class pages, industrial credit score financing, reside chat capabilities, and even a membership program that features reductions.
FAQs about B2B ecommerce platforms
Nonetheless have questions? Let’s deal with a few of the most typical ones.
What’s a B2B ecommerce platform?
A enterprise to enterprise (B2B) ecommerce platform is software program that gives all of the instruments it’s worthwhile to promote to companies on-line. It goes past your fundamental on-line retailer, permitting entry to specialised performance like wholesale pricing, invoicing, quotes, bulk reductions, and extra.
Finally, high-quality software program will help the B2B enterprise mannequin, making issues as simple as attainable for the corporate utilizing it, together with their shoppers.
What’s WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that features all of the ecommerce options it’s worthwhile to promote on-line, from product listings to checkout and cart performance. It’s extraordinarily versatile, with a big library of free and premium extensions that add on to the already-powerful core performance.
WooCommerce is run by Automattic, the corporate behind WordPress.com, and is utilized by an enormous number of shops. Ecommerce retailers from small handmade artisans to massive enterprise companies benefit from its {powerful} instruments to search out success.
Is it attainable to run a B2B/B2C hybrid ecommerce retailer?
Sure, completely. This can be a enterprise mannequin that’s fairly widespread, the truth is. With a instrument like WooCommerce, you may promote the identical merchandise to each B2B and B2C prospects on the identical storefront.
For instance, the B2B for WooCommerce extension allows you to:
- Conceal merchandise and gadgets based mostly on person position. For instance, you can have some gadgets obtainable for B2C prospects, with others seen simply to the companies you’re employed with.
- Configure buyer particular pricing for various person roles. So that you might need one set of costs for normal consumers and one other, with reductions, for wholesale patrons.
- Enable B2B prospects to request a quote. You’ll be able to even customise the quote kind fields only for your online business wants.
These are just some examples. You’ll be able to customise your WooCommerce retailer to suit no matter your wants are. The important thing right here, although, is to personalize the expertise (and your advertising and marketing methods!) for each B2C and B2B prospects, so each really feel like their wants are being met.
How do I select between B2B ecommerce platforms for my enterprise?
The best ecommerce software program for your online business to enterprise firm will depend upon the particular wants you could have. We’ve offered a fairly complete checklist of issues, from pricing and performance to safety and advertising and marketing capabilities. Sit down together with your workforce, make an inventory of what you wish to accomplish together with your retailer, and be sure that the platform you select checks all of the bins.
WooCommerce and WordPress are versatile and {powerful} sufficient to satisfy the wants of practically any enterprise to enterprise operation. Not solely does it supply extensions to satisfy the wants of B2B organizations, it additionally presents wonderful help, safety options, content material creation instruments, and extra.
Is WooCommerce an enterprise-grade ecommerce platform?
WooCommerce is a superb selection for enterprise companies. It supplies all of the performance wanted to scale and is constructed for a big quantity of orders. Enterprise shops will profit from limitless flexibility, full content material possession, and free core software program no matter your gross sales quantity. Study extra about how WooCommerce scales.
You might also wish to think about WordPress VIP, a complicated answer constructed particularly for enterprise organizations. Along with the wonderful options which can be already included with WordPress and WooCommerce, you profit from complete safety, top-level internet hosting, information analytics, and content material instruments designed across the wants of enterprises.
What are the various kinds of B2B companies?
Since B2B merely stands for “enterprise to enterprise”, this will cowl a big selection of organizations. Listed below are a number of of the most typical sorts:
- Product-based: Promote bodily gadgets to different corporations. They is perhaps wholesalers, distributors, or producers.
- Service-based: Promote companies to different corporations. Suppose accounting, session, or insurance coverage suppliers.
- Software program-based: Promote software program that helps companies in some capability. This contains invoicing instruments, safety companies, and extra.
A retailer on a B2B ecommerce platform may present all or any of those choices to their prospects, and the construction of their operation could look totally different. The necessary issue is that they’re promoting to companies, although they might additionally promote to shoppers.
Construct and develop your B2B ecommerce retailer with WooCommerce
Whether or not you’re a longtime B2B firm or simply beginning out, WooCommerce presents all of the instruments and suppleness it’s worthwhile to develop. You’ll be able to create and customise with out writing or enhancing any code in any respect, or work with a developer to design an intricate promoting platform.
It harnesses the ability of WordPress to supply unmatched content material capabilities, and contains plenty of extensions that assist you to customise the net expertise in your prospects. Plus, it will probably assist enhance your advertising and marketing methods and even make your workforce extra environment friendly.
Searching for extra info? These guides will help:
Able to develop? Get began with the prime B2B ecommerce platform right now.
