The rise of eCommerce has been phenomenal in the past few decades. However, it would be wrong of us to assume the future of online shopping lies in the B2C industry alone.
According to Forrester, B2B eCommerce sales will reach 1.8$ trillion in the US by 2023. B2B eCommerce is one step behind to knock out the B2C eCommerce market.
Unfortunately, many B2B sellers are still skeptical about investing in strategic online channels. If there’s one thing one should learn from the B2C industry, it’s how important it is to choose the right platform to power your wholesale online business.
Generally the stakes are pretty high in the B2B industry and to succeed, you need careful planning.
The planning phase is very crucial because to run a fully-functional online business, you need a dedicated platform that is optimised to fulfill the industry requirements.
With the myriad of B2B eCommerce platforms available, it becomes challenging for sellers to choose the right platform. While business models vary in terms of management and operations, the ultimate goal is to invest in a platform that’s a right fit for your online business.
In this comprehensive article, we will provide you with 6 crucial factors that you need to take into account before choosing a B2B platform.
A piece of advice – all of these factors play a significant role, however you will still fall short if you don’t analyze your business requirements.
This checklist aims to show B2B sellers the role eCommerce plays in creating a user-friendly online experience and how you should evaluate which platform is right for your business.
So let’s get started.
Choosing the right B2B eCommerce platform
There are plenty of platforms to choose from to run your B2B online store. Each platform has its own set of pros and cons. As you start comparing different platforms, here are some crucial areas you should consider:
Functionality
B2B online selling brings its own set of unique challenges different from B2C. Practically B2B sellers have to deal with longer sales cycles, large order quantities, budget availability, purchase approval, recurring orders, and much more.
The platform you choose must be able to cater all these basic yet complex needs that B2B merchants deal with regularly.
Responsive Design
B2B buyers especially shop across different devices including tablets and smartphones. Your store content should render perfectly across multiple devices sizes to make it easier for buyers to search products/services, check prices, and make purchases.
Self Service
B2B buyers prefer to first conduct research and solve problems themselves before contacting a sales representative. Your eCommerce store experience should give your buyers the ability to do that. Buyers should get full access to all important information including quote approval, order tracking, shipment details and other necessary features that can give them a hand to manage their account easily themselves.
Customer Specific Pricing
One of the unique B2B features is being able to provide customer-specific product catalog and pricing. Unlike B2C, your products/services prices can vary customer to customer. Your chosen platform must give you the ability to set specific prices for each of your buyers.
Payment Options
When compared with B2C customers, B2B buyers purchase products differently. Typically B2B buyers place bulk orders and on a recurring basis. Your eCommerce platforms must offer flexible and multiple payment options to cater the needs of each customer.
Product Catalog Management
One of the biggest challenges for B2B sellers is product catalog management. Product content can easily get disorganized and out of hands when you’re dealing with dozens of product catalogs in multiple formats from your suppliers simultaneously
It’s pretty daunting to organize plenty of data and prepare it for product listings on your store. Be sure to determine how your chosen platform will manage complex product catalog needs.
Types of B2B eCommerce platforms
When evaluating B2B eCommerce solutions, you’ll come across various technical terms such as cloud-based or SAAS , open source. It’s important to understand the difference between these platforms as it affects your store’s functionality, total ownership cost, and how you interact with your chosen platform’s technology.
Open Source vs SaaS eCommerce platforms
Open source eCommerce platforms are licensed to users and allow them to view, alter, and distribute its source code. In this way, an open source platform is developed in a collaborative and public way. It allows users to do heavy customizations.
Some note-worthy B2B open source eCommerce platforms are B2BWoo, Magento, and OroCommerce. OroCommerce is developed by the same company who founded Magento. B2BWoo is an eCommerce platform that is specifically designed for distributors, manufacturers, and wholesalers.
SaaS also known as Software-as-a Service is a licensed software which can be accessed by users via the Internet. SaaS software is also referred to as a hosted or web-based software because it’s the only solution that is not only hosted but also maintained by a third-party. It offers multiple functionalities and tools to users for their eCommerce store and charges a monthly subscription fee for the service.
Well-known SaaS-based eCommerce platforms are Woocommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Zoey Commerce, EvolutionX, Shopify Plus, Elastic Path, and Core DNA.
Bear in mind, each platform’s infrastructure will affect your eCommerce solution in these crucial areas:
Out-of-the-box Functionality
Since SaaS eCommerce platforms are hosted and managed by third-party, they mostly offer out-of-the-box functionality. We believe this is a better option, if you’re stepping in the eCommerce industry for the first time particularly when you don’t have your own team of developers. You can utilize ready-to-use themes and you don’t need to build it from scratch.
On the contrary, you can also get limited functionality. At times, these platforms fall short for B2B sellers who need customized or complex functionality to meet their B2B needs.
Customization
Choosing an open source platform is a much better idea because it gives full access to alter the platform’s code. This gives your agency or in-house developers unlimited creative freedom when building and designing your B2B store.
However, if you’re planning to kickstart your business right away, choosing an open source platform is not a right decision because the implementation turn around time is 4 – 8 months before you start running. Endless creative freedom means you can build your site from scratch plus you’ll have to make several important decisions before launching your store.
Maintenance
With SaaS-based or hosted platforms, that solution provider will take care of all technical aspects of the platform you are on. Instead of sending update alerts, they automatically make upgrades or updates. If anything goes wrong, it’s solely their responsibility to fix it. The subscription fees you pay covers access and maintenance charges.
On the flip side, if you’re on an open source platform you get complete ownership over your platform. This also includes looking after the technical aspects of your platform including maintenance and procuring. It’s your job to monitor and maintain your software. If something crashes you have to fix it yourself.
Deciding on which software is better for you depends upon the level of control you want vs the additional responsibilities that fall in your bucket.
PCI Compliance and Security
Webstore security and PCI compliance is must for every eCommerce seller. It signifies that you’re safeguarding your customers’ personal information including credit card details. Depending on your software, this may be included in your responsibilitie’s list.
Most of the cloud-based platforms include PCI compliance and overall security since securing the sensitive data on servers is their responsibility. For an open source platform, a B2B seller is responsible to secure the customers’ sensitive data from malware practitioners. They need to ensure all requirements of PCI compliance are met.
Don’t forget to ask your service provider how their PCI compliance works.
Costs
The cost you incur for each platform is different. If you’re going to be using an open source platform like B2BWoo, you’ll have to consider the costs of security, hosting, customization, development, design, among other things. The cost will vary depending upon the nature for your store.
On a fully-hosted SaaS platform, you don’t have to worry about the things I have mentioned above. The only thing you’ll have to consider is the upfront payment you’ll be paying the provider.
Again, if your store is sophisticated, you’ll need some external design and development work performed by an agency, which will be a monetary investment.
An understanding of costs can prove vital in the long run.
Conclusion
Taking your brick and mortar business to an online marketplace is a pretty daunting task. There are plenty of things you’ll have to consider, and with a myriad of eCommerce solutions out there, the selection process becomes more complicated.
Take our advice into consideration and evaluate those crucial areas in each platform we have discussed above. If any of the platforms meets your budget and criteria, then you’re ready to launch.
