Do you supply providers that assist companies develop, rent, or handle their groups? Do you provide merchandise particularly to corporations? Do you promote objects wholesale? When you’re within the B2B area — or if you wish to be — you could very nicely profit from a B2B ecommerce platform. It could possibly simplify processes on your shoppers and your crew, and enable you develop sooner and extra effectively.
Let’s take a better have a look at how a web-based storefront may help your B2B enterprise development, and the way to decide on the fitting ecommerce platform.
Why create a B2B ecommerce retailer
The vast majority of on-line shops you’re aware of 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} software for B2B corporations as nicely.
In a current survey, 41% of B2B shoppers acknowledged that self-service capabilities would enhance the method of doing enterprise on-line. That’s an enormous quantity! And offering the power for shoppers to handle their accounts and carry out different associated duties is a spotlight of ecommerce performance.
For instance, as an alternative of calling to ask for a quote, a sourcing supervisor might submit a request on-line and discover out this data instantly, irrespective of the time of day. They may additionally submit an order, and even signal as much as have your merchandise delivered routinely on a month-to-month foundation.
Or, in case you present garden care providers for corporations, a enterprise proprietor might log into their account to regulate the frequency of their providers, or see the subsequent time you’re scheduled to cease by.
B2B ecommerce companies additionally go a great distance in direction of automating processes. They will take the load off of customer support representatives and enhance gross sales crew members’ efforts via a number of the self-service duties we simply mentioned.
They will sync data between numerous distribution channels, guaranteeing that all the pieces’s up-to-date and correct. They usually can take away the painful steps concerned in manually sending invoices and quotes, then following up with every potential shopper.
Lastly, a web-based retailer acts because the face of your organization and the hub of all of your advertising methods. You may hyperlink on to services and products in your advertising emails and promoting campaigns to spice up on-line transactions.
You may create worthwhile content material that guides prospects via your gross sales funnel. And you’ll monitor the success of your efforts to steer future selections.
Issues for selecting a B2B ecommerce platform
The ecommerce platform you select is basically the muse of your on-line storefront. Let’s dive into some components to think about when selecting one, and look at why WooCommerce is the highest answer for B2B on-line shops.
Kinds of merchandise you’re promoting
There are an enormous number of potentialities for B2B corporations. Listed here are just a few objects you could promote, together with some examples:
Bodily merchandise
Assume gear, printed coaching books, and cleansing provides. Storage and Handling Equipment, for instance, provides eco-friendly purchasing carts to retail and grocery shops.
Digital merchandise
Gadgets like on-line programs, downloadable eBooks, and software program licenses. TipoType, as an illustration, presents font licenses to companies and freelancers.
Companies
Choices akin to graphic design, accounting, and authorized assist. Your Benefit Store is a service supplier, promoting healthcare protection that corporations can embody as a part of their staff’ compensation packages.
Wholesale objects
Promoting massive volumes of merchandise to retailers, basically performing as their provider. Porta Pro Chem, for instance, sells transportable restroom merchandise to shoppers across the nation.
Memberships
Entry to a group of advantages and sources, akin to a coaching video library or on-line discussion board. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, as an illustration, has a membership program with sources, programs, occasion invitations and extra, particularly for media and advertising 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 can even contain bodily merchandise or even newsletters.
As you possibly can see, these all range broadly from each other, however there may also be overlap. You would possibly promote each retail and wholesale merchandise. You possibly can promote each bodily and digital books facet by facet. Or you will have a subscription that features a weekly workplace cleansing, and a field of provides.
The purpose right here is, you could need to do enterprise in quite a lot of methods on the identical platform — be sure the platform you select helps all of them.
WooCommerce gives promoting performance for the entire services and products listed above, and extra! In truth, the entire instance websites talked about are utilizing WooCommerce. Promote one kind of product or a number of facet by facet. Permit anybody to buy, or limit capabilities to particular shoppers or wholesale prospects.
It doesn’t matter what you need to promote or the way you promote it, WooCommerce makes it potential.
Design flexibility
Simply as your services and products are distinctive, your model is, too. And, after all, you need your web site to replicate the persona and traits of that model.
Good B2B ecommerce platforms will permit you full and whole flexibility to design and construct something you possibly can think about — with out having to edit code or rent a developer in case you don’t need to.
Since WooCommerce is an extension of WordPress, you possibly can harness the facility of the Block Editor to construct your whole pages and posts. The Block Editor allows you to drag and drop parts — like paragraphs, headings, photographs, movies, and columns — to create your individual customized format.
You may then toggle settings to customise colours, font kinds, and different design traits to make the web page your individual.
You too can use blocks to construct and design world website parts, from headers and footers to product web page templates. For instance, you would possibly add associated merchandise, movies, or specs to your product pages. Or maybe you need to add filters to your class web page sidebar. All of that is potential with out working with code or hiring a developer.
There are additionally a number of free and premium themes you possibly can select from as beginning factors on your website design. Some are like clean slates, offering simply the fundamentals you can really 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 totally vital. Your web site is a income — you possibly can’t threat the opportunity of it disappearing.
You see, many proprietary B2B ecommerce platforms can take your website down with no warning in the event that they determine that you simply’ve violated their phrases and situations. Meaning lack of income, time, and arduous work!
However whenever 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 website. As a result of it’s simply that — yours.
Fee gateway integration
Fee 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 software, and sure performance you’ll want on your particular enterprise.
For instance, you could 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 need to ensure that the ecommerce platform you select works with the one you need to use — particularly if your corporation already makes use of one thing for cost assortment and invoicing.
WooCommerce integrates with a wide selection of cost options, together with:
You too can use a fully-integrated cost gateway from WooCommerce, known 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 gives world-class performance, like categorical pay choices, recurring cost assortment, and multi-currency assist.
See a full list of gateways and be taught extra about choosing a payment gateway for your corporation.
Delivery
When you promote bodily merchandise, then transport goes to be an necessary issue on the subject of selecting an ecommerce platform. Delivery may be sophisticated, so that you want a software that means that you can arrange charges the best way you need, and that integrates with any transport carriers you’re employed with.
That is very true in case you ship massive volumes of merchandise directly, or have particular necessities like refrigeration.
With WooCommerce, you’ve numerous completely different choices. Combine with conventional carriers like USPS, FedEx, and UPS, or specialty suppliers like Purolator and Aramex. Cost flat charge transport charges, supply free transport, or cost primarily based on quite a lot of components like weight and cart whole.
You may even arrange sophisticated guidelines with the Table Rate Shipping extension. Handle all the pieces out of your WordPress dashboard with WooCommerce Shipping or connect with third-party instruments like ShipStation.
Learn extra in our ecommerce shipping guide.
Integration with different software program
There are a wide selection of instruments that you could be already use to run your corporation, or know that you simply need to implement sooner or later. A few of these could also be advertising and customer support associated — assume email marketing platforms or CRM instruments to arrange buyer information — however we’ll contact on these a bit later.
Others might embody 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 is best to take the time to confirm that the platform you select works seamlessly with the entire different sorts of software program which might be vital to your corporation.
WooCommerce, for instance, presents high-quality extensions that make all these integrations seamless and quick. And if, for some purpose, one doesn’t exist already for the software that you simply want, you possibly can make the most of the REST API and rent a developer to create one for you.
Consumer expertise
Consumer expertise is necessary for any enterprise, for quite a lot of causes. First, if a possible buyer or shopper visits your website and it’s troublesome to make use of, they’ll most definitely quit and store with a competitor as an alternative. Second, engines like google contemplate person expertise when figuring out rankings. Your job, for now, is to discover a platform that makes creating a superb person expertise potential. Listed here are some components to consider:
Web site velocity
Keep away from gradual load instances that may drive potential shoppers away! Your platform must be as light-weight as potential by default, and supply the power so that you can optimize for velocity. Get top speed tips.
A streamlined checkout expertise
The checkout course of must be as easy-to-use and easy as potential to stop deserted carts. WooCommerce gives instruments for one-page checkout, categorical cost choices, on-site funds, and extra to assist with this.
Simple-to-use search instruments
Assist guests discover precisely what they’re in search of with an intuitive search bar. WordPress has nice built-in search performance, however you too can use instruments like Jetpack Search, that gives a buyer pleasant interface with advantages that embody 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 update their accounts and orders with out an enormous trouble. Ideally, they need to have the ability to make easy modifications without having the assistance of your customer support crew. Assume altering subscription frequency, requesting a refund, updating cost data, and modifying 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 website 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 possibly can select from.
Safety
Safety is necessary for any ecommerce web site, however arguably much more so for those who have a enterprise to enterprise operation. Not solely do you need to keep away from placing your shoppers’ data in danger, you additionally need to shield your arduous 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 protected.
To start, select ecommerce software program that’s constructed on a basis of safety. WordPress and WooCommerce, for instance, prioritize security and, with a few simple steps in your finish, your web site and buyer data 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, net software firewalls (WAFs), and different related instruments. These work collectively to offer a complete safety answer on your whole B2B ecommerce retailer.
Jetpack Security is a wonderful instance of this. In a single plan constructed particularly for WordPress websites, you possibly can arrange:
- Spam safety
- Actual-time, off-site backups
- Computerized malware scanning and one-click fixes
- An exercise log that exhibits all actions taken in your website
- Brute power assault safety
- A strong web site firewall
- Downtime monitoring
- Two-factor authentication
Past incorporating all 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 assist, and extra.
Customer support and advertising
Advertising instruments, after all, enable you attain new prospects and encourage extra gross sales from present ones. Good customer support helps you retain consumers 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 whole customer support and advertising methods potential, whether or not meaning integrating seamlessly with instruments you already use or making it straightforward so as to add monitoring codes.
Listed here are some advertising and customer support capabilities included with WooCommerce:
Integration with CRMs
Connect with the CRM of your selecting with extensions for Jetpack CRM, HubSpot, Salesforce, and extra.
Integration with assist boards and ticketing techniques
Add reside chat to your website, create a assist discussion board, or combine with instruments like Freshdesk and HelpScout.
Shopper portal potentialities
Build a client portal that permits prospects to entry sources and documentation, talk together with your service crew, edit their purchases, and extra.
Content material creation capabilities
Usually create lovely, efficient weblog posts, touchdown pages, and extra to assist the remainder of your advertising efforts and educate potential prospects. The Block Editor means that you can do all of this with out touching a line of code.
Integration with a wide selection of selling instruments
Monitor site visitors with Google Analytics, connect with social media platforms like Fb and TikTok, publish Google advertisements proper out of your dashboard, ship e-mail messages, observe up on deserted carts, and extra.
Simplicity for crew members
Give every member of your crew their very own account with permissions primarily based on their function. Accredited accounts can reply to assist questions, view and course of orders, administer refunds, publish weblog posts, and extra.
E-mail advertising
E-mail is likely one of the strongest advertising strategies at your disposal. Ship deserted cart emails. Keep prime of thoughts with related content material and updates. Welcome new shoppers to your corporation.
And, with WooCommerce, you possibly can combine all kinds of instruments that may enable you accomplish this, akin to MailPoet. You may even implement buyer segmentation, to market to consumers primarily based 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 via any particular necessities that you’ve. Listed here are some examples of important ecommerce options that will apply to you:
- Customer specific pricing. You could need to supply particular pricing for sure shoppers primarily based on the settlement you’ve with their firm. This can be primarily based on person function (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 may cover costs and the “add to cart” button and require customers to request a quote as an alternative. That is nice for tasks or orders with customized pricing.
- Deposits. Let corporations place a deposit or begin a cost plan.
- Products displayed based on user role. When you promote to several types of shoppers, you could need to cover sure merchandise or classes primarily based on their person function.
- Price calculation based on measurements. Add a value calculator primarily based on components like weight, space, size, and quantity. That is excellent for gear producers or customized design tasks.
- Wholesale capabilities. Arrange a wholesale ecommerce retailer with customized person roles and pricing, registration varieties, privatization, and guidelines for transport, tax exemption, and extra.
- Volume discounts. Provide bulk pricing and quantity reductions to prospects primarily based on the variety of merchandise they buy or the entire 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 website visits. Your platform must also load rapidly, whether or not you’ve 100 guests or 100,000.
WooCommerce can scale with you to any dimension. There’s no restrict to the variety of merchandise or variations you possibly can have (in actual fact, this test site had a million!).
It’s constructed to deal with massive volumes of orders and site visitors spikes. It’s a very free B2B ecommerce platform, although you could need to use paid extensions, and the pricing isn’t primarily based on components like gross sales or prospects.
The most effective half? You may select any internet hosting supplier that you simply’d like. That implies that, whereas you will have a shared internet hosting plan proper now, you possibly can 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 assist and discounted extensions. Learn more about how our team can help your business grow.
Ease of use and administration
Within the enterprise world, time is cash. And you’ll’t afford to waste time on a platform that’s arduous to make use of, troublesome for brand new staff to be taught, and that requires a developer to make even the smallest of modifications.
When you can rent a developer to handle your website in case you’d like, you definitely don’t need to as a way to benefit from your WooCommerce retailer. As we talked about earlier, the Block Editor allows you to rearrange, add, and delete parts by merely dragging and dropping.
Wish to revise your merchandise? You are able to do so by clicking buttons and modifying fields — no code obligatory!
Retailer managers can entry all the pieces from stock administration and website analytics instruments to order data all in a single platform. And in case you use instruments like Jetpack CRM, WooCommerce Delivery, and WooPayments, you possibly can deal with label printing, funds, refunds, quotes, and extra immediately out of your dashboard as nicely.
Plus, WooCommerce presents unrivaled customer support and thorough documentation that can assist you each step of the best way.
And in case you do need to rent an expert to develop, preserve, or customise your retailer, try our record of WooExperts. They’re vetted, high-quality businesses prepared to assist!
Examples of B2B ecommerce companies
Do you’ve a wholesale retailer or different B2B operation and need just a little little bit of inspiration? Let’s have a look at just a few examples of shops utilizing WooCommerce to run a B2B operation.
1. Porta Pro Chem
Porta Professional Chem is a provider for the transportable restroom trade, promoting objects like bathroom paper, sanitizer, and cleaners to companies across the nation. Their store was constructed fully 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 just a few choose merchandise with out creating an account.
Delivery charges and pricing for present prospects is predicated on particular person roles assigned to every one. The web site additionally has {powerful} options like a mega menu to make discovering objects simpler, accounts that prospects can handle on the backend, and invoicing capabilities.
2. Fuji Electric
Fuji Electrical has been an innovator in industrial energy electronics gear for a century! They serve industries akin to energy era, automotive, manufacturing, and medical with objects from blowers and pumps to semiconductors and generators.
Contemplating their large scope, their web site wanted to attraction to quite a lot of audiences. They’ve an easy-to-use product finder software that enables customers to pick their trade and site to find out the right way to entry particular objects. Additionally they incorporate options like breadcrumbs, search instruments, and nested menus to information customers to the fitting merchandise.
Lastly, they created detailed product pages that embody all the data their company shoppers would possibly want. They embody images, detailed descriptions, specs, manuals, efficiency graphs, and hyperlinks to their customer support crew.
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, growth assist, and manufacturing to hobbyists, enterprise homeowners, industrial designers, and resellers.
They used APIs and customized integrations to connect with all of the instruments that they want, together with cost mechanisms, e-mail service suppliers (ESPs), third-party logistics (3PL) providers, and ERP integration options. OKdo additionally has completely different variations of their website out there to worldwide customers primarily based on their location.
Their product pages are chock full of data like images, movies, wishlist instruments, specs, opinions, reference docs, and extra. Plus, they’ve a information hub with tons of useful data for every kind of buyer.
4. ISC 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 via all of these objects simpler, they’ve quite a lot of product selectors that slender down the product class primarily based on prospects’ wants.
Additionally they make use of filters, classes and sub-categories, search instruments, and detailed product listings to assist customers discover the fitting match for them. For some merchandise, they’ve buttons to request a quote moderately than pricing.
5. Gorilla Printing
Gorilla Printing is a large-format printing firm primarily based out of New York. They ship nationwide, and promote all the pieces from banners and signage to flags and automobile wraps.
Their customization course of allows companies to pick particulars like dimension and materials, and even add their recordsdata immediately on the web site. If an organization isn’t fairly certain what they’re in search of, they’ll fill out a quick quote kind to get some assist.
6. OTRUSA
OTRUSA is a world wholesaler and retailer of tires for industrial gear. They function an easy-to-use filtering software that lets customers slender down their search by dimension, ply score, and model — or they’ll merely kind in what they’re in search of.
Different options embody 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 number 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 essential 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 assist the B2B enterprise mannequin, making issues as straightforward as potential 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 essential 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 outlets from small handmade artisans to massive enterprise companies make the most of its {powerful} instruments to seek out success.
Is it potential to run a B2B/B2C hybrid ecommerce retailer?
Sure, completely. This can be a enterprise mannequin that’s fairly frequent, in actual fact. With a software like WooCommerce, you possibly can promote the identical merchandise to each B2B and B2C prospects on the identical storefront.
For instance, the B2B for WooCommerce extension allows you to:
- Disguise merchandise and objects primarily based on person function. For instance, you might have some objects out there 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 may need one set of costs for traditional customers and one other, with reductions, for wholesale consumers.
- Permit B2B prospects to request a quote. You may even customise the quote kind fields only for your corporation wants.
These are just some examples. You may 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 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 proper ecommerce software program for your corporation to enterprise firm will rely upon the precise wants you’ve. We’ve offered a reasonably complete record of concerns, from pricing and performance to safety and advertising capabilities. Sit down together with your crew, make an inventory of what you need to accomplish together with your retailer, and ensure that the platform you select checks all of the containers.
WooCommerce and WordPress are versatile and {powerful} sufficient to fulfill the wants of practically any enterprise to enterprise operation. Not solely does it supply extensions to fulfill the wants of B2B organizations, it additionally presents glorious assist, safety options, content material creation instruments, and extra.
Is WooCommerce an enterprise-grade ecommerce platform?
WooCommerce is a wonderful alternative for enterprise businesses. It gives 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 need to contemplate WordPress VIP, a complicated answer constructed particularly for enterprise organizations. Along with the wonderful options which might 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 several types of B2B companies?
Since B2B merely stands for “enterprise to enterprise”, this may cowl a wide selection of organizations. Listed here are just a few of the most typical varieties:
- Product-based: Promote bodily objects to different corporations. They is likely to be wholesalers, distributors, or producers.
- Service-based: Promote providers to different corporations. Assume accounting, session, or insurance coverage suppliers.
- Software program-based: Promote software program that helps companies in some capability. This contains invoicing instruments, safety providers, and extra.
A retailer on a B2B ecommerce platform would possibly present all or any of those choices to their prospects, and the construction of their operation might look completely different. The necessary issue is that they’re promoting to companies, although they could 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 adaptability it’s essential to develop. You may create and customise with out writing or modifying any code in any respect, or work with a developer to design an intricate promoting platform.
It harnesses the facility of WordPress to offer unmatched content material capabilities, and contains a number of extensions that enable you customise the net expertise on your prospects. Plus, it will possibly assist enhance your advertising methods and even make your crew extra environment friendly.
In search of extra data? These guides may help:
Able to develop? Get began with the top B2B ecommerce platform as we speak.
