What is the best B2B eCommerce Platform

Are you able to provide services that aid businesses in their growth, hiring and manage teams? Do you offer products to companies? Do you sell items wholesale?

If you're in the B2B space (or would like to become one, you could profit from a B2B eCommerce platform. It will make life easier for the clients you serve as well as your staff as well as help you expand faster and more efficiently.

We'll take a review of how an eCommerce store can help the B2B industry as well as how to select the most appropriate platform.

The reason for creating a B2B eCommerce store

Most online shops that you've come across are B2C (Business to Consumer), supplying your dog's food, your child's birthday gifts, or even your preferred specialty food items. Beware of believing that eCommerce shops are only designed for companies that sell to consumers. They can be an incredibly powerful tool to B2B companies as well.

A recent study found that 41 percent of buyers from B2B stated that self-service capabilities would improve the process of conducting business on the internet. This is a huge number! The ability of customers to manage their accounts, as well as complete other associated tasks is one of the highlights of the eCommerce capabilities.

For example, instead of calling to ask for any quote, a Sourcing Manager could send a request via the web and receive the quote immediately, no matter the timing of the day. They could also submit an order or opt to sign up for having the products you offer delivered to them on a monthly basis. Or, if you provide lawn care services for retail shops, a store proprietor could sign into their account to alter the frequency of services and also check the next day when you're due to stop by.

B2B eCommerce stores can also contribute to automation of processes. They could take the strain off customer service reps and sales team members through various self-service activities mentioned earlier. They can transfer information across multiple distribution channels and ensure accuracy and up-to-date information. Additionally, they eliminate the tedious task of manual sending invoices and quotations, then following up with each and every potential client.

Finally, an online store is your brand's face and the hub of all your marketing strategies. The store can be linked directly to products and services in your emails to customers and in advertising campaigns. You can create valuable content that guides prospects through your sales funnel. And you can evaluate the results of your efforts in order to guide the future direction of your business.

A few things to think about when selecting an B2B eCommerce platform

The eCommerce platform you choose is the base of your online storefront. Here are some things to take into consideration when selecting the right one. We'll also look into why is the best option for B2B eCommerce stores.

The types of goods you're selling

There's a vast array of possibilities to consider for B2B firms. Below are some items you may sell, and some of the examples you can use:

• Physical items. Think of equipment, printed manuals, as well as cleaning equipment.  Storage and Handling Equipment , for example, supplies eco-friendly shopping carts to retail and grocery stores.
• Digital products. Things like online classes including eBooks and eBooks available for download, as well as software licences. TipoType is one example. It offers font licenses to businesses and freelancers.
• Services. Services include graphics design, accounting and legal advice. Your Benefit Store is a service provider, selling healthcare coverage that companies can add to their plans for employees.
• Wholesale products. Selling large volumes of products to retailers, essentially acting as their supplier. Porta Pro Chem, for example, sells portable restroom products to clients around the country.
• Memberships. Access to a range of benefits and other resources including a video library, or an online forum. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, for instance, has an membership program that includes resources such as courses, invites to events and more, specifically for marketers and media companies.
• Subscriptions. Recurring products or services, such as a year-long licence, weekly cleaning service, or monthly box of coffee pods for the break room. Design Modo sells subscriptions to design software, however subscriptions could also comprise physical goods or even newsletters.

These differ greatly from one another, but there may be the possibility of overlap. You might sell both wholesale as well as retail items. It is possible to sell digital and physical books in tandem. You could also subscribe to a service that provides a weekly office cleaning, as well as a set of cleaning supplies.

It's important to note that it is possible to conduct business using a range of different ways and be sure that your chosen platform is compatible with all of them.

sells functionality on each of the items as well as services described above as well as other services! Actually, every one of the sites listed above are using . Sell one type of product or several products side-by-side. Allow anyone to purchase, or restrict capabilities to specific wholesale or retail customers.

No matter what you want to market, make it feasible.

Design Flexibility

Like your products or services are distinct, your brand is, too. And, of course, you want your website to reflect the character and distinctive characteristics of the brand.

A reliable B2B eCommerce platform will allow users the complete freedom to create and design anything you can imagine and without the need to edit code or hire a developer if you don't want to.

As it's an add-on to WordPress it is able to harness the potential that comes with using the Block Editor to build all of your posts and pages. The Block Editor enables you to drag and drop components -including headings, paragraphs pictures, videos and columns -- to create your very own layout. You can then toggle settings to change the colors, font styles and other aspects of the design to make the page individual to your.

Ownership of Content

In the world of online business, ensuring that you own your website's content is vitally important. Your website is a source of income -- you can't risk that it will disappear. It's true that many of the proprietary eCommerce platforms will remove your website without notice if they find that you've violated their terms and regulations. That means loss of revenue along with time and work!

But WordPress is a software instruments to assist you in achieving your objectives. Your website can be hosted anywhere you'd like it to be and you are in complete control and control over the site. There's no need to be concerned about deleting your website. Since it's simplythe site is you own it..

Payment gateway integration

Payment gateways enable you to collect money from customers as well as clients in a secure manner, and then transfer that money into your bank account. The pros and cons of the various tools, as well as specific functionality you'll need for your specific company. In particular, you could have to take recurring payments, accept multiple currencies, integrate with express pay tools such as Apple Pay, or offer finance options.

It is important to ensure that the eCommerce platform you choose works with the one you'd like to use -- especially in the event that your company already has some sort of payment processing or invoices.

Integrates with a range of payment gateways, including:

Shipping

If you offer physical items and shipping will be to be a major aspect when choosing an eCommerce platform. Shipping can be complicated so you need a tool that allows you to set up fees the way you prefer, and is compatible with the shipping providers you work with. This is especially important if you are able to ship large quantities of goods at one time, or have special requirements like refrigeration.

User experience

User experience is important in any organization, due to various reasons. If a prospective client or customer visits your site and it's difficult to use, they'll most likely abandon your site and go at a competitor. In addition, search engines look at the experience of users when ranking.

Your job, for now is to identify an application that can make creating an excellent user experience possible. Below are some things to think about:

• Content management. Look for an online platform for eCommerce that helps you structure your menus by categorizing posts and items, and add features like breadcrumbs for navigation. Since WordPress was created as a blogging platform at the very beginning the tools for content can't be beaten.
• Mobile-friendly design. Your site must look stunning across devices of every size such as tablets, desktops and even mobile phones. WordPress is responsive by default, and there are lots of great themes that are mobile-friendly to choose from.

Marketing and customer service

Marketing of course assists you in reaching new customers and increase sales from your existing customers. A good customer experience can help you keep buyers around and drive them to tell their friends about your brand. These two aspects are crucial to having a successful B2B eCommerce store.

The software you're working with will make your marketing and customer service strategies work, no matter if that involves integrating with the applications you're already using or making it easier to include tracking codes.

Here are some of the marketing and customer-service capabilities that come with :

• Connectivity to CRMs. Connect to the CRM of your choice with the help of extensions to Jetpack CRM HubSpot, Salesforce, and many more.
• Integration with support forums and ticketing systems. Add live chat to your site, create a support forum and integrate it using tools like Freshdesk and HelpScout
• Content creation capabilities. Make frequent beautiful, powerful blogs as well as landing pages and more to support the rest of your marketing activities and to educate potential customers.
• Integration with a broad variety of tools for marketing. Monitor traffic with Google Analytics, connect to platforms for social media like Facebook and TikTok as well as publish Google advertisements directly from your dashboard, and send emails messages, track abandoned carts and much more.
• Simplicity for team members. Each member of your group a personal account, with access to the account based on the role they play. Accounts that are approved can answer queries from support, review and process orders, administer refunds, write blog posts along with other.

Extra functionality

The features you require on the B2B eCommerce site is particular to your organization. Consider any specific requirements that you have. Here are some examples:

Scalability

The B2B eCommerce platform you select is one that should not hinder your progress. Beware of platforms that base fees off of the number of sales, customers, or volume of website visits. Your platform should also load quickly, whether there are 100 users at once or 100,000.

can scale with you up to any size. There's no limit on the number of products or variations you can have (in fact, this test site had one million!). It's built to handle large quantities of orders as well as traffic increases. It's completely free, though you may want to pay for extensions as the price isn't based on factors like sales or customers.

The best part? You can choose the hosting service you'd like. That means that, while you may have a shared hosting plan right in the moment, you could upgrade to a VPS or dedicated server when the traffic grows without affecting the online shop you have.

Ease of use and management

In the business world, time is money. And you can't afford to spend time with a system that isn't user-friendly or difficult for new staff members to learn, and that demands a developer to implement any changes at all.

If you're able to employ a web developer to handle your website if you'd prefer however, you do not have to do so in order to get the most of your store. Like we said earlier, the Block Editor enables you to arrange, change, or eliminate elements with a simple drag and dropping. Want to revise your products? This can be done simply by clicking on buttons and making changes to fields -- no code necessary!

Store managers have access to everything from inventory figures and the site's analytics to information about orders all in one place. When you're using software such as Jetpack CRM, Shipping and Payments, you can print labels, paypal, refunds, quotes, and more directly through your dashboard, too.

And if you do want to engage a professional to develop, maintain, or customize your store look through our directory of WooExperts. They're vetted, high-quality agencies willing to assist!

Create and expand your eCommerce B2B store using

If it's an existing B2B firm or new to the market, this platform provides all of the tools and flexibility needed to expand. In addition, it could enhance the user experience for customers and can improve the efficiency of your staff.

Are you ready to expand? Get started with the top B2B eCommerce platform today.