Welcome to our B2B webshop page guide. In this guide, we bundle more than 10 years of experience in implementing and optimising b2b webshops. We take you through what is important if you want to start a B2B webshop but also how to further improve and grow a business webshop. We hope this knowledge will help wholesalers and manufacturers to offer an even better online service.
Why a B2B webshop?
The business market is changing and growing rapidly. According to research by Statista, the global B2B e-commerce market is $20.4 trillion which is five times the size of the B2C e-commerce market. As the new generation of buyers is renewed and used to ordering online, it is expected by this group that the same is true for business products. For instance, research shows that
- More than 90% of B2B buyers start their product search online.
For many wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors, it is therefore imperative to digitise in order to remain competitive and grow further. This trend has only intensified over the past year with the outbreak of the corona virus making online ordering more the rule than the exception in the business market as well.
What are the advantages of a B2B webshop?
We usually divide the benefits of a B2B webshop into 3 main advantages namely
- Increasing turnover
A business webshop can help increase sales. This can be achieved in many ways, for example by:- Making your products visible online will attract more customers and thus increase the visibility of your brand.
- Explore new markets by offering your products in different countries and languages.
- Making good use of the data in your webshop, you can help the customer even better and thus increase the average order value.
- Reducing costs of order processing
By deploying a business webshop, you ensure that as many order processing processes as possible are automated. This, in turn, reduces the likelihood of errors and the time spent manually entering and checking orders. - Better service to customers
A B2B webshop contributes to better service to customers as customers can place an order 24/7 and view up-to-date stock information directly in their account themselves.
Differences between a B2C and B2B webshop
Although a good B2B webshop and B2C webshop have many similarities, there are also some very clear differences that make setting up a b2b webshop different from a consumer webshop. Here are some of the most important differences:
The reason why the customer buys: a consumer's motivation is often very different from that of a business buyer. Whereas the consumer enjoys "shopping" and the purchase is more often an impulse, for the business buyer it is his or her job and you therefore need to help the business buyer to do his or her job as quickly and easily as possible. This means that the structure and layout of a business webshop is often different from a B2C webshop.
Repeat purchases: In the business market, repeat purchases are much more common than in a b2b shop, so it is important that your b2b e-commerce platform supports this and makes it very easy for the customer.
Complex pricing structures: the pricing structures in business webshops are often much more complex than in a consumer webshop. With most wholesalers and manufacturers, you have to deal with graduated prices and price lists per customer group or customer.
Ring-fenced prices and prices excluding VAT: whereas with consumer webshops you see prices including VAT, the rule for most business webshops is that prices are displayed excluding VAT. You also have to deal with VAT numbers that have to be validated if companies outside the Netherlands order to offer a o% VAT rate.
Payment Terms and Credit Limits: where consumers pay for their products directly via Ideal or a post-payment method such as Afterpay, it is quite common in the B2B market to work with payment conditions and credit limits. Business customers therefore expect these payment conditions and limits to be supported online.
What determines the success of B2B e-commerce?
Whether a B2B webshop is successfully used as a sales channel for a wholesaler or manufacturer depends on several factors. We see that wholesalers and manufacturers who get the most results from their B2B e-commerce strategy often have the following factors well set up.
Customer
When implementing or improving the b2b webshop, the customer is at the centre. Adjustments and changes are made based on customer feedback and customer behaviour data.
Strategy/Plan
The B2B e-commerce strategy sets out the vision of how e-commerce is going to help serve customers even better. This is worked out in concrete objectives and KPIs that in turn can be managed.
People
Who in the organisation will realise the objectives and is there enough knowledge about e-commerce to actually do this.
E-commerce software
Which b2b e-commerce software is in place to meet the objectives and does the software meet the needs and requirements of the organisation and is it flexible enough to grow with them.
Product information
Product information is one of the most important parts that should be properly reflected on a business webshop. Is all the product information present that the customer wants to see and can it be updated in an easy way.
User experience
Does the user experience online match how customers are served on the other offline channels.
Data
In successful business webshops, data is continuously used to improve the existing webshop and give customers an even better user experience.
Operation
How is the e-commerce process set up in the organisation. In successful webshops, we see that most processes are automated and there are relatively few manual activities.
How do you determine the business case for a B2B webshop?
Before starting the implementation of a new business webshop or the replacement of an existing b2b shop, it is good to look at the business case of the project. The business case looks at how total cost of investment of the b2b e-commerce software compares with what the b2b website will eventually deliver.
When looking at the investment, it is good to have at least the following things in mind when making the e-commerce business case:
- Implementation costs of the B2B webshop
- Any licensing costs of the B2B e-commerce platform
- Hosting and maintenance costs
- Cost of implementing changes and adaptations to the system
- The cost of internal training for the internal e-commerce team
When mapping out what the implementation of a new e-commerce system delivers, the following can be included:
- Additional sales increase by attracting new customers
- Increasing average order value per customer by offering better product information
- Lower customer turnover by being able to offer a better service including 24/7 ordering, instant stock and delivery information.
- Lower costs due to less burden on the inside sales force
- Lower costs due to a more automated process and fewer errors due to manual activities.
Meet your future webshop
Implementation of a B2B webshop
Now that the why and the advantages of a b2b webshop are clear, we can look at what it takes to successfully start a webshop in the b2b market. Here, we start with the selection of the b2b webshop software.
How do I select the right B2B webshop software?
To select the right b2b webshop software, it is good to first look at the type of software. We distinguish between three types
With open source webshop software, the source code is open and can be adapted by anyone. This often leads to the fact that with the better-known open source web shop packages, there are many developers who develop functionalities and extensions, so that not everything has to be custom-developed. In addition, there is always the possibility of making a customisation adjustment if needed. Well-known examples of open source webshop software for the B2B market are Magento and Shopware. With closed source software, the code is managed by the supplier and extensions can often be linked to it via the API. The advantage of this is that there is one supplier who adapts and expands the code and this is also the immediate disadvantage, as with closed-source software, you are hugely tied to one supplier.
When selecting your b2b shop software, you can choose custom software, standard software or a combination of both. With Custom software, everything is custom-built. As a result, the budget required is often larger than when working with standard software. Customisation is therefore often also less suitable for SMEs because it often involves higher maintenance costs. Of course, there are also combinations. Packages such as Shopware and Magento offer all important basic functionalities for B2B e-commerce out of the box and, if necessary, customisation can be added.
With a SAAS (software as a service) ecommerce solution, the software is offered as a service. For a fixed monthly fee, this usually includes hosting and maintenance and version updates. With in-house hosting, you are responsible for the hosting yourself via a hosting party. The choice here often revolves around convenience vs flexibility. With a SAAS solution, you have everything settled in one fixed amount, but the options are often also more limited because a SAAS solution is usually a standard package.
Implementation of a B2B webshop
When selecting b2b e-commerce software, it is good to consider at least the following factors:
Standard features present:
When sectioning ecommerce software, you want as much functionality as possible to be offered out of the box. Unless, of course, you go for a fully custom-developed software but that won't be the case for many SMEs.
Flexibility and ongoing development:
to what extent is the B2B web shop platform flexible and expandable. the e-commerce market is a dynamic market and it is therefore necessary that a package can grow with it.
Links to other systems:
the e-commerce software is easy to link with other business systems and standard links are available. Especially in the B2B market, a link to the ERP system is often one of the factors determining the success of a B2B shop as much of the core data comes from this system.
User-friendliness e-commerce platform:
How user-friendly is the e-commerce platform and are the employees from the e-commerce team well able to make adjustments in the system themselves.
B2B e-commerce functionalities
Quotes
Offer new customers the opportunity to request a quote for a selection of products first.
Order lists
Customers can quickly place their orders through own order lists of products they have bought more often.
Price lists and customer-specific prices
Business customers see their own customer-specific prices or can work with the ERP system's price list structure.
Quick order form
The B2B webshop offers a quick order form where products can be added directly or an excel file can be uploaded.
Payment conditions
Each customer can use his or her own payment terms on the webshop, or credit limits can be used.
Approving customers
Are customers not allowed direct access to the webshop? No problem there is the option to approve customers first.
Multiple users per account
Are there multiple users who need to order for 1 company. Then use multiple users per account.
Customer-specific ranges
May not all customers see all products or prices. Make use of customer-specific ranges.
Customer portal
The customer portal provides the customer with an overview of all orders, invoices and shipments so the customer has an instant overview.
What B2B e-commerce software packages are there?
There are many different types of B2B e-commerce software packages. Because of our focus on SMEs, we cover commonly used B2B e-commerce software systems here. We restrict ourselves here to open source e-commerce software.
Magento
Magento 2 is one of the most widely used open source e-commerce platforms for B2C and B2B and part of Adobe. Magento offers 2 versions of which the Commerce version is equipped with all kinds of B2B functionalities such as quotes, order lists, contacts and credit limits by default.
Shopware
Shopware is an e-commerce platform which originated in Germany and is booming in the Netherlands. Shopware offers several versions, with the Enterprise version equipped with B2B functionalities as standard.
Orocommerce
Orocommerce is an open-source e-commerce platform entirely focused on business webshops. This platform was started by one of the former founders of Magento with the aim of creating a platform specifically for business webshops.
Woocommerce
Woocommerce is the extension to the popular WordPress website platform that enables e-commerce. Because the platform is not fundamentally set up as an e-commerce platform, in our opinion it is only suitable for smaller business webshops.
Lightspeed
Lightspeed is an e-commerce saas solution that has the ability to offer b2b features with an extension. They offer a b2b module and some specific themes aimed at the business market.
Shopify
Shopify is another e-commerce saas solution and one of the largest providers of web store software worldwide. Shopify also offers different solutions where the Enterprise solution is equipped with standard b2b functionalities for a wholesale webshop, for example.
Since we ourselves work with Magento 2 and Shopware 6, we will further highlight these open source web shop platforms.
Magento B2B webshop
Magento is one of the most widely used e-commerce systems in the Netherlands. Thanks to the large community that supports the platform, there are also many extensions and integrations available, which means that not everything has to be custom-developed. The Magento Commerce version offers a B2B module that comes standard with the most important B2B functionalities such as
- Quotes
- Roles and rights
- Company accounts
- Credit limits
- Order lists
Besides the Magento Commerce version that requires an annual licence fee, the Open Source version can also be used for a B2B webshop. We have developed a standard solution that makes use of the most common B2B e-commerce functionalities. With our Magento B2B webshop, you as a wholesaler or manufacturer are able to successfully serve your customers and grow online. In addition to the business webshop, Magento is also ideal for setting up a direct to consumer (DTC) channel alongside the B2B channel on the same e-commerce platform.
Shopware B2B webshop
Shopware is the most widely used e-commerce platform in Germany and is growing fast in the Netherlands. Shopware wants to offer a platform that grows with you. So you can start with a saas solution and grow to the Professional or Enterprise edition without having to switch platforms. The Enterprise version comes standard with a B2B suite that includes features such as quotes, quick ordering and extensive roles and rights structure. Shopware also offers the possibility of managing different sales channels in 1 installation, making it ideal for running both a B2B and a DTC webshop.
What are the costs of a B2B webshop?
The cost of a B2B webshop depends entirely on the customer's requirements and functionalities. The costs are determined by a different number of factors where we list some of them here:
- To what extent standard functionalities are used
- The amount of customised functionalities
- The integrations with other systems such as ERP linkage, PIM system or other business systems
- Webshop design
- The number of webshops and the number of languages in which the webshops should be available.
- The migration of the existing web shop. Should data be migrated or certain content transferred.
These are some of the factors that determine the implementation costs of a B2B webshop. It is important not only to look at the implementation costs, but also at the costs of maintenance, hosting and improvements. Including this TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) gives you a good idea of what the total budget needs to be to set up a successful B2B platform.
The costs of your webshop
- Deviating from standard functionalities
- Customisation in webshop
- Integrations with other systems
- Complexity of design
- Number of websites and languages
- Data migration
How do I put together my project team for implementation?
One of the most important factors for a successful implementation of a B2B webshop is to have a good internal e-commerce project team in place to carry out the implementation. It is important that different roles in the organisation are involved in the project, such as sales, marketing, operations, finance and customer service. It is also important which activities will soon be carried out by the organisation itself and for which it is necessary to hire external expertise.
B2B webshop example
Below we have three examples/cases of a b2b webshop implementation for three different parties in the business market.
Wholesale webshop
Natureko
Wholesale webshop where the end customer is the retailer. Natureko is a wholesaler of biodisposables, supplying catering companies and the events industry.
Manufacturers' webshop
JIMMY's popcorn
JIMMY'S popcorn is a manufacturer of popcorn. For large corporate customers such as cinemas, there is a B2B portal where corporate customers only see their own product range. In addition, a direct-to-consumer channel is deployed on www.popcorn.nl where consumers can buy popcorn directly online.
Distributor webshop
Tier 1 distribution
Tier 1 is een wereldwijde distributeur van computer onderdelen voor merken zoals AMD en Intel. Voor deze klant is een B2B portaal neergezet waar klanten kunnen bestellen, retouren kunnen indienen en direct inzage hebben in hun openstaande verkooporders, facturen en verzendingen.
Read more success stories? We take you with us.
Onboarding your business customers
Now that your B2B webshop has been developed and is ready to go live, it is important to start thinking about the onboarding phase. In practice, we often see that too little time and attention is paid to this phase, while this phase largely ensures that your customers will actually order online and use your B2B platform.
What is onboarding and why is it so important?
Onboarding is the process of guiding customers to start using your business webshop. It includes all the activities that ensure that your customers can use the new ordering environment as quickly and well as possible. Research shows that 40-60% of web applications fail to successfully onboard customers. As a result, they fall back to the traditional way of ordering.
What tools can you use in onboarding
There are several tools you can use in the onboarding process. Below, we list the most important ones.
Email marketing software
Use e-mail marketing software to set up automatic mail campaigns for new customers, but also to reactivate customers who haven't ordered for a while. Consider software such as Mailchimp and Klaviyo.
Video
Using video can help explain certain benefits of the online store or introduce certain functionality that makes it easier for customers to find the right product data and place orders.
Google analytics & Hotjar
Met behulp van tools als Google Analytics en Hotjar ben je in staat om te meten hoe goed het onboarding proces gaat, waar klanten mogelijk vast lopen en waar je klanten verbeteringen zien in de webwinkel.
5 Tips on the onboarding process
The following 5 tips will help you successfully onboard your customers for your B2B webshop
Set up a plan on how new customers will be helped with the onboarding process and make sure to track and measure what percentage of customers order online and in what frequency.
One of the biggest differences between a business user and a consumer is that placing orders is part of the customer's job. So you can help your customer tremendously with this to make this process as easy as possible.
Start with what the customer needs in the basics and start adding new functionalities based on concrete customer feedback. This will keep things clear for the customer and avoid adding all kinds of bells and whistles that the customer does not want anyway.
Set up a welcome programme for new customers using marketing automation software such as Mailchimp or Dotdigital to explain to them step by step the benefits for ordering online. This can be coupled with an incentive to order online so customers can experience the convenience.
Make sure the sales team is actively involved in promoting the webshop. They have direct contact with the end customer and therefore often receive valuable feedback on what could possibly be improved about the business webshop.
Want to know more about onboarding?
Optimisation and growth of your B2B webshop
The moment a large proportion of your business customers are using your b2b shop, you can start working on further optimisation and growth of your b2b shop.
What e-commerce data will you measure and how?
The first step for optimising and improving your b2b webshop is to properly map and measure your most important objectives. For this, we often use tools such as Google analytics and Google search console to measure the right data. This provides insight into how well the web shop is performing and how the customer experiences the web shop. We often combine this in an e-commerce dashboard which shows the customer the most important results on a monthly basis.
Maintenance of your business webshop?
The maintenance of your business webshop depends on the type of b2b webshop platform you work with. If you are using a SaaS platform, the maintenance is included in the monthly licence fees, but if you are using an open source platform, the webshop will have to be updated at set times so that it remains optimally secured and continues to function properly. If you want to know more about the maintenance and support of a Magento or Shopware environment, take a look at our specific pages on this subject.
Increasing the turnover of your B2B webshop
To further grow your business webshop's sales, you can focus on 3 components:
- Attracting more visitors and customers
By attracting more visitors to your webshop, you are able to convert more visitors into customers. Especially through good product data and landing pages, you can ensure that your b2b webshop attracts many organic visitors. So it is often important to already look at this when implementing your webshop by, for instance, conducting keyword research. Besides attracting more customers organically, there are of course many other ways such as using online ads, e-mail marketing and business platforms like linkedin. - Increasing customers' order value and order frequency
You can use this data to increase the customer's order value or, if possible, the order frequency. You do this by offering relevant and personal information that matches what the customer is looking for. Email marketing campaigns also work very well here to re-activate the customer for a purchase or to make targeted offers of product groups the customer is interested in. - Increasing online shop conversion
Conversion is the percentage of visitors who actually make a purchase or, for example, the number of visitors who request an account with you. By optimising this process, you can get more results with the existing marketing budget.
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Last updated on
- 7 March 2025 12:02 pm
Content
1. Why a B2B webshop?
2. Implementation of a B2B webshop
- 2.1 How do I select the right B2B webshop software?
- 2.2 Implementation of a B2B webshop
- 2.3 B2B e-commerce functionalities
- 2.4 What B2B e-commerce software packages are there?
- 2.5 Magento B2B webshop
- 2.6 Shopware B2B webshop
- 2.7 What are the costs of a B2B webshop?
- 2.8 The costs of your webshop
- 2.9 How do I put together my project team for implementation?
- 2.10 B2B webshop example
3. Onboarding your business customers
4. Optimisation and growth of your B2B webshop
🔥 B2B webshop projects
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