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Increasing B2B sales have been noted by many in the eCommerce industry as an increasing trend. In fact, Forrester predicts that B2B eCommerce sales will hit more than $1 trillion in the US by 2020. B2B customers are also expecting a B2C online shopping experience. They want personalization, omnichannel integration, and solid mobile functionality, as well as features like bulk pricing that are unique to businesses. To keep up with the growing demand, eCommerce companies need to utilize a scalable platform that can handle the unique requirements of a B2B consumer relationship.

If you are familiar with Magento, you probably know how powerful it is for B2C merchants. However, the rollout of Magento 2 has highlighted how well Magento works for B2B merchants as well. Magento 2 comes equipped with a range of features that make B2B, wholesale, and bulk sales easy and convenient.

Structure

Magento is an open source platform, meaning it can be altered and customized to suit the individual needs of your business. Magento also integrates with a wide range of third-party solutions, like ERPs and extensions, which can provide any extra functionality that is not included out-of-the-box.

Another important feature of the Magento 2 structure is responsive design, allowing Magento 2 to function effectively across mobile and tablet devices. This makes it easy for buyers to place orders on their mobile devices right from the factory floor or inventory warehouse.

Admin

Magento 2 Enterprise Edition allows for three separate databases, meaning products, checkout, and orders can each have their own database; this results in greater scalability and speed. Each of these databases can also have an updating backup database, providing increased data security. B2B companies need to have quick sites and reliable access to product and past orders.

Magento 2 Enterprise lets users manage multiple sites, stores, and views from the same Admin panel. This means you can have a separate B2B website, or B2B store within your website, and manage this offering from the same place as B2C sales. Additionally, the store view allows for multiple language options, making it easier to offer your B2B products to an international audience. You can also accept multiple types of currencies.

The redesigned Magento Admin panel can also provide multiple users with varying levels of access to your sites or stores. You can give B2B site or store permission to employees who deal with the B2B aspects of your business.

Finally, stock and product options allow you to set maximum quantities for purchases to prevent one company from deleting all your inventory, accept or not accept backorders and notify the customer when a product is restocked, and allow customers to automatically be notified if a price changes.

Pricing

There are several pricing options in Magento 2 to help serve your business customers. Group pricing allows you to offer promo prices for selected customers. Tiered pricing makes it possible to offer a certain price to a customer group based on the quantity that is being purchased. These pricing options enable merchants to offer B2B customers different prices than B2C customers within the same online store. Magento 2 also offers a wide variety of tax configuration options, including setting various tax classes by customer group and maintaining international pricing consistency.

Shipping

The multiple addresses option, available in both Community and Enterprise, allows customers to ship to multiple addresses within one order. This feature makes it easy for B2B customers to send their order to different warehouses or offices without having to create the same order multiple times.

Payments

Magento 2 makes it easy to handle multiple payment methods to accommodate B2B customers. Merchants can create invoices and email them to customers so businesses can pay at the appropriate time. Another way to serve B2B customers is to create a purchase order, allowing companies to process payment through their internal accounts department. You can also choose to accept checks, money orders, bank transfers, or cash on delivery as payment options.

Like Magneto 1, Magento 2 supports various payment gateways that can be utilized to securely accept credit card payments from all over the world. Supported gateways include PayPal, Braintree, Authorize.Net, and more. ParadoxLabs has created two payment extensions for Magento 2: Adaptive Subscriptions to make use of subscriptions and recurring billing and the Authorize.Net CIM Payment Method to safely store credit card information for customers. These extensions can make life easier for your B2B customers by allowing them to automatically get the inventory they need and not have to re-enter payment information from nebulous company credit cards.

If you’re ready to rock B2B eCommerce, contact ParadoxLabs today at 717-431-3330 or sales@paradoxlabs.com. We can help you install one of our extensions, migrate your current site to Magento 2, or create a brand-new site that is specifically designed to meet your individual store needs.