Wholesale Ecommerce: All You Need to Know To Do It Right

If the movie industry had to make a film about the B2B commerce business in 2023, you would barely see the scenes of in-person meetings of 50-something men only. And not only because of the shift in Hollywood standards — all of that has decreased to the minimum in real life thanks to technology and, well, the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Now more and more B2B wholesale deals happen online, despite all the myths still circulating in the industry. 

For a while now, B2B wholesale companies were believed not to offer ecommerce because of the risks associated with large product volumes and costs. The same was said about B2B buyers preferring in-person interactions. 

Yet, the McKinsey & Company study has proven quite the contrary: 65% of B2B wholesale companies now offer ecommerce and two-thirds of B2B buyers prefer digital engagement if available. If you’re ready to serve a new — and growing — generation of B2B buyers, tapping into wholesale ecommerce is a must.

Elogic, an experienced B2B ecommerce development company operating worldwide, is ready to let you in on the secrets regarding ecommerce for wholesale distribution. This article explores what wholesale ecommerce is, how it benefits the B2B sector, how to choose the platform to offer your B2B products and services, and how Elogic can help you with the tech side of wholesale ecommerce. Let’s start with the basics.

What Is Wholesale Ecommerce?

B2B wholesale ecommerce is a business model where the company sells goods/services, usually in large quantities and at a discount price per item, to other businesses online (business-to-business). A B2B seller is typically an intermediary between the producer/manufacturer and retail businesses; if sold in bulk to other companies, it can also be considered a B2B wholesale company. 

Read more: Types Of Ecommerce Businesses: What Model Is Right For Your Online Business? 

Here’s what the B2B wholesale purchasing flow looks like: 

Contrary to the B2C business model, where a business sells directly to consumers, B2B deals with bulk selling only. But that’s not the only difference. Let’s learn the others.

B2B vs. B2C ecommerce

B2B means selling to businesses, while B2C means selling to consumers. The buying behaviors of these customers are different, which will change the dynamic and needs of ecommerce for these target groups. 

Let’s review how wholesale B2B ecommerce differs from B2C.

Apparently, selling online is a great tool for both B2B and B2C companies to improve their market position. We’ve already covered how exactly ecommerce can help retail companies; now let’s explore what good it can do for wholesalers.

6 Ways in Which Ecommerce Helps Wholesalers

From simplifying the buying process to increasing revenue and improving customer relationships — B2B wholesale has plenty of benefits from ecommerce. Let’s review them and others in detail.

Simplified B2B buying process

There’s nothing B2B buyers love more than a simple, straightforward buying process with maximum product visibility. But that’s not the only thing they appreciate.

A self-service portal will reduce their ordering process and allow B2B clients to submit support tickets, view their purchase history, download invoices, and more — all autonomously. A staggering 80% of B2B buyers prefer self-service or remote cooperation, especially during identifying and evaluating new suppliers, ordering, or reordering. 

Moreover, it’s important to be at your customers’ fingertips, selling via various channels and devices. B2B buyers are younger, digital natives, expecting an omnichannel and cross-platform experience across 24/7 ecommerce websites and mobile apps. A properly configured wholesale ecommerce platform can face these and other challenges with ease. 

For instance, Benum, a Norwegian electronic B2B business and Elogic client, got all these issues addressed with an Adobe Commerce platform upgrade. 

The major concern of Benum regarding their old wholesale ecommerce software was its limited functionality which didn’t provide the buyers with the tools to self-navigate the purchasing process from start to finish. Elogic helped them replatform to Adobe Commerce (Magento), power the platform with Visma ERP, and create custom modules to streamline the B2B buying process, enable assigned management, and allow the customers to easily search for relevant products. 

Automated wholesale processes

If you want to expand your business without losing your employees or causing their burnout, you should invest in automation throughout the wholesale ecommerce cycle.

Replacing manual tasks with automated processes should be presented in your billing and real-time inventory management, checkout, customer service, quotation, and other processes. This is where artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics should be applied. 

For example, powering ‌product/catalog search with AI features won’t only help make smart predictions but will also tailor them based on previous buying behavior. Automated quote placement directly from the storefront, will help your customers place the order faster: as soon as the sales rep reviews and confirms the quote, the buyer can proceed to payment without any further human intervention. Another example would be integrating an automated paperwork tool for tax filing for each country you work with.

Automation throughout the buying cycle will help your employees focus more on nurturing client relationships and marketing strategies rather than doing routine work. Wexon, a Finnish-based tech components seller, knows that like no other. 

One of the reasons the company turned to Elogic was a cumbersome order-placing process for their B2B clients. Sales representatives and customer service were overwhelmed with customer requests and order changes, which often got lost if placed on different sales channels (for instance, on the website and by phone). Switching to Adobe Commerce and powering the platform with Epicor ERP put the client at the center of every activity. 

With new catalog and quoting features, the company enhanced the customer experience, decreased the workload of their customer service, and got more insights into the clients’ data. The best part? It helped them personalize buyers’ experience, show custom price lists, and use the customer and product data efficiently.

Potential to increase revenue

Growing revenue is the bottom line of any business. In wholesale, where businesses sell in large quantities for lower prices, it may be challenging. B2B customers take longer to make purchasing decisions, and tough competition doesn’t make the process any easier. 

Still, an intuitive wholesale ecommerce website can streamline this process in the following ways:

• Maintaining an online storefront cuts costs associated with having a physical store for doing business.
• An online B2B store helps the company expand its geography and enter global markets.
• Integration with the well-configured ERP allows real-time management and 24/7 inventory monitoring (imagine: no more bookkeeping and paper catalogs!).
• A wholesale website provides the buyers with interactive catalogs that help them overview the inventory and make an informed buying decision. 
• It frees sales reps from intervening in the deals made by low-profile, non-strategic customers, and gives them more time to work with hot prospects.
• It helps the marketing team adjust their landing strategy.

Data-driven decision-making

Quality-sourced and analyzed data is any company’s new gold. It informs on business performance, helps make accurate predictions, and prevents losses associated with unresearched actions. But we aren’t talking about customers’ data only.

Company-wide information also counts. Understanding the dynamics in any department helps manage the resources and workflows more efficiently. And the best ecommerce wholesale platforms can capture and visualize this data in seconds.

Often, these analytic features are built in, though many platforms offer third-party integration. The latter was exactly what we chose for our client, SoloTop.

SoloTop, a Finnish industrial manufacturer serving food, retail, and logistics sectors, requested their wholesale ecommerce website to integrate the analytic tools to collect and process the company’s and customers’ data.

The Elogic team powered the Magento platform with Google Analytics for their marketing specialists to understand their customers better, identify profitable geographies, and monitor the behavior dynamics. Plus, the platform now allows admins to overview the sales reps’ activity and create statistics to assess their performance quantitatively.  

Better customer relationships and user experience (UX)

Customer experience (CX) is imperative if the business wants to stay and thrive in the market. According to the Gartner research, CX drives around two-thirds of customer loyalty in various forms — from recurring purchases to recommendations and positive feedback.

And a smooth, fast-performing, and easy-to-navigate ecommerce website is one of the major factors that, as Whola’s case proves, enhances this experience.

Whola, a multi-brand B2B apparel business from Australia, faced a problem when its website couldn’t serve the growing volume of client requests, causing longer page response time, slow catalog loading speed, and higher churn rates.

The Elogic team optimized the server environment, which increased loading speed by 5x and prevented further performance bottlenecks. We also optimized usability in search, invoice, and order management, so the B2B buyers could find, quote, place, and pay for the order without friction.

Seamless scalability

We bet you wouldn’t find any wholesale ecommerce business that doesn’t want to expand to new markets and land more clients. But business only grows if its technical components do. That’s why flexible and scalable ecommerce solutions for wholesale businesses are essential for serving more clients in more locations. 

For example, if you use the B2B platform that supports various currencies, and locations in upgrade plans, you can expand your market geography without doing a full makeover of your existing tech ecosystem, which usually costs extra money. Our client, a Swiss publishing company Helvetiq, has experienced this advantage first-hand.

Thanks to platform scalability, Helvetiq could easily roll out the B2C to B2B sales in new countries and manage the whole cycle with ease. With an integrated wholesale module, the company set custom tax settings and enabled localization, location-based invoicing, and secure shipping. Now they can manage both B2B and B2C interactions from a single platform, bringing designers, clients, partners, and authors on the same page.

These advantages come from carefully chosen tools that could support all your B2B activities online. A feature-rich B2B ecommerce platform is one of such tools, and the business should consider a lot of factors before investing in the best ecommerce platform for wholesale. Let’s list the common ones.

How to Choose the Platform to Power Your Wholesale Ecommerce Website

Your B2B ecommerce wholesale platform should be a secure space that serves the clients’ needs and your business goals. If you’re selling in small volumes, connecting your platform to the marketplaces like eBay or Amazon will be enough. 

However, a standalone B2B ecommerce platform is a must for mid-sized and enterprise-level wholesale companies expanding into new markets.

Here are a few factors to pay attention to during your search.

Your budget

Most ecommerce platforms for wholesale distributors have different plans with different feature sets. Usually, the higher the cost, the richer the platform’s list of features. Besides the license fee, you’ll need to consider the costs of design customization, third-party software integration, and any other custom-built modules. 

Read more: How Much Ecommerce Website Costs: Set the Right Budget for Your Project 

Before you choose any ecommerce platform, make sure to write down functional and non-functional requirements for your online store. Negotiate the budget with all the company stakeholders and get their buy-in on the wholesale platform development.

Contact an experienced B2B ecommerce development team and schedule an ecommerce consultation to discuss what would be your best pick based on your budget, business strategy, and goals. It will narrow down your choices and give you a perspective of what to choose.

Good search and catalog management functionality 

The nightmare of all B2B wholesalers is if your current site search returns irrelevant results and is slow. That’s a certain recipe for losing customers.

Make sure that your wholesale ecommerce website is equipped with advanced search and filter options, real-time inventory analytics, and catalog management functionality. A bonus point if it’s powered with AI analytics so you can provide your clients with customized experiences based on their past interactions.

Flexible integrations

The more integration-friendly your platform is, the more flexibility it can provide you when adding other functionalities. It will also save you time and money as integrating a component is easier than remaking the whole thing from scratch. 

What add-ons should you consider?

• Customer relationship management systems (CRM)
• Enterprise resource planning software (ERP)
• Product information management (PIM)
• SEO and marketing software
• AI-powered analytic tools
• Content management software (CMS)
• Payment gateway integrations

SEO and marketing capabilities

Your platform should support multi-store and multi-language marketing management if you sell B2B in different countries and have plenty of brands to work with. The reason? The regional differences in search queries, specific requests from B2B buyers, and wholesalers’ pain points. 

Make sure you can juggle your content across your brands, stores, and geographies from one platform and share the insights across other departments. This way, you’ll get everyone on the same page, which will result in better coordinated workflows between departments and a seamless customer experience. 

Payment versatility

The more payment options you provide, the more customers will find it convenient to deal with your business as they may find their preferred payment method on the list. For B2B, it’s essential to have transparent invoicing procedures and allow the customers to pay by card and check. But that’s not all options worth considering.

Read more: Payment Gateway Comparison: Price and Fees 

About 73% of all B2B purchasing decisions are now made by millennials, who are becoming the driving force of B2B ecommerce, and also — digitalization of the industry. Many of them gravitate towards using mobile apps for wholesale ecommerce, which is why you should invest in secure mobile payments. Moreover, the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) financing is growing fast, which should give you food for thought as well.

These were the essential factors to consider when choosing the platform for B2B ecommerce, and if you’d like to learn more about it, here we wrote a detailed guide on how to choose the best solution for manufacturers and wholesalers.

Afterthought

Despite the myths about wholesale ecommerce, recent research points to the boom of B2B ecommerce and shows that this trend is here to stay. 

B2B ecommerce for wholesale distribution helps companies expand to new markets faster, improve customer relationships, provide clients with a smooth user experience, and increase loyalty.  If you’re ready to switch to digital B2B and looking for a reliable tech partner that knows how to build a personalized wholesale ecommerce, Elogic is here to help. 

With our decade-long experience in building and customizing ecommerce platforms, we know how to power your B2B website with investment-worthy tools that will improve the site functionality and customer experience during every stage of the buying process.

Wholesale Ecommerce FAQs

What is wholesale?

The wholesale business model presupposes the company selling its goods/services in bulk to different businesses for further retail selling. Wholesale ecommerce means that this business model sells to their B2B clients online. Usually, the B2B companies are the intermediaries between the producers/manufacturers and retail companies, though often the producers/manufacturers are also the ecommerce wholesale distributors.

How can I build a personalized wholesale ecommerce website?

To create a robust, scalable, and safe wholesale ecommerce platform, you need a skilled in-house or outsource development team that has experience configuring out-of-the-box solutions with custom-made modules that will work for your specific company. In this way, you can save on typical pre-configured solutions and ensure top performance of the custom features.

How can Elogic help with my wholesale business?

Elogic is your trusted partner if you need wholesale ecommerce consulting or development services. We’re proficient with customizing out-of-the-box solutions like Adobe Commerce (Magento), Salesforce, Shopify, and others. Our development team is also ready to create end-to-end custom ecommerce wholesale website based on your business needs. Contact our team and let’s discuss how we can help your wholesale ecommerce elevate!