This does not mean that B2B ecommerce is just an ecommerce retail website where the order quantities are higher. Business buyers usually require price negotiations, business accounts, approval systems, quotation, invoicing, purchasing orders, fast reordering, and multi-user capability.
It is important to ensure that the B2B ecommerce website created on BigCommerce makes this easier without complicating things for the buyers as well as the sales team within the company.
Why B2B Ecommerce Requires a Different Approach
An individual customer typically shops on their own behalf, pays instantly, and makes a single order at a time. The business customer could be buying on behalf of the department, branch, network of dealers, or the whole business.
The process of purchasing might include the following:
- Contractual pricing
- Large catalogs of products
- Bulk orders
- Approvals from inside the organization
- Multiple users from the organization
- Quotations and negotiations
- Purchase orders
- Terms of credit
- Invoices
- Reorder process
- Regional catalogs
- Exemptions from taxes
It means that the website needs to have both business logic and product search.
A good BigCommerce development firm in India should start with understanding how buyers make orders, how approvals are done, what kind of pricing process is used, and what kind of systems are used for product, inventory, customer, and fulfillment management.
1. Company Accounts and Multiple Buyers
A B2B customer is typically a business entity and not a retail shopper. Each business organization may require distinct access rights for its purchasing managers, accounting department, regional managers, and other employees.
BigCommerce B2B configurations can include company accounts and buyer portals, where information can be accessed according to one’s role. Company users might be involved in the purchase processes of creation, approval, and submission of orders.
An ideal account structure will allow buyers to do the following things:
- Manage company users
- Give them proper assignments
- See the available company information
- Access orders and invoices related to them
- Adhere to their own purchase policies
- Use different delivery locations
This should all be very clear on the storefront without having to train the buyer to find his or her order or edit the account user information.
2. Roles, Permissions, and Approval Workflows
Not everyone on the staff needs access to perform all actions.
Examples could include the following:
- Someone creates shopping lists
- Someone submits orders
- The manager approves the purchases above a certain amount
- The finance department accesses invoices
- The administrator manages company users
BigCommerce B2B solutions allow for the creation of custom buyer roles and permissions in order to enable businesses to better handle their specific purchasing processes.
While creating roles during development, one needs to think about how the customers behave. Too many permissions will complicate the system, and too little control will lead to purchasing mistakes.
The objective is to duplicate the customer’s process without slowing down online ordering more than email or phone ordering.
3. Customer-Specific Pricing and Catalogues
In B2B purchasing, it is common not to expect all customers to get the same price.
The price depends on:
- Customer agreement
- Purchase volume
- Level of distributor
- Product category
- Location
- Currency
- Contract period
- Business group
Some customers might also require access to products not available for other buyers.
An effective B2B store should show correct products and prices immediately after logging in. No need to ask for a quotation just because the system cannot find out what kind of contract you have.
In evaluating BigCommerce development services in India, companies should make sure how customer groups, pricing lists, product catalog availability, discounts, and ERP pricing will work together.
Pricing rules should be consistent on product pages, search results, shopping cart, quotations, invoices, and checkout.
4. Fast Product Search and Catalogue Navigation
A B2B catalogue could have many thousands of products, technical versions, spare parts, or other items that have only slight variations from one another.
Customers could look up using:
- Product name
- SKU
- Manufacturer code
- Part number
- Category
- Specification
- Compatibility
- Brand
- Order history
The navigation system needs to be created based on how the customer would perceive the catalogue, rather than simply on how the internal team would store product data.
Features useful for B2B discovery include:
- Predictive search
- SKU search
- Technical filters
- Category filters
- Saved searches
- Recently viewed products
- Product comparison
- Availability details
- Specification documents for downloading
Search results also need to provide enough details to allow customers to find the right product without having to go through several similar product pages.
5. Detailed B2B Product Pages
A B2B product page must assist a purchaser to make a purchasing decision, and not only make the page look visually appealing.
Depending on the sector, a product page might require:
- SKU details
- Manufacturer information
- Technical specifications
- Product dimensions
- Minimum order quantity
- Pack/case quantity
- Tiers and pricing
- Availability
- Lead time
- Delivery limitations
- Compatible products
- Safety documentation
- Data sheets
- Warranty information
- Downloadable manuals
It is critical that the most relevant purchasing information be placed near the title, price, quantity, and call to action fields.
A professional BigCommerce web design company in India needs to focus more on making the content clear than on making it look pretty.
6. Bulk Ordering and Quick Order Forms
Buyers of the business should not be required to browse each page of the products separately.
- Bulk purchase form can help buyers do the following:
- Type in SKUs
- Order several quantities at once
- Upload the order form
- Type product codes
- Search for products on the form
- Check for product availability before adding
- Order previously purchased products again
This will be particularly helpful for wholesalers, manufacturers, dealers, industrial supplies, and repeat orders from businesses.
The form should give clear information about unavailable products, invalid codes, quantity limitations, and substitutes. Errors in silence will frustrate the buyers and usually drive them to place orders manually.
A professional BigCommerce Stencil developer from India can customize the storefront experience based on the catalogue and purchase process.
7. Quotes and Negotiated Purchasing
There are many business-to-business purchases that require conversation before any payment is made. This might be because there is a requirement for customized pricing, shipment confirmation, number of projects, or approval by a sales representative.
The BigCommerce buyer portal can facilitate B2B processes like quote requests, account management, order history, and invoice transactions.
The quote process must be efficient enough so that the customers can:
- Select products and their quantities
- Make a request for quote
- Add project details or comments
- View the reply of the seller
- Accept the quote pricing
- Generate an order out of the quote
Sales personnel must get sufficient information so that they can reply without asking anything from the customer.
8. Purchase Orders, Credit Terms, and Invoices
Not all B2B clients pay via credit card at checkout time. Some approved customers will be able to make their purchases via purchase orders and payment terms.
The website needs to differentiate clearly between:
- Payment done online immediately
- Order made via PO number
- Purchase done via credit account
- Outstanding invoices
- Paid partially invoices
- Past due invoices
B2B implementation of BigCommerce can allow to include invoices functionality and workflows for those customers that purchase on terms.
Online processes have to match internal financial policies of the company. Credit limit, payment terms, status of the invoice and ERP data have to stay in sync.
9. Easy Reordering and Shopping Lists
Repeat purchase is among the key components of B2B e-commerce.
Returning customer must have an ability to find his past order and reorder the same products without having to create a new cart manually.
Useful elements include:
- Order history
- Reordering buttons
- Predefined shopping lists
- Most frequently ordered products
- Favorite products
- Company shared lists
- Draft orders
- Recurrent order templates
All these elements save the time and makes online store much more convenient than email ordering.
Information about product availability and prices at the moment of reorder must be displayed on account pages before reordering starts.
10. A Practical Buyer Portal
The buyer portal should serve as the workspace for the customers, not just a page which displays their account information.
An effective buyer portal could have the following features:
- Information about company
- User management
- Addresses
- Orders
- Quotes
- Invoices
- Shopping lists
- Payment information
- Account balance
- Approval status
Navigation, labeling, and permissions need to be tested on the target users. What is intuitive for developers might not seem intuitive for a purchasing manager.
11. Multiple Storefronts for Different Markets
Certain B2B companies might cater to diverse regions, customer bases, industries, or even brands in the same commercial enterprise.
BigCommerce would be able to accommodate multiple storefronts with separate design, pricing models, and product grouping, yet remain on the same central platform.
This may aid the companies to manage:
- B2B and Retail Stores Separately
- Regional Websites
- Dealers’ Portals
- Brand-Specific Storefronts
- Catalogues
- Currencies
- Market-Specific Content
The multistore strategy needs to be developed prior to theme and catalog creation. Additional store fronts will result in duplicate content and inconsistent pricing if not managed properly through the proper data architecture.
12. ERP, PIM, CRM, and Warehouse Integrations
The storefront is just a component of a B2B commerce business.
BigCommerce needs integration with many brands such as:
- ERP Systems
- Product Information Management
- Customer Relationship Management
- WMS – Warehouse Management System
- Accounts Platform
- Taxes
- Shipping
- Order Management
- Procurement
Such integrations may share product data, stock, pricing, customers, orders, invoices, order fulfilment, and credit information.
Prior to setting up the BigCommerce store development in India, you should identify the data owners for all kinds of data.
For instance:
- ERP is responsible for contract pricing.
- PIM holds product details.
- BigCommerce is responsible for the storefront content.
- Warehouse software handles stock.
- CRM is responsible for sales.
In the absence of data owners, there would be conflicts between different systems.
13. Responsive Design for Buyers on the Move
B2B buying does not necessarily occur using a desktop computer. The salesperson, dealer, technician, and owner can make purchases using tablets and even cell phones.
The mobile design must be able to:
- Log in quickly
- Search easily
- Enter SKU numbers
- Read specifications
- Modify quantities
- Request quotes
- Check order status
- View invoices
- Reorder products
Responsive design does not equate to downsizing the desktop design. There are tables, accounts pages, bulk order pages, and product specifications that need proper attention on mobile.
14. Store Management for Internal Teams
B2B Storefront also needs to simplify everyday processes for sales, customer service, catalog, marketing, and financial departments.
Internal users will have to handle:
- Products
- Product categories
- Prices
- Customers
- Company accounts
- Order information
- Promotions
- Quotes
- Invoices
- Storefront content
BigCommerce’s Stencil framework provides options for building custom templates for product, category, brand, and content pages. This allows developers to build the store’s interface while the company still controls their commerce data through the platform.
Custom development must be done in such a way that routine changes do not rely on developers. Content blocks, product attributes, banners, and navigation must still be easily managed where possible.
Choosing the Right BigCommerce Partner in India
Before engaging BigCommerce developers in India for your development needs, ensure they have an approach for managing the website’s storefront and workflow processes.
Your trusted developer will be discussing:
- Company accounts
- Buyer privileges
- Pricing policies
- Catalogue availability
- Search capabilities
- Quotation process
- Bulk buying
- Invoicing
- Integration processes
- Multiple storefronts
- Responsive design
- Testing phase
- Training session
- After-launch support
The development process should start with the discovery phase and workflow mapping, not designing screen visuals only, to avoid leaving purchasing processes unclear.
Final Thoughts
The best B2B ecommerce websites are not always those with the most attractive visual presentation. The best ones are those that minimize manual work, make purchasing convenient for buyers, and provide internal teams with control over prices, buyers, products, and fulfillment processes.
Among the features of BigCommerce for B2B businesses in India, the most critical are company accounts, buyer permissions, customized catalogs for buyers, bulk purchasing, quotations, invoices, reorderings, multi-store functionality, and dependable integrations.
DIT India offers BigCommerce ecommerce development services for India, including ecommerce website development, Stencil template customization, B2B functionalities, integrations, testing, and more for manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, and growing ecommerce companies.
