How to Properly Implement Your B2B E-Commerce

1. What is B2B E-Commerce?
2. What matters in software solutions for B2B e-commerce?
3. What providers are there for B2B e-commerce?
4. How do you structuredly approach your B2B commerce platform selection?

Have you ever replenished your central warehouse's stock of DIN912 hexagon socket screws, configured an online locking system solution for a 20-party residential building, ordered spare parts for a D-Check of an Airbus A220, or perhaps wrapped up the order for bathrooms and fittings for a hotel with 300 beds online? No? No problem, everyone starts small.

"Start small"? A joke? No, not at least when it comes to sales volume. According to Statista in 2020, the global e-commerce volume in B2B was just under 15 trillion US dollars. This is five times the size of the B2C market. From this perspective, it is almost ironic that in the digital economy, we are very familiar with the typical "T-shirt shops" of several fashion brands or retailers, we understand success factors well, have a quick opinion on what could be better, and from the category Shop systems and web shops we can quickly select the best suited software tools. But we know much less about B2B, specific B2B e-commerce functions, requirements or B2B commerce platforms. Reason enough to take a closer look at the topic.

With this article, you are perfectly positioned for the topic of B2B e-commerce platform selection. Our guest author Thomas Walter shows you what role e-commerce plays in the digital ecosystem of B2B companies today, what the differences are between B2B and B2C or D2C commerce and what special features B2B e-commerce platforms have.

What is B2B E-Commerce?

What the "B2B trade model" means is learned at the latest in the 2nd week of business studies. Then it says: "In B2B, the customer is a legal entity" or "The B2B purchasing process is non-linear". Definitions put aside, one realises that it quickly gets complex when companies do business, at least considerably more complex than when we as consumers shop online at companies.

Despite this, in B2B too: A superior customer experience is crucial, because no matter whether buyer, technical expert, or product manager - in the end, it is people who in their everyday professional life expect the same commerce experience they also experience as consumers in B2C or D2C situations.

Already five years ago, the management consulting firm McKinsey pointed this out in a study: Companies with a digital B2B e-commerce experience have significantly higher re-order, or transaction frequencies, less so-called "churn", higher customer satisfaction, and lower customer service costs.

Interestingly, McKinsey also recently published, that currently only about a third of all B2B companies are able to handle topics such as e-commerce, service management, or customer relationship management digitally. The reason why many B2B companies are still hesitant with digitization becomes more understandable when we first sketch three so-called "buyer personas" and their "user stories" or "buyer journeys".

B2B Case Study Covestro

Customers of specialty chemicals supplier Covestro include large fashion brands, such as Nike or Adidas:

• Buyer Persona: As a product designer for running shoes at Nike, I want to know what I can shape with the plastic material (from Covestro) in the mould design, what impact it has on the behaviour of the shoe, what colouration is possible, what others have already developed.
• Buyer Journey: I want to understand materials better, gain inspiration, recognise limitations, understand impact on prices and then hand it over to my product manager or buyer.
• Solution: My search for inspiration begins on the website, I find the way to the product through the faceted product search and get into the B2B e-commerce topic in the Solution Portal (customer portal).

B2B Case Study Satair

A customer of Airbus subsidiary Satair, the dealer for spare parts of Airbus aircraft, are airlines, especially their technical divisions:

• Buyer Persona: As a technical buyer at Lufthansa Technik, I want to prepare the upcoming A, B, C, and D checks (as the maintenance orders are called), and pre-order the necessary spare parts at the best prices, so that no time is lost on site.
• Buyer Journey: I want to maintain an OEM standard spare parts list for each aircraft in my fleet per upcoming maintenance check and order online at the best possible price. I also often have urgent re-orders of parts.
• (Part of the) Solution: On the Satair Market Place I have access to 1.25 million spare parts from various OEMs (manufacturers) and others. I can bundle, order, but also sell back in case of over-ordering.

B2B Case Study Bossard

Customers of the screw trade and logistics company Bossard are manufacturing companies and service providers that must connect components:

• Buyer Persona: As a production manager at bicycle manufacturer BMC, I need various standard screws as well as specially manufactured screws for the final assembly of the bicycles.
• Buyer Journey: I want to keep the screw stock up-to-date for all my production and service locations, often re-order my products, order at individually negotiated unit prices as well as scale prices and discounts. I often realise on site in the warehouse what I need quickly.
• Solution: All products are depicted in the B2B-Shop often with 100 variants per product, in the B2B-Portal the business relationship of the customer with Bossard is completely depicted (framework contract, agreed prices, discounts, contacts, last purchases, proxy, limits per buyer, etc.), orders can be placed in the connected online shop, with a scanner app the shopping cart can be filled in the warehouse.

These examples make it clear that a standard web shop (storefront, product search, product overview pages, product detail pages, wishlist, shopping cart, vouchers & promotions, check-out, my account, ...) can be part of the solution but at the same time cannot cover the complex requirements and business relationships needed for B2B e-commerce. To come back to the business administration lecture mentioned at the beginning of the second week: In particular, the "non-linear buyer journeys" pose a great challenge in B2B e-commerce.

It often takes several weeks for a purchase decision to be made, as various stakeholders on the buyer's side need to be involved who are in a hierarchical relationship with each other or act as gatekeepers (Legal, Purchasing, Finance, Production, Logistics, Product Management, C-Level, etc.).

The purchase decision is therefore made less impulsively, but much more strategic and planned, i.e. buyers in B2B are generally experts and informed to the last hair end about the product or the service. In addition to this, contracts with individual price books and discounts are usually not directly negotiated, or an existing product catalog for a customer is "blacklisted" (i.e., whittled down to the range of products suitable for a customer).

And often it is later about a wide spectrum of purchases - from automated reordering (especially for consumables and spare parts) in large quantities to the contract for custom manufacturing. In summary, B2B buying journeys often look like this:

What matters in software solutions for B2B e-commerce?

If you were hoping for the all-in-one wonder among B2B e-commerce software, I have to disappoint you: Unfortunately, I am not aware of any manufacturer who would have achieved a functional coverage of 70% or more out-of-the-box in each of the above mentioned examples. Compared to B2C or D2C, there is also no shortcut à la in 5 steps to your own web shop in B2B.

However, both are not the expectation for B2B e-commerce solutions. Rather, it is about providing a solid framework, or a construction kit, that can be adjusted and implemented for one's own business model and processes (and often with the help of a service provider and partner) through configuration and implementation.

That sounds vague, but in principle, it's quite simple: For B2B e-commerce, you need software that can basically depict complex business relationships but is flexible and adaptable or expandable, whether it's about specialty chemistry, aircraft maintenance contracts, or the trade of screws.

Among the MUST requirements for B2B e-commerce platforms, the following points are mostly found:

• Multi-Pricebook, Multi-Market, Multi-Catalog: Multiple price books or product catalogs for various regions, countries or markets, including local requirements (vat, logistics partner, contract partner etc.)
• B2B Online Shop: Customer-specific pricing, with specific discounts and scale prices, Quick-Reorder (esp. for spare and consumable parts).
• B2B Customer Portal/ CRM Proxy: Deep integration into the CRM, or depiction of customer relationship in the MyAccount area/ Customer portal (framework contracts, individual conditions, contacts along with hierarchy levels and permissions etc.)
• ERP-Integration and Ruleset: Integration into financial accounting, materials management and logistics (query of inventory in real-time, or vendor-managed inventory - meaning: ERP orders directly from ERP).
• Integrated PIM (Product Information Management): Depiction of complex product data and relationships, e.g. product specifications, drawings, data sheets, with hundreds of metrics or versions per product, non-combinable products etc.
• Lead Nurturing and B2B Marketing Integration: Integration of B2B E-Commerce and CRM with the marketing processes. Depiction and control of classic B2B Buying Journeys (e.g. event registration, personalised email communication, personal sales contact etc.)
• Product Content Marketing: Digital staging of products and services along with 3D models, blog, FAQ or user forum, all multi-language, multi-channel, and multi-market.

What matters in a B2B e-commerce software then? Well, on the one hand, there is the initially mentioned flexibility and scalability, on the other hand, there are functional requirements just mentioned, and we have not yet talked about non-functional requirements for the software and its introduction itself (keywords are security, operation, SLAs, license costs, manufacturer strategy, ecosystem, service provider, team, usability, etc.).

To help you become aware of your own requirements, I recommend at the beginning of the B2B software selection to depict your requirements in a so-called functional map. A functional map is a simplified representation of all possible functions along a B2B purchasing process. This helps you in several ways:

• Firstly, you understand if you are looking in the right software category. This may sound strange at first, but many B2B e-commerce solutions such as e.g. without shopping cart functionality or vouchers and promotions. Often, B2B e-commerce can therefore also be seen as an extension of CRM and less commerce is needed but rather additionally a strong B2B marketing solution.
• Secondly, you recognise who you need to involve internally. Do the most important detailed requirements come from the colleagues from sales, or product management, the marketing? Where is the bulk or the crux of your requirements?
• Thirdly, you come to a first structure for your requirements and user stories for a later provider selection. However, I do not recommend merely writing down the crude requirement catalogue in excel tables, but summarising your most important processes in used stories and narratives. An example for this can start like this: "Our customer, the XYZ Ltd., has with us a framework contract, its conditions are represented in the MyAccount area. From the XYZ, explicitly only 4 buyers are allowed to place orders, additional employees receive a login but have no proxy. When placing orders, negotiated quantity discounts apply to part of the range with the XYZ. The range also varies regionally. [...] How can this be implemented in the [B2B E-Commerce Software]?

Functional map from a typical B2B e-commerce project (Illustration of the digital agency Merkle).

What providers are there for B2B e-commerce?

It often does not succeed, to exactly define the category "B2B e-commerce solution". Most of the time, what is requested, when companies ask for B2B e-commerce, is actually an interaction of content, commerce, CRM and marketing. Thus, the industry leaders strive for a complete so-called DXP, or digital experience platform, whereas commerce is the integral component/part.

These DXPs promise a completely integrated commerce solution, with CRM, CDP, CMS, DAM, PIM and email marketing. Consequently, software solutions were acquired and integrated into their own DXP in recent years.

The following table describes the DXPs of the five leading providers (as of November 2021): Adobe, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce CRM and Sitecore, with special consideration of B2B commerce. How different the approaches for B2B e-commerce are, becomes clear when taking a closer look behind the logos and labels of the software:

• ERP-driven B2B commerce: According to various analysts, the SAP Commerce Cloud (formerly SAP hybris) is the most frequently used solution for B2B e-commerce (defined by the number of installations). The SAP philosophy is clear here: one follows the product - coming from production, or the ERP - to the web. In B2B e-commerce backend, SAP has therefore been leading for years, all usual B2B requirements are intended in the solution. For CX, SAP also acquired specifically, e.g. Gigya (CDP) or Emarsys (B2B marketing automation). Thus, the SAP Commerce Cloud is today the core of the SAP CX Cloud. Another ERP-driven B2B commerce platform comes from ikas.
• CRM-driven B2B commerce: The philosophy of Salesforce CRM can be seen as CRM-driven B2B commerce. The focus at Salesforce is always the customer, specifically his representation in the Salesforce Sales Cloud (CRM) is always the focus at Salesforce. B2B commerce was strengthened through the purchase of Cloud Craze and is an extension of the data model around B2B e-commerce functionality such as e.g. Orders or Pricebooks. According to Salesforce, their own B2B Marketing Cloud Pardot is used to control the B2B buyer journeys. The main difficulty is the representation of complex product catalogs or classic websites - therefore, external PIMs or CMS are often integrated.
• Marketing-driven B2B commerce: Adobe defines the topic of B2B commerce differently. The commerce solution is the e-commerce cloud known from B2C, Adobe Commerce Cloud, however often as a so-called headless commerce solution in the connection with the leading CMS, the Adobe Experience Manager. For Adobe, in B2B, it is also about experience-driven-commerce, which means they want to create "shoppable experiences". The Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) as CDP is seen as the central solution to understand customers and manage the B2B buyer journeys. Adobe offers a DAM, but no PIM or CRM. Therefore, the solution is often found in combination with others.

Providers and their software solutions at a glance (Illustration of the digital agency Merkle).

As the case studies sketched above show, the solutions of these, and many other manufacturers, are often used in combination with each other. As further highly relevant software platforms for B2B e-commerce can certainly also commercetoools, BigCommerce, Intershop, or Optimizely (formerly Episerver) be mentioned.

As a contrast to the five previously described DXPs, the focus here is clearly on a best-of-breed approach, this means one wants to be "only" the commerce component in the entire B2B ecosystem and therefore offers easy integration possibilities into B2B marketing or CRM.

A difficult question is how Shopify could be organised on this list. Certainly, the B2B requirements sketched out above played no major role up- and expansion of the leading D2C commerce platform. However, one might also say that Shopify outsources this to its partners through its own app store concept.

If you e.g. as a wholesaler, need prices without vat, then you can easily search for "Wholesale" in the Shopify App store and you will certainly find some apps that can help you further. Nevertheless, the multi-multi scenarios mentioned above remain a major disadvantage of Shopify compared to the leading manufacturers. If you as B2B work rather locally, it is certainly worth a look.
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You want to learn more about the services of Salesforce? All tools and helpful articles about the products can be found on our company overview page of Salesforce.

How do you structuredly approach your B2B commerce platform selection?

In conclusion, I would like to briefly summarise once again the tips and tricks scattered in the briefing. The central statements are:

• In B2B e-commerce, it is about more than just online shops.
• B2B buyer journeys are often complex, leading to high software requirements.
• It is difficult to clearly define the software category B2B e-commerce.
• Leading software manufacturers see B2B e-commerce as part of an integrated DXP.
• There are also numerous special providers for B2B e-commerce.

Thus, the question remains of the correct procedure in the selection of the best B2B commerce solution for you. How to choose business software correctly, you can read here in detail again. The guiding thought here is "Good B2B software selection processes resemble good B2B software development processes".

This means that in good B2B software development processes, the later users are at the centre. And if I could give you just one tip, it would be this: Speak extensively with your customers, that is the later users of your B2B portals and customers in your B2B shops. Understand, what kind of software they expect and in which category you find the appropriate software in return.

Of course, you also need to talk with your internal stakeholders, then you understand whether ERP-, CRM-, or marketing-driven approach to B2B e-commerce is most suitable for you. And lastly: Always confirm through demos and references to the products that you are on the right path.

Oh, and of course, that you should read the experiences of others on OMR reviews goes without saying, I hope. The final five-step model for the software selection summarises the tips again briefly and hopefully serves you as a checklist for your B2B e-commerce software selection:

Illustration of the digital agency Merkle.