What is B2B Commerce?
B2B Commerce refers to e-commerce transactions between two businesses. One example would be an auto parts distributor that supplies various auto parts to auto repair shops. The auto repair shops login to distributors online store and order the parts when needed. It seems like a simple and straightforward process but there are many different business scenarios that must be considered in this example. The auto parts distributor may have many different auto repair shops who are their clients. Different repair shops may have negotiated different pricing for the auto parts depending on how much they buy and how often. The auto repair shops may have different needs in terms of the parts they usually order so their desired product catalogs may be different from each other. On the other hand, the distributor might need different levels of control with each of the repair shops. They may also have to allow certain repair shops to pay for the orders later or once a month.
Custom Catalogs and Pricing
In the above example let's dive a little deeper and understand it better. Let's assume that the auto parts distributor has 100 different parts in their inventory. They sell all these parts on their store website. For the sake of simplicity let us assume that each part is listed at a price of $50 each. Now there are two auto repair shops who frequently order parts from this distributor. The first repair shop needs only 50 out of the 100 parts, for the type of work they do. They negotiated a deal with the distributor to buy these parts at $49 each. The second repair shop needs only 25 parts out of the 100, for the work they do, and they negotiated a deal of $48 per part but their minimum order must be at least 50 items per checkout.
The distributor needs to setup both the auto repair shops in their online store. When the first repair shop logs into the store they need to see the 50 products they usually need, listed at $49 per part. The second repair shop needs to see 25 products at $48 each, when they login to the store. In other words, each repair shop needs to see their own custom product catalog at the price they have negotiated with the distributor.
Creating and maintaining custom catalogs with custom pricing is achieved through a concept of "Groups" on the Cart2Order platform. We can create an online store by transferring all the products we want to sell from the inventory to the store. Once the products are in the store anyone can visit the store and order the products at $50 each. Now we can create "Groups" within the store and invite people to join these groups. So, in the above example the distributor needs to create a store with 100 products from the inventory. Next, the distributor needs to create two groups, one for the first repair shop and another one for the second repair shop. Then the distributor can add 50 products for the first repair shop to group one and 25 products for the second repair shop to group two. In the process of adding products to these newly created groups, the distributor can also set different pricing applicable to these groups. The distributor can now invite the people responsible for ordering parts from each of these repair shops to the respective groups.
The concept of "Groups" allows B2B transactions to be configured according to the specific requirements of different business entities.
Custom Order Pads
Now let us go one step further and allow the distributor to create lists of most frequently bought products by each other these repair shops. That would make things so much easier every time the repair shops have to place their orders. They can just select the desired list and place an order and checkout with a single click. Custom order pads or custom product lists feature on all the Cart2Order stores does exactly that. It lets all the registered store users create and maintain their own shopping lists and in case of B2B customers, the store admins also have access to creating and maintaining these lists for their customers.
Multiple Payment Options
Business to business contracts vary from business to business. Some clients prefer to pay by credit card, some prefer to pay by the check. Some want to be billed once a month, some prefer quarterly billings. There are many ways in which business deals can be structured. These B2B purchases are also larger that the usual B2C purchases. The e-commerce platform must allow for different payment options for different B2B customers.
Cart2Order offers multiple payment options that can be configured as a part of the business "Group" settings. Some of these options are payment by credit card, payment by purchase order, payment by terms of the contract etc. These flexible payment options allow businesses to conduct their transactions according to the type of relationship they have with their clients.
Purchase Order Approvals
In a unique scenario the employees of an auto repair shop are allowed to place online orders on their distributor's website, but the order must be approved by one of their managers in order to go through the system.
This can easily be configured using "PO with Approval" payment option in the group settings section of Cart2Order backend.
Business groups with the above setting can now have any of their employees place online orders for the items they need. All they have to do is use a blanket purchase order number for all these orders. The moment these orders are placed, their manager is automatically notified with a link to view, modify, approve or reject these orders. This is a very common scenario in a lot of B2B transactions, but it is a rare feature on most e-commerce platforms.
Budget Control in B2B Transactions
As we have seen so far, B2B commerce requires a lot more flexibility in terms of product catalogs, pricing, payment options etc. Budget control is one more area that cannot be ignored. It is a common practice to set limits on how many or how much a customer can buy. These limits can be imposed per order, per month or per year. The limits can be in terms of quantity or in terms of amount. There are scenarios where the limits apply only to certain products.
With so many different combinations, setting budget control for B2B transactions is as easy at can get on Cart2Order platform. Every combination mentioned above is possible on Cart2Order via its group settings section.
Conclusion
The devil is in the details and how any e-commerce platform handles these details decides how useful that platform is. We have studied numerous e-commerce platforms and found out that hardly any platform handles B2B transaction with such great flexibility and precision as Cart2Order. We are extremely thankful to our clients who have helped us achieve this level of perfection in the world of B2B commerce.
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