Your buyers still
order by email.
For wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers selling to businesses. Business buyers want to see their own prices, quickly repeat what they ordered last month and buy on account. That is not a consumer webshop with a login in front of it; that is an ordering portal.
Where B2B selling gets stuck.
Orders arrive by email and phone
Someone retypes them into your system. That works until volume rises, and then the typos and forgotten orders become the most expensive item in your admin.
Every customer has their own prices
Agreements per account, tiers per quantity, promotions per period. A standard webshop has no room for that, so prices are either missing or wrong everywhere.
Buyers cannot see their order history
What did we order last time, which article number was that, has it shipped. Every question lands on your sales desk.
Stock sits in your ERP, not online
The buyer cannot see what is available, so they call. Or they order something that is not there, and then you call.
The package almost does what you need
Minimum quantities, packaging units, ordering on account with a credit limit. Standard platforms do that halfway, and the other half costs you customers.
Several people per customer company
A buyer orders, a manager approves, the finance team wants the invoices. One login per company is not enough for that.
From range to first order.
Mapping the pricing structure
Which agreements exist per customer, which tiers, which exceptions. In B2B this is always the hardest part and it determines the rest of the build, so it goes first.
Integration with your ERP or bookkeeping
Articles, prices, stock and customers stay where they are now. The portal shows that data and sends orders back; it does not become a second administration.
Ordering the way buyers work
Log in, own prices, quick ordering by article number, repeating previous orders, saved order lists and buying on account within the agreed limit.
Rolling out with a few customers
Your largest accounts first, then the rest. That way you see where the process chafes before your whole customer base is on it.
- ✓Own prices and tiers per customer
- ✓Ordering on account and by article number
- ✓Order history and repeat ordering
- ✓Several users per customer company
- ✓Integration with your ERP or bookkeeping
- ✓Repository and hosting in your name
The price depends mainly on the integration and the pricing logic, not on the number of articles. After a half-hour call you get a cost indication, after Discovery a fixed price.
How B2B differs from an ordinary webshop
A consumer webshop shows everyone the same price and takes payment immediately. In B2B neither assumption holds. That is why a standard webshop with a login in front of it almost always breaks the moment the first real customer starts using it.
Prices per account
Every customer sees their own agreements: net prices, discount groups or tiers per quantity. Those prices usually come from your ERP and should stay there.
Ordering on account
Business buyers pay afterwards, within a credit limit and a payment term. Card payment is an addition, not the starting point.
Minimum quantities and packaging
Per box, per pallet, per multiple of twelve. If your shop does not know that, your sales desk corrects every order by hand.
Several users per customer
Buyers, approvers and finance, each with their own rights under the same customer account. Often including delivery addresses per branch.
Platform or custom
There are good B2B platforms, and if the way you sell fits one, you buy it. That is live faster and cheaper than what I do, and I would rather say so in the first call than halfway through a project.
It pinches at one point, and that point is the same at every wholesaler: the pricing and discount logic you agreed with your customers over the years. If that does not fit the package's model, you pay for years in workarounds your sales desk keeps doing by hand.
Take a platform if
your range and prices are standard, you want to be live quickly and you are willing to adapt your process to the software. Then a monthly subscription is the cheapest route.
Build custom if
your pricing logic or your ERP integration is what makes the difference, or if the portal has to do more than ordering: documents, service reports, project status. Then the software bends to your process.
The integration is the project
In a B2B portal the work is rarely in the screens and almost always in the integration. Articles, customer-specific prices, stock and orders have to move both ways, reliably, with a plan for what happens when the other system is briefly down.
That is exactly where these projects go wrong: a portal that looks good but whose stock is a day behind costs you more trust than no portal at all. What I integrate with is on tech.
- ✓Articles and prices from your ERP
- ✓Stock live or at fixed intervals
- ✓Orders back into your system
- ✓Customer-specific agreements preserved
- ✓Error handling when a system fails
- ✓A test environment beside production
What it costs
In the market a B2B portal with an ERP integration starts around five thousand euros and custom work runs into the tens of thousands, depending on how much process is involved. Those are realistic ranges; for you the number hangs mostly on the integration and the pricing logic.
Here you get one fixed price for the whole track after Discovery, without reconciliation afterwards. How that works is on pricing. If you also sell to consumers, that track is on ecommerce development.
Logged in as the contact at Jansen BV. Sees only their own projects, and margin is not customer information.
| Project | Status | Revenue | Margin | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JAJansen BVoffice refit | In progress | €42,500 | hidden for this role | |
| JAJansen BVmeeting room | Quoted | €8,900 | hidden for this role |
2 of 6 projects · margin hidden · read only
using ( customer_id = auth.uid() )The difference is not hidden buttons. That rule in the bottom right sits in the database itself, so a tampered request from the browser gets nothing extra back either.
What does a B2B webshop cost?
Can it integrate with my ERP or bookkeeping?
Can customers see their own agreed prices?
Can buyers order on account?
Is a platform like Shopify B2B not cheaper?
Can it run alongside our existing webshop?
How long does it take?
Tell me what you
want to build.
A half-hour call. You get an honest answer about what it costs, how long it takes and whether building it is smart at all.