B2B ordering portal or webshop: which one do you need?

When a business customer wants to order online, almost everyone thinks of a webshop first. Sometimes that is the right answer. But a large share of the B2B orders I come across are not purchases, they are reorders. Same customer, same items, every week or every month. A webshop is not made for that.

The difference in one sentence

A webshop helps someone who does not yet know what they want by showing what is available. An ordering portal helps someone who knows exactly what they want by letting them order as fast as possible. Product photos, filters and recommendations are essential in the first case and mostly in the way in the second.

What an ordering portal does differently

• Customer-specific prices. Each customer sees their own terms, tiers and discounts, and never anyone else's.
• Order lists. The items this customer always orders are ready, with last time's quantities. Reordering is adjusting quantities and confirming.
• Quick entry by item number. A buyer who knows their numbers wants to type or paste them instead of searching.
• Ordering on account. No checkout page with a card payment, but an order that is invoiced on the payment terms you agreed.
• Several users per company, with different permissions. One person may order up to a certain amount, someone else approves.
• An integration with your ERP, so the order lands in your system directly and stock and prices come from one source.

That last one is not an extra. An ordering portal that forwards orders by email for someone to retype has solved half the problem. The integration with your ERP or accounting software is usually the largest part of the work.

When an ordering portal beats a webshop

• Your customers are mostly regulars who order repeatedly.
• Prices differ per customer, and a handful of discount groups cannot capture that.
• Your range is large or technical, and your customers order by item number.
• Orders are placed on account, not paid up front.
• You want customers to see their order status, invoices or documents as well.

When a webshop is the better choice

If you want to win new business customers who do not know you yet, you have to be found and you have to convince. Then you need product pages that rank in Google, a range people can browse and a way to order or sign up without an account. That is a B2B webshop. If your range is manageable and your prices are the same for everyone, a standard webshop platform is often simply the cheapest route.

In practice many companies need both: a public catalogue for those who do not know you yet, and a closed environment where regular customers reorder quickly. That can be one system, as long as you know which part is for whom.

You measure a webshop by how many new customers order. You measure an ordering portal by how many calls and emails stop coming in.

Where I would start

Look at the orders of the past few months. What share comes from regular customers who mostly order the same things, and how do those orders arrive now? If it is by email, phone or a spreadsheet someone retypes, that is where the gain is. The calculation is worked out in when a client portal pays for itself.

An ordering portal is a form of B2B portal. How I build one is on client portal development, and what it costs is on the cost of a client portal.