Strategies and Platforms for Award-Winning B2B Ecommerce
In today’s fast-paced digital world, finding the right B2B ecommerce platform is essential for businesses aiming to optimize operations and expand their reach. B2B ecommerce platforms are changing how companies do business with each other online. These tools let businesses sell products and services to other businesses through websites and apps. They make it easier to manage orders, track inventory, and handle payments, offering features like custom pricing, bulk ordering, and account management that regular online stores don’t have.
Delivering an Award-Winning Platform for Wolseley
Wolseley is one of the UK’s leading plumbing, heating, cooling and infrastructure specialists, whose aim is to be the first choice for trade customers across the country. With over 500 UK branches and 400,000 products, Wolseley wanted to help their customers better manage their business before, during and after a job. For independent tradespeople, time spent sourcing materials and managing business admin is time away from the job and lost money. Wolseley knew that fragmented and inefficient search and sourcing as well as purchasing processes were a major pain point for this audience in particular.
In partnership with VML they set about investing in a new digital platform. VML focussed on developing a cutting edge B2B commerce platform to achieve three key aims:
- To complement the offline store
- Transforming the customer journey - making it easier, shorter, and more accessible
- To deliver value to Wolseley customers by helping them find products and manage purchases more efficiently
Hannah Foley, Director of Digital Customer Experience at Wolseley UK, stated: “Winning ‘Best B2B Site of the year’ and ‘Best Site Migration’ at the UK Dev Awards 2023 was the icing on the cake!”
Technical Innovation and Architecture
The strategy for delivering this outcome was built around replatforming to HCL v9, benefiting from a revamped site architecture to guarantee slick, high-speed performance. We based the build around a modern containerised architecture, building a headless front-end in React, to enable super-fast loading and response times. This was integral to the goal of delivering a slicker, more responsive CX, and to enable rapid feature releases in the future. With the headless architecture in place, migration from the existing legacy front-end onto the new headless architecture was undertaken in a staged fashion across different site features. We ensured that releases took place with zero downtime or disruption to customer trading.
AI-Powered Search Solutions
A centrepiece of the project was the development of a ‘Find It First Time’ AI-powered search facility. With a product catalogue containing more than 400,000 products, intelligent search is essential to providing a smoother, more efficient CX and reducing time on-site. We used language processing AI that smartly analyses the search terms used by customers to match them accurately with relevant products. Moreover, machine learning capabilities mean the search function will continually learn from how customers use the site to provide better matches over time.
Top B2B Ecommerce Platforms to Consider Today
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is a powerful ecommerce platform designed for high-growth businesses. It offers advanced features to help you scale your online store and manage B2B operations efficiently. You can customize your storefront using APIs and create a unique shopping experience for your customers. The platform allows you to tailor your business solutions and add custom data to meet your specific needs. It’s best suited for businesses making between $1 million and $500 million in annual revenue.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Advanced customization options | Higher price point |
| B2B and wholesale features | May be too complex for small businesses |
| Good for growing businesses | Requires technical knowledge for full utilization |
| Scalable for high-growth businesses | - |
BigCommerce Enterprise
BigCommerce offers a powerful enterprise ecommerce platform for large businesses. You can create online stores with many features to meet your needs and manage multiple storefronts from one place. BigCommerce gives you tools to handle B2B and B2C sales. You can set up custom pricing and catalogs for different customer groups, and the platform also supports in-store pickup options.
Expanding B2B Payment Capabilities
American Express is also building out a global, multi-rail B2B network to act as a digital, one-stop shop where any business can buy and sell easily, quickly, and in one place, no matter what kind of payment is required. The card company aims to spur more business spending by corporate clients. Last month, for example, American Express gave small business owners access to a virtual credit card that was previously available only to corporate clients. The acquisition of expense management platform Center was part of the company's push to expand B2B payment volume.
