6 Best Wholesale eCommerce Platforms to Boost Your Profits
Quick Summary
Like B2C businesses, B2B businesses are also joining the digital commerce revolution to tap into the global markets.
By starting a wholesale eCommerce store, you can ensure benefits like cost efficiency, better customer experience, data-driven decisions, and enhanced efficiency.
Some popular wholesale eCommerce platforms are Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, SuiteCommerce, and Prestashop.
To choose the right one among wholesale eCommerce platforms, consider your budget, integration capabilities, SEO features, catalog and search functionalities, and payment options.
Technology has been the major driver of transformation in recent times. It has helped businesses change the way they operate and reach great heights. eCommerce has also seen rapid growth, facilitating companies to sell their products easily across the world.
The buzz of online selling isn’t just confined to B2C businesses. The B2B world is also going through a sea change. The traditional wholesale model is under transition as companies are now realizing the potential of wholesale eCommerce stores. Through the power of the internet, B2B wholesalers can smoothen operations, expand clients, and boost sales.
Whether you are a recognized wholesaler or just starting out with eCommerce development services, you must choose an ideal platform to run your operations. In this blog, we will discuss the top reasons B2B companies are shifting towards online selling, top eCommerce platforms for wholesale businesses, and how you can select a perfect one. Let’s get started:
Reasons B2B Companies are Focusing on Wholesale eCommerce
With the rise of digital advancements and rapid growth of the eCommerce industry, traditional B2B businesses are now embracing digital commerce and capitalizing on global business opportunities.
Let’s see what statistics say about this digital transformation of B2B businesses:
B2B buyers are willing to spend money on online purchases. 71% of buyers are able to spend more than $50,000 in a single transaction, and 27% of buyers will spend $500,000 or more.
While sales potential is the main reason behind this wholesale eCommerce revolution, there are other reasons, too.
Cost Efficiency
Wholesale eCommerce provides B2B companies with the ability to lower operational costs substantially. Typically, traditional B2B sales are associated with intensive overheads for physical storefronts, large sales teams, and manually processed orders.
Moving to an online platform would enable companies to carry out their operations much more leanly, dispensing less need for human resources and intensive physical infrastructure, thus saving costs.
Better Customer Experience
Modern B2B buyers want a low-friction, easy buying experience, much the same as they would get in B2C eCommerce.
Advanced functionality like custom pricing and quoting, bulk ordering, and easy reordering options are provided by wholesale eCommerce platforms to help increase customer satisfaction. Detailed product information and real-time inventory levels let customers make informed decisions regarding purchases, thus strengthening business relationships.
Data-Driven Decisions
Wholesale eCommerce platforms provide relevant data and valuable insights. Real-time information about customer behavior, sales trends, or inventory levels is made known to the company for proper decision-making.
Therefore, with this data-driven approach, you can better optimize your product offerings and more efficiently plan inventory and targeted marketing strategies. Being able to analyze and act on this data is what keeps the business competitive and responsive to the market.
Improved Efficiency and Productivity
eCommerce reduces the manual work for the sales and support teams by automating large portions of the sales process. This provides employees with time to engage in more strategic issues relating to customer relationship management and business development.
The efficiency gained from automated order processing, inventory management, and customer support raises productivity and enables better resource allocation.
Top eCommerce Platforms for Wholesale Businesses
Now, you know the importance of getting into wholesale eCommerce. But you might ask, which platform should you choose? Here are some of the best wholesale eCommerce platforms you must consider:
Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms. It also facilitates B2B wholesale, with some dedicated B2B tools available only in the Shopify Plus plan. The Shopify Plus plan takes B2B wholesale to new dimensions.
Key Features:
Multi-location management: Manage orders across multiple locations easily within a single account
Volume-based discounts and tax exemptions: Fast-track ordering, promote bulk orders, and simplify tax management.
Customizable B2B storefronts: Personalize your wholesale storefronts to your branding and B2B customer’s taste. Configure themes, navigation, and checkout flows.
Pricing lists and quantity discounts: Set up pricing rules and activate quantity-based, customer group, or product-related discounts.
Custom shipping rules: Set up custom shipping rules based on different factors, such as product weight, order total, or customer location.
Minimum and maximum order quantities: Configure the minimum and maximum order quantities per product directly in product configuration.
Pricing: Major B2B features are available in the Shopify Plus plan only, which starts from $2300/month.
WooCommerce is one of the best open source eCommerce platforms on the market. It’s a great choice when it comes to B2B wholesale businesses. It provides an exhaustive set of features that wholesalers need to meet their unique needs, from custom pricing to tiered discounts, seamless order management, and customer experience personalization.
Key Features:
Tax-exempt customers and orders: Provide a smoother checkout experience and simplify accounting for B2B transactions.
Track stock levels with warnings of minimum order quantities: This feature keeps the inventory in balance by avoiding overselling and a stockout situation.
Extensive range of plugins for B2B functionality: This helps adapt to changing business requirements.
Delayed payment options suitable for B2B transactions: This helps enhance cash flow both for the buyer and the seller.
Customer-specific catalogs and pricing options: Improve customer experience while maximizing profitability.
Show or hide certain products to different customer groups: Ease product management and enhance the user experience.
Pricing: While WooCommerce is an open source platform, you need to add the B2B plugin for wholesale operations. It starts from $14.92/month.
Magento is also a popular choice for B2B businesses because of its flexibility and functionality in fastening wholesale business. You can easily create a stylish online storefront showcasing your latest collections and items. Drag-and-drop intuitive tools, with no coding skills required, allow you to design an engaging, user-friendly website and keep you focused on the core business.
Key Features:
Customer-specific pricing and catalogs: Personalize pricing strategies and improve robust relationships with various types of clients.
Quick order forms: Simplify ordering, increasing customer satisfaction and saving time.
Personalized offers and volume-based discounts: Increase average order value and reward loyal customers.
Saved lists of frequently purchased items: Save buyers time and then encourage buyers to reorder items.
Multiple payment options and credit lines: It is easier to conduct larger transactions and build stronger business relationships.
Integration with major carriers and customized shipping options: Be more agile with shipping solutions for customers.
Pricing: Magento offers both open source and SaaS eCommerce. While the open source version is free to use, other costs like hosting, development, and plugins can add up. For the SaaS version, you can request custom pricing through their website.
BigCommerce is built with the B2B wholesaler in mind. It empowers you to craft a custom storefront online that you can easily integrate with your current systems.
Key Features:
Tiered pricing, customer group discounting, quote management: BigCommerce offers various pricing structures.
Customization: The open API and a huge marketplace of apps help to make a tailor-made platform for customers.
Customer experience: Allows for personalized shopping experiences with customer groups and custom catalogs.
Tech-savvy wholesalers: The headless commerce model enables business flexibility where needed most, especially when development resources are available.
Complex product catalogs and high transaction volumes: Complex inventory and pricing structures are easily managed.
Pricing: BigCommerce also offers both open source and SaaS eCommerce versions. The SaaS pricing starts from $29/month.
NetSuite SuiteCommerce offers robust flexibility for B2B wholesalers. The intuitive online storefront offers products front and center as inventory management and efficient order processing support keep operations running smoothly in the back. SuiteCommerce also supports bulk ordering and custom pricing for niche brands.
Key Features:
Precise stock levels: Eliminate the overselling and inaccurate inventory for B2B customers.
Easy quoting, ordering, and reordering: Simplifies the buying and selling process for both B2B wholesalers and buyers.
Personalized pricing and product visibility: Targeting particular customers or groups drives loyalty and maximizes profitability.
Purchase orders, credit cards, and ACH payments: Flexibility in payment options accommodate a range of B2B preferences.
Complex pricing structures: Tier pricing, customer-specific discounts, and contract pricing are all supported by NetSuite.
Pricing: SuiteCommerce’s pricing is determined by the number of modules and users, so you need to make an inquiry for a price quote.
PrestaShop is a powerful platform for industrial B2B wholesalers to digitize operations and create a great experience for buyers. It offers custom price lists for customer segments, tiered discounts, and other features.
Key Features:
Access control over products, categories, and pages: Ease shopping experiences for various customer segments, raising personalization and sales
Product catalog management and variations: Serve divergent customers’ needs
Convert quote with cart link to order: Simplify quote-to-order and raise customer satisfaction
Tax exemption on a customer/customer group basis: Easy management of tax and catering of B2B customers
Pricing: PrestaShop is an open source platform, so the source code is free to use. However, you might need to spend on B2B plugins, hosting, and other things.
G2 rating: 4.3/5
How to Choose a Wholesale eCommerce Platform?
So, you have got a business plan to sell online and some amazing platform options as well. Still confused about making a final decision for the eCommerce platform?
Don’t worry; we aren’t done yet. Here are some top things you should look for when choosing a platform:
Matches the Budget
When looking for a wholesale eCommerce platform, you want to know if it fits within your budget and long-term strategy.
Consider these questions:
What is the overall cost of getting the site up and running? Are there any out-of-box integrations that will help you save money?
How easy is it to maintain the site?
What will be updated for you versus what you have to update manually?
Are you responsible for security and upgrades?
Integration Options
The days of monolithic systems are gone now. Today, an eCommerce platform should be able to integrate with other software systems to deliver a frictionless buying experience to customers.
Make sure the eCommerce site you go with has flexible APIs for ease of integration with your existing business systems like ERP, CRM, PIM, etc.
SEO Capabilities
Like any other business, wholesale customers are relying on the Internet to find products. Quality content driven by SEO optimization is crucial to help shoppers find your site and make a decision once they’re there. Your ideal platform should offer eCommerce SEO features to optimize the content that answers the questions of customers.
Also, once the customers are on your site, a lean landing page — from descriptions to technical specifications — can get them confident in knowing that they’re actually getting the exact products they need.
Catalog Browsing and Search Functionalities
When you have a large catalog with thousands of SKUs, you want to make sure customers can find the exact wholesale products they need.
One way is through multi-dimensional search capability, whereby shoppers could filter by certain product features — say, size, weight, and color — to narrow their search results.
Another option is using AI-driven search technology to guarantee buyers find what they need.
Offer consumers more ways to view your products, and you’ll expedite their shopping, open yourself to more significant revenue opportunities, and make sure that the transaction processing is varied.
Payment Options
It is important to reduce friction in B2B businesses. How a business takes payments can make a world of difference in the overall success of its eCommerce channel, and the payment gateway and payment options you choose can make a big difference.
B2B payments aren’t as straightforward as popping in a credit card number or logging into a PayPal account — buyers might not want to put a forty-thousand dollar order on a credit card. Knowing the options—from traditional credit cards through to Buy Now, Pay Later systems—can add flexibility to your purchasing process.
FAQs on Wholesale eCommerce Platforms
Q1. What are some of the benefits of building a wholesale eCommerce site?
With an ecommerce site for your business, you will find there are a number of benefits: creating an online presence for your products, real-time data from customers and quality information, automating your business for smooth operations, improving the customer experience, increasing the sales volume of your business, and several other benefits.
Q2. How can I offer a personalized experience in my wholesale eCommerce store?
Customers love personalized experiences. For this, automate your entire store so that they won’t require any assistance during transactions and for convenience. Also, a note of welcome for them as they come into your store and a message to appreciate them for their patronage.
Q3. What features do wholesale eCommerce stores need?
To service the customers effectively, your wholesale online store should add some important features to avoid a completely stand-alone experience. Such features may include search filters for searches, catalogs, options for payment media, etc. You may also segment your customers for pricing and product search, and even discounts and promotions.
Conclusion
It’s clear that choosing the right solution can significantly impact your business’s success. These platforms offer a range of features tailored to the unique needs of wholesale operations, from bulk pricing to customer-specific catalogs and streamlined order management.
As you consider your options, remember to prioritize scalability, integration capabilities, and user experience for both you and your customers. Whether you opt for a specialized wholesale platform or a versatile solution that caters to both B2B and B2C markets, ensure it aligns with your long-term business goals.
And if you want to opt for a customized wholesale eCommerce store, consult our experts!
John Niles, a dedicated Technical Consultant at BrainSpate since 2023, specializes in eCommerce. With a global perspective, he crafts insightful content on cutting-edge web development technologies, enriching the digital commerce landscape.
