B2B e-commerce: how it works and how to launch it

In short: a B2B e-commerce store is an online shop reserved for business customers: each company signs in, sees its own price list, reorders in a few clicks and pays on terms. To launch one, you pick a platform such as Shopify B2B or WooCommerce, connect it to your ERP or management software and bring your regular customers online first.

Key takeaways

The core of B2B e-commerce is a login-only portal: company accounts with several buyers, customer-specific price lists, order minimums and payment terms.
Without an ERP integration the portal becomes a second system to update by hand: customer records, prices, stock and orders must sync on their own.
Shopify B2B suits companies that want ready-made features and little maintenance; WooCommerce suits those already on WordPress who want full control and accept more technical work.
Start with customers who reorder the same items often: they bring the first online orders and free up time for your sales office.

Business-to-business online trade is bigger than it looks, but much of it still runs through channels nobody sees. According to Eurostat, in 2024 23.6% of EU enterprises with 10 or more staff sold online, to businesses or consumers, and e-sales accounted for 19.5% of total turnover: 11.1% came through EDI, the automated exchange of orders between business systems, and 8.4% through websites and apps. Of web sales, the larger share went to other businesses and public authorities (4.34% of turnover) rather than consumers (4.04%), and turnover through companies' own websites and apps was more than five times that through marketplaces. In Italy, the Politecnico di Milano B2B Digital Commerce & Experience Observatory put product B2B digital commerce at €278 billion in 2024 (research presented in October 2025), up 5% on 2023, yet that is only 22% of transactions in the supply chains it tracks. The rest still moves by phone, email, PDF and sales reps.

For a manufacturer, distributor or wholesaler this means two things. Buyers shop online every day in their private lives and expect the same from suppliers. And moving reorders online frees sales time for new accounts and the deals that matter. If you sell to both businesses and consumers, start with the differences between B2B and B2C strategies: pricing, buying processes and decision times all change.

What is B2B e-commerce and how is it different from B2C?

B2B e-commerce is the online sale of products or services from one business to another, through a website, a login-only portal or direct data exchange between systems. The difference from B2C is not the technology but the way people buy: the buyer orders on behalf of an organisation, on negotiated terms, in larger quantities and on a recurring basis.

Aspect	B2C e-commerce	B2B e-commerce
Price	Same for everyone, with promotions	Price list per customer or group, volume discounts
Who buys	One person	Several users from the same company, with roles and approvals
Typical order	A few items, often one-off	Large quantities, minimums and case packs, frequent reorders
Payment	Card or wallet at checkout	Bank transfer or direct debit at 30-60 days, credit limit
Documents	Receipt, invoice on request	Order confirmation, delivery note, e-invoice
Access	Public catalog	Prices, and often the catalog, visible only after login

That is why a standard online store with a "trade price list" bolted on rarely works for long. It copes while customers are few; then special prices handled through discount codes and orders fixed by hand in the sales office become the bottleneck.

What types of B2B e-commerce are there?

"B2B e-commerce" covers several models, and they often coexist in the same company. Before choosing a platform, work out which one your customers need.

Model	How it works	When it makes sense
Login-only B2B portal	A site or area behind a login where each customer sees its price list, terms and order history	Resellers, installers and regular customers who reorder often
Hybrid B2B and B2C store	One site for consumers and businesses, with prices and access set per customer group	You already sell online to consumers and want to add business buyers without a second site
B2B marketplace	You sell inside a third-party platform where companies buy with business accounts, such as Amazon Business	Reaching new buyers, accepting the rules, terms and costs set by the marketplace
EDI	Orders, confirmations and invoices flow directly between customer and supplier systems in a structured format	Large customers and chains that require it, with high volumes and standard orders

According to Eurostat, in 2024 17.99% of EU enterprises sold online only through websites or apps, 2.9% only through EDI and 2.7% through both. For most manufacturers and distributors the starting point is their own portal: the customers stay yours, so does the data, and marketplaces become an extra channel for being found. If foreign markets are your goal, I cover channels and marketplaces in the guide to B2B digital export.

What are the benefits of B2B e-commerce?

The main benefit is not "selling online" in the abstract, but taking manual work out of the order cycle and giving customers a service that is always available.

Self-service reordering at any hour: customers check prices, stock and order status without calling and without waiting for the rep.
Lower operating costs and fewer errors: an order that lands straight in the ERP does not need retyping, so no wrong codes, swapped quantities or credit notes for outdated prices.
Tailored offer for every customer: negotiated catalogs, prices and terms become system rules, not exceptions someone has to remember.
New markets: a multilingual online catalog lets you serve foreign customers without opening branches, as long as translations and language versions are handled properly, as I explain in the guide to multilingual e-commerce.
Purchasing data: you know who buys what, how often and who has stopped ordering, so a salesperson can step in before the customer is lost.
Sales time freed up: reps and the sales office work on new accounts, quotes and negotiations instead of order entry.

How does a B2B e-commerce platform work?

A B2B e-commerce platform is the software that manages catalog, prices, orders and business customers with rules a consumer store does not have. Four features really matter.

Login-only portal and company accounts

The customer is not a person but a company, with one or more locations and several buyers. Shopify, for example, structures data as companies, locations (with billing and shipping addresses) and contacts who order on the company's behalf; each location gets its own catalog, payment terms and tax exemptions. Sign-up is usually not open: a new customer applies, the sales office checks the VAT number and terms, then grants access.

Customer-specific price lists and quantity rules

A customer-specific price list is the set of negotiated prices a company sees after logging in, different from what other customers see. It comes with tiered pricing, order minimums, case packs (for example, cartons of 12 only) and restricted catalogs: an installer sees only the product lines it is authorised to buy. These rules should come from the ERP, not be retyped on the website.

Recurring orders and quick reordering

In B2B a large share of revenue comes from repeat orders. So you need order history with a "reorder" button, saved shopping lists, quick entry by SKU or CSV upload and, where it makes sense, scheduled orders. This is where the portal saves the most time, both for the customer and for whoever now retypes emailed orders into the ERP.

Payment terms and documents

Business customers almost always pay on terms. The portal has to handle payment terms per customer, credit limits and the data needed for e-invoicing, which in Italy is mandatory for VAT-registered businesses invoicing customers resident or established in Italy, with a few exemptions. How to set up deferred payment, B2B buy now pay later and cash reconciliation is covered in the guide to B2B payments in e-commerce.

Why connect your B2B store to the ERP?

Because without an integration the portal becomes a second system to update by hand, and sooner or later prices and stock stop matching. An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is the system that runs customer records, inventory, orders, invoicing and accounting: it should stay the source of truth, while the store reads from it and sends orders back.

From ERP to store: customer and location records, price lists and discounts, products, stock and availability.
From store to ERP: new orders, account applications, quote requests.
Back to the store: order status, delivery notes, shipment tracking and invoices to download from the customer area.
To the CRM: orders, quote requests and customers who have stopped reordering, so sales staff and reps see the full history of every account.

There are three ways to do it. The first is a ready-made connector between platform and ERP, when one exists and is maintained. The second is an automation layer such as Make or n8n, which moves data between the two systems' APIs with rules, checks and error alerts: it is the most flexible option when the ERP has APIs but no reliable connector. The third is a custom integration, needed with legacy systems or very high volumes. If your largest customers already order via EDI, the portal does not replace it: it serves everyone else.

The same goes for what happens after the order: if it has to reach the warehouse or the carrier with no manual steps, plan the store and logistics digitalisation together. Any step where someone copies data from one system to another is a candidate for business process automation. Designing these flows between website, ERP and automations is the core of my e-commerce and automation services.

Shopify B2B or WooCommerce: which platform should you choose?

It depends on how much you want to run in-house. Shopify B2B gives you ready-made B2B features in a subscription service; WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin that becomes B2B through extensions and gives you full control, at the cost of more technical work.

Criterion	Shopify B2B	WooCommerce
Model	Subscription platform, hosting included	Free WordPress plugin, you handle hosting
B2B features	Built in: companies and locations, customer catalogs, payment terms, quantity rules, volume pricing, reordering	Through extensions (for example B2B for WooCommerce): role- or customer-based pricing, hidden prices for guests, quotes, registration approval, VAT number validation
B2B catalogs	Up to 3 on Basic, Grow and Advanced, unlimited on Plus	No platform limit: depends on the extensions
B2B and consumers	Same store or a separate B2B-only store	Same site, with prices and access split by user role
Maintenance	Updates and security handled by the platform	WordPress, plugin and server updates to look after
Choose it when	You want to launch fast with standard features and little upkeep	You already run WordPress, have unusual rules or want to avoid a platform fee

There are also enterprise B2B platforms and portals supplied by ERP vendors: they make sense with very large catalogs, product configurators or complex quoting. For most SMEs selling to resellers and installers, one of the two options above is enough. If you are leaning towards WordPress, also see how AI is changing CMSs like WordPress: it affects how you manage product pages and content.

How much does B2B e-commerce cost?

There is no single price, because the cost depends less on the platform and more on how much work it takes to connect it to your ERP and clean up the data. It helps to think in cost items.

Item	Type of cost	What it depends on
Platform	Recurring	Shopify charges a monthly fee; WooCommerce is free but needs hosting and WordPress maintenance
B2B extensions and apps	Recurring	Features the platform lacks out of the box: quotes, pricing rules, VAT number validation
ERP integration	Upfront and maintenance	Available APIs, existing connectors, number of flows to sync, order volumes
Data preparation	Upfront	Quality of customer records, price lists, product data and images already in the ERP
Payments	Variable	Accepted methods (bank transfer, card, payment on terms) and payment provider fees
Customer onboarding	Upfront	Communication, training for reps and the sales office, support in the first weeks

To give the platform items a sense of scale: as of 10 November 2026, Shopify's pricing page, billed yearly, lists plans from €19 a month for Basic to €289 for Advanced, all including Shopify B2B with up to 3 catalogs, while Shopify Plus starts at €2,100 a month. On the WooCommerce side, the B2B for WooCommerce extension cost €135 for a one-year plan. Prices change often, so check the official pages before deciding. The platform is still the easiest item to estimate; integration and data vary most from one company to another, and that is where you should ask for a detailed quote.

When does B2B e-commerce make sense?

It makes sense when many customers reorder similar items, each with different prices, and your sales office spends hours keying in orders. It makes less sense if you close a handful of custom projects a year: there you need a solid quoting process, a CRM and targeted work on key accounts, as in account-based marketing.

Take a scenario: an electrical supplies distributor with 300 installer customers and three sales reps. Orders arrive by WhatsApp and email, and someone retypes them into the ERP. With a B2B portal connected to the ERP, each installer sees its own prices and real stock, reorders from history and gets an automatic confirmation. Reps order through the same portal for the customers they manage, and the sales office stops retyping and handles only the exceptions.

How do you get a B2B store found on Google?

A B2B portal is built for the customers you already have, but it can only bring in new ones if the catalog is visible. Google itself explains that its crawler does not crawl pages that are only accessible after logging in: put everything behind a login and, for search engines, your catalog does not exist.

The most common fix is to split content into two layers:

Public: categories, product pages with descriptions, technical specifications, certifications and downloadable documents, pages per application or industry, and a "become a customer" or "become a reseller" form.
Login-only: customer prices, stock, payment terms, order history and administrative documents.

B2B product pages need to answer the questions of someone who has to justify the purchase: dimensions, compatibility, standards, lead times. AI-powered search engines use the same information when they cite a supplier, as I explain in the guide to generative engine optimization. If your catalog is large and you want help, here is how to choose an e-commerce and B2B SEO consultant. To bring new customers' enquiries all the way to the portal, organic search should run alongside a B2B lead generation strategy.

What rules apply when you sell online to other businesses?

Selling to businesses also changes your obligations. This is not legal advice, but these are the points to check with your adviser before opening the portal.

Right of withdrawal: the 14-day withdrawal right under the EU Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU belongs to the consumer, meaning a natural person acting for purposes outside their trade or profession. In business-to-business contracts, returns and cancellations are whatever your B2B terms and conditions say, and those terms should be clear and accepted at sign-up or checkout.
E-invoicing: in Italy it is mandatory for VAT-registered businesses invoicing customers resident or established in Italy, with the exemptions set out by the Agenzia delle Entrate; the portal must collect the required details (recipient code or certified email) and pass them to the ERP. Other countries have their own rules, so check where your customers are based.
Privacy: even when you sell to companies, you process personal data. According to the European Commission, an address such as name.surname@company.com is personal data, while a generic address such as info@company.com is not. You need a privacy notice, consent management for marketing and care over who, inside the customer company, can see which orders.
VAT-registered customers: if you apply tax exemptions or reserved terms, you need to know that whoever signs up really is a business. Some extensions, such as B2B for WooCommerce, validate European VAT numbers automatically at checkout; otherwise the sales office checks before activating the account.

What are the trends in B2B e-commerce?

The direction is clear, even if the pace varies a lot by industry. In Italy there is still a long way to go: according to the Politecnico di Milano Observatory, three in four large companies are in the early stages of a customer-centric approach, and only 48% of large companies use a CRM or other specialised software to collect and integrate business customer data.

Personalisation based on customer data

Catalogs, prices and reorder suggestions built on each account's history. You do not need a sophisticated system to start: the ERP and CRM data just has to be connected to the portal.

Omnichannel experience

The same customer orders through the portal, calls the rep, emails customer service and visits you at a trade fair: everyone needs to see the same information. How to build it in practice is covered in the guide to omnichannel B2B customer experience.

AI in the catalog and in day-to-day management

Platforms are building in AI: Shopify includes an AI assistant in its plans and lists selling in AI chats among its features, and extensions such as B2B for WooCommerce let you set wholesale prices and quote rules by typing plain-language commands. The most useful B2B uses are catalog search by SKU or description, product content and answers to recurring technical questions: I cover them in the guide to AI in retail and e-commerce.

Automating the whole order cycle

From account application to invoice, through payments, logistics and reminders: the portal is only the visible part of a process that works well when systems talk to each other on their own.

How to apply it in your company: first steps

Pick your first customer group. Start with 20-30 customers who often reorder the same items. Measurable goal: the share of their orders placed through the portal after three months.
Clean up your ERP data. Check that customer records, locations, price lists, payment terms and stock are accurate and readable through an API or export. This is the longest job and the one that decides the outcome.
Choose the platform from your rules. List the pricing, quantity and payment rules you actually use and check which ones the platform handles without custom development.
Prepare terms of sale, privacy and the public catalog. Write your B2B terms and conditions (returns, payment, delivery), update the privacy notice and decide which product pages stay visible to Google and which only after login.
Automate the order flow. Order from portal to ERP, confirmation to the customer, status and tracking back to the portal. Measure the average time between order received and order entered, before and after.
Bring sales reps on board. Have reps show the portal during visits, let them order on behalf of customers and tie commissions to the account, not the channel. Then open access to everyone.

Mistakes to avoid

Catalog online without customer prices: a buyer who finds a public price list and has to email for a discount goes back to the phone.
Price lists maintained by hand on the website: one missed price update is enough to trigger disputes and credit notes.
Launching without the sales team: if reps see the portal as a competitor, they stop promoting it.
A checkout copied from B2C: without payment terms, e-invoicing fields and internal order approval, the buyer cannot complete the purchase.
The entire catalog behind a login: existing customers find it, new ones do not, because Google does not crawl login-only pages.
Measuring online revenue only: time saved on order entry and errors avoided count too.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

What is B2B e-commerce?

It is an online store where one business sells to other businesses, usually through a login-only portal. Each customer signs in, sees its negotiated prices, orders in minimums and case packs and pays on terms. Orders flow straight into the supplier's ERP or management software.

How is B2B e-commerce different from B2C?

In B2C everyone sees the same price and pays upfront by card. In B2B each customer has its own price list, orders larger and repeated quantities, involves several people from the same company and pays at 30 or 60 days against an invoice. That calls for features a standard online store does not have.

Is Shopify a good fit for B2B e-commerce?

For many companies, yes. Shopify B2B handles companies with several locations and buyers, customer-specific catalogs, payment terms, quantity rules and quick reordering, even inside the same store that sells to consumers. The Basic, Grow and Advanced plans allow up to 3 B2B catalogs, while Shopify Plus has no limit.

Can you run B2B e-commerce on WooCommerce?

Yes, by adding B2B extensions to WooCommerce, the e-commerce plugin for WordPress. Extensions such as B2B for WooCommerce add role-based or customer-specific pricing, hidden prices for guests, quote requests and registration approval. It works well if you already run WordPress and have someone looking after updates and security.

Do you need to connect a B2B store to your ERP?

Almost always. The ERP should remain the source of customer records, price lists and stock, and the store should send orders back without anyone retyping them. You can use a ready-made connector, an automation layer such as Make or n8n, or a custom integration, depending on the available APIs and order volumes.

Does a B2B portal replace sales reps?

No, it changes their job. Reorders move to the portal, while reps focus on new accounts, quotes and negotiations. Let reps place orders through the portal on behalf of their customers and tie commissions to the account rather than the channel, so the sales team has a reason to promote it.

How much does it cost to launch a B2B e-commerce store?

It depends on the platform, the extensions and above all the ERP integration. As of 10 November 2026, Shopify, billed yearly, starts at €19 a month with Shopify B2B and up to 3 catalogs, and Shopify Plus at €2,100 a month; WooCommerce is free but needs hosting, maintenance and extensions such as B2B for WooCommerce, which cost €135 for a year. Integration, data preparation and customer onboarding are the items that vary most.

Sources

If you want to know which platform and integrations your B2B store needs, book a free assessment.