B2B stores get scoped as consumer stores with a login. They are closer to an ordering application that happens to have a catalogue, and the difference shows up as a series of surprises during the build.
Pricing is per customer
Negotiated rates, volume breaks, contract pricing and different terms per account. A single price on a product is the exception rather than the rule, which means the catalogue cannot be cached the way a consumer store's can, and anonymous browsing may show no prices at all.
Buying involves more than one person
- The person choosing is often not the person approving.
- Approval thresholds by value or category.
- Multiple users per account with different permissions.
- Shared carts and saved orders that a colleague completes.
None of this exists in a consumer platform's checkout, and all of it is a hard requirement rather than a refinement.
Payment is not a card
| Consumer | B2B |
|---|---|
| Card at checkout | Purchase order, invoice, net 30 |
| Immediate capture | Credit limit checks against an account |
| One address | Separate billing and multiple ship-to locations |
| Receipt by email | Invoice matching a PO number, into an accounts system |
Reordering is the main use case
Consumer stores optimise for discovery. B2B customers usually know what they want and buy the same things repeatedly. Order history, saved lists, quick order by SKU and one-click reorder are core features, not extras, and they drive more revenue than any recommendation engine.
It has to talk to the back office
Pricing, stock and credit usually live in an ERP, and the store must reflect them. This integration is generally the largest line in the project and the most common cause of overrun, because the ERP was not designed to be queried in real time by a website.
What to do about it
- 01Scope the ERP integration first, before anything else. It determines what is possible.
- 02Map the actual buying process, including who approves what. Ask a customer, not the sales team.
- 03Check whether your platform has a genuine B2B offering, or whether you are about to rebuild one.
- 04Design for reordering as the primary path, with discovery second.
Working on something like this?
We build websites, stores and custom applications, and we will tell you honestly if the thing you are describing does not need one.