What B2B Commerce is — B2B ordering portals

B2B Commerce (online business-to-business sales) is a platform category that lets companies sell to their business customers in a self-service manner — without orders by email, phone or sales rep. In practice, a B2B customer logs into the portal, sees their individual pricing, configures a product (if needed) and places an order 24/7.

The difference from B2C (consumer sales) is fundamental: in B2B every customer has individually negotiated prices (discounts, quantity tiers), order approval workflows (managers, procurement), payment terms (transfer, trade credit), VAT invoices with tax IDs, integration with their accounting via EDI or API. Classic B2C platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce typically don't handle this well.

Key B2B portal features: individual per-customer (or per-group) pricing, product configurator for variant products, order history with reorder, trade credit panel, e-invoicing (e.g. KSeF in Poland), multi-currency and multi-language support, real-time stock integration and courier integration, customer-side manager panel (approving subordinate orders).

B2B Commerce makes sense when a company has 50+ regularly ordering customers and at least some orders can be automated. Typical outcomes: 40-70% reduction in order handling time, higher average order value (customer sees the full offer), fewer errors (customer picks what they need), 24/7 availability. B2B buyers increasingly expect this — Forrester data shows >70% of B2B buyers prefer self-service over rep contact.

Choosing a B2B Commerce platform depends on integration with existing ERP/CRM, catalogue scale and industry requirements. Dedicated B2B platforms (Open Mercato, OroCommerce) have better support for individual pricing and workflows than retrofitted B2C platforms (Shopify Plus, BigCommerce). Open source additionally enables self-hosting and full customisation for unusual processes.