What Is B2B Wholesale? Benefits, Features, Challenges & Platforms

Starting a business is a challenging task. All leading entrepreneurs are attracted towards business-to-business transactions due to large volume transactions and associated economics. The addition of the technology further increases the profits and market penetration. When set as a percentage of the company revenues, the overall marketing budgets are increasing to 9.8%, while the B2B product companies are growing at 8.6%, and the B2B service companies are at the pace of 15.6%.

B2B wholesale is an aggressive marketplace and hence a topic of interest for many existing and budding entrepreneurs. Let us know all about the B2B wholesale, its key advantages, must-to-have features, and key challenges. We’ve also incorporated a list of the top B2B wholesale e-commerce platforms for quick help to the businesses seeking to enter wholesale marketplaces.

What is B2B Wholesale?

B2B stands for a business-to-business model of selling products and services. Any manufacturer sells its products to the wholesalers, channeling it to the different retailers. The B2B wholesale is the subdivision of the large-scale B2B market. The key partners in any B2B model are manufacturer- wholesaler or wholesaler- retailer.

B2B wholesalers sell and market the products to different businesses. The buying companies can use the products in their business process or resell them at profitable margins. The transactions in the B2B wholesale are heavy due to the large order size and are achieved using long-term contracts.

B2B wholesale cuts the need of the third-party as with the advancements of technology, wholesalers can help manufacturers and retailers from any corner of the world. It becomes easy to move and distribute the products with wholesale transactions. These transactions move a large volume of products at one time and too efficiently and high order values. Hence, any B2B wholesale transaction comes with multiple benefits to the sellers and the buyers.

Benefits of B2B Wholesale

The global B2B wholesale e-commerce market was valued at 6.64 trillion USD in 2020. Multiple advantages attract the leading players in this business model. Some of the main benefits of the B2B wholesale model includes:

• Boost AOV and order volume: The average order value or AOV in B2B wholesale is high than any other business model. Hence, the custom-life time value increases with the long-term deal structures and large order volumes.
• Increase brand awareness: There is no need for the middlemen when B2B wholesale can sell their products in large volumes to retailers. It is easy to increase the business through brand awareness inadvertently created by the B2B wholesale businesses.
• Maintain a fixed margin of profit: All B2B wholesalers are eligible for the fixed profit margin in the range of 3 to 10%. The profit comes from selling a fixed amount of goods to retailers and attracts great development opportunities.
• Improve control over the supply: All the supply and demand fluctuations between the retailers and manufacturers are controlled by the B2B wholesalers only. Retailers have the challenge of buying large volumes while the manufacturers require large capital. These challenges are effectively solved by the wholesalers that offer improved control over the supply.

What is the Challenge for B2B Wholesale?

Like any other platform, B2B wholesale has its share of limitations. With only 25% of the B2B businesses using the actual digital quotient of the B2B wholesale platform, there is a lot more to consider in the B2B wholesale platform. Some of the main points that are the current challenges for this platform include:

• Technology transformation: The manufacturers and retailers are trying their best to eliminate the middlemen from the distribution process due to obvious reasons. Hence, it is more than crucial for any B2B wholesale to keep pace with the technological advancements while offering highly competitive pricing. Without technology, B2B wholesale can fail to seek the benefits of the new market.
• Global competition: Competing at international levels is difficult, especially for the B2B wholesale businesses balancing the pricing margins. The global competition adds pressure on such businesses and damages the low margins. Hence, businesses must keep the costs under control while recovering from the global competition.
• Retail consolidation: There has been a scarcity of the B2B wholesales serving the home electronics, office supply, do-it-yourself supplies, and supermarkets. Hence, any B2B wholesale business needs to consider this retail consolidation that includes serving the client base and focusing on the specific markets.

Must Have Features for B2B Wholesale Platform

Do you know that all B2B buyers make more than 12 online searches before purchasing from any B2B business? Hence, the most important decision is to find the ideal B2B wholesale platform for your business to get the best for your revenue and marketing. So, here is a quick guide to the main features to look for while finding an ideal B2B wholesale platform.

• Ease to use: Any B2B wholesale platform should be quick and easy to use. The website operations should be easy for the admin while supporting all the possible complexities of B2B transactions. The key functions like updating the customer data and changing the status quo should be quick.
• B2B-based features: All the required B2B features like multiple shipping, several payment capabilities, account management, inventory availability, past order duplicating, bulk ordering, pricing, etc., should be a mandate in any B2B-based wholesale e-commerce platform.
• Integrations: Third-party integrations are useful for any B2B wholesale platform when managing different customer touchpoints. The add-on functions, pre-sales points, post-sales experience, etc., can be seamlessly transferred to the B2B wholesale e-commerce platform.
• Brand visibility: Like modern B2B buyers are looking for digital means, and the B2B wholesale e-commerce platform is ideal for letting buyers know about you. It becomes easy to increase brand visibility and boost sales using the search engine optimization techniques and B2B wholesale platform. B2b wholesale businesses can use this platform for content marketing like instruction lists, white papers, industry articles, case studies, etc.
• Mobile compatibility: Like more internet searches are through mobile devices only, any B2B wholesale platform needs to be mobile-friendly. Hence, any platform set up for the B2B buyers should be well-responsive and high-performing even on their mobile devices.

Top Five eCommerce Platforms for B2B Wholesale

The B2B e-commerce market size is set to expand at the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7% from 2021 to 2028. This is because all B2B wholesale businesses are looking for digital tools to fill the existing gaps in sales and revenues. Therefore, let us look at the top five and the best e-commerce platforms exclusively catering to the demanding business needs of B2B wholesale.

Growmax

It is a leading platform serving B2B, B2B2B, and B2B2C functionalities. It has multiple features for the B2B wholesale businesses. Further, the ease to use of Growmax makes it a top-ranking choice in our list of e-commerce platforms for B2B wholesale businesses. The key features include order management, quote management, product management, SEO management, customer-specific pricing management, dedicated customer support system, etc.

Advantages

• It is 99% available and is hosted in the AWS cloud.
• It has a built-in PWA mobile app and supports features.
• It has zero transaction fees.
• It offers many features, including advanced ones like product catalog, filter management, etc.

Disadvantages

It may need constant updates due to the addition of the newest features.

Pricing

It has a basic plan starting from 29USD, going up to 289USD according to the features, and include customized pricing plans.

Shopify Plus

Any enterprise e-commerce business can go for Shopify Plus from the technical giant Shopify which has delivered many technical solutions. As a result, Shopify Plus is a highly scalable and reliable e-commerce platform widely used by B2B wholesale companies.

Advantages

• It offers in-depth analysis for data gathering.
• It has advanced security features.
• It offers around-the-clock dedicated customer support.
• It uses high-end API technology.

Disadvantages

It may limit the product listing and variations.

Pricing

It offers customized pricing plans specific to the business needs.

BigCommerce

It is an all-in-one e-commerce platform for B2B wholesale businesses that can serve small or big companies. It offers extensive reporting options, dedicated personalization without technical skills, and affordable pricing structures. Its overall approach to serving the B2B wholesale businesses is not to miss.

Advantages

• It ensures seamless inventory management.
• It has an in-built blog for content marketing.
• It offers a quick loading time of the official website on different devices and platforms.
• It offers fully accessible metadata for post-optimization, pages, stocks, categories, etc.

Disadvantages

The customer order information tracking can be added to the features.

Pricing

Its Essential plan starts at 29.95USD, and the Enterprise plan starts at 1500USD plus transactional costs.

Magento

It helps B2B wholesale businesses create unique web traffic and increased uptime with complete website control. The technical giant Adobe created it, a one-stop solution for multiple personalization needs of the big companies planning to scale their reach.

Advantages

• It has a user-interactive interface for non-technical teams.
• It can help businesses manage high volumes of orders.
• It is ideal for SEO.
• It has multiple features for B2B wholesale business.

Disadvantages

The hosted sites are expensive and may need dedicated IT skills.

Pricing

Its pricing plans are based on Average Order Value (AOV) and Gross Merchandise Value (GMV).

Opencart

It is a free e-commerce platform for B2B wholesale businesses. It has been in the industry for a long time and has been used by multiple merchants over time. It is the first choice of the businesses starting their e-commerce journey. The long list of responsive features and plugins ensures that it remains an ideal B2B wholesale e-commerce platform.

Advantages

• It is a highly customized e-commerce platform that is open-source.
• It can be easily integrated with the leading extensions.
• It is a PHP-based platform.
• It has in-built support for payment gateways.

Disadvantages

The features and customer support features are limited.

Pricing

It is free for the open-source version but charges for the additional tools.

Conclusion

We hope it is all clear about B2B wholesale, key benefits of entering the market, and the must-to-have features for an effective B2B platform. It is all about doing business with the other companies after understanding its challenges. The current penetration of B2B wholesale may be limited, but it has great scope in the coming future.

With the digital quotient of any average B2B company as 28 only, improving the digital penetration using leading marketplaces can be the game-changer. It is all about improving the B2B wholesale market penetration by working in the right direction of growth and development. The selection of the B2B wholesale platform is the main catalyst.

Frequently Asked Questions about What is B2B Wholesale?