Ecommerce for Distributors: Overcoming Common Challenges and Maximizing Growth

The benefits of ecommerce are especially appealing for distributors. Buyers can self-serve through customizable, digital storefronts, so sales teams are freed up to maximize their pitch potential.

Business-to-business (B2B) commerce has evolved dramatically throughout the 2020s, thanks largely to innovation and technology. The recent surge in industrial manufacturing has unlocked next-gen opportunities for B2B companies. By 2025, a staggering 80% of all B2B sales will happen online. Conducting bulk sales over the phone or in person was seldom a very efficient process, and now commerce leaders are reaping the rewards of an increasingly online world. B2B ecommerce is worth an estimated $7.7 trillion. 

The core of ecommerce’s growth potential is automation. When buyers can self-serve through customizable, digital storefronts, your sales team is freed up to maximize their pitch potential. The benefits of ecommerce are especially appealing for distributors. When you’re dealing in bulk orders already, a streamlined sales process means more satisfied customers, and therefore more frequent bulk orders. 

But B2B poses its share of challenges for distributors. Buyer behaviors are frequently changing. Many B2B platforms are clunky and costly, and picking the right one is crucial. And while customization is a necessary part of online commerce, the wrong customizations can send you flailing in digital quicksand. 

In this article, we’ll explore best practices for distributors in B2B ecommerce: how to navigate common obstacles, the capabilities necessary to get ahead, and brands that kickstarted their next chapters with digital distribution. 

What are the challenges in ecommerce for distributors? 

Today, B2B ecommerce looks very different than it did five, even three years ago. Buyers increasingly want the ability to self-serve, along with the personal touches of direct-to-consumer (DTC) commerce. Fortunately for distributors, innovative and affordable solutions do exist. Here are four concepts to guide you:

Buying behaviors are changing 

B2B buyers are getting younger: Over 70% are millennials, a demographic that grew up online and expects a shopping experience that’s streamlined and personal. Distributors must meet their rising expectations: over 87% of buyers say they’d switch suppliers or pay more for a better buying experience. 

Legacy B2B platforms are clunky and unintuitive 

Most traditional B2B platforms use outdated tech that makes it difficult to tell a brand story, run promotional campaigns, and maximize growth. Today, 83% of buyers prefer to self-serve orders online, and won’t adopt a new platform that makes ordering more challenging. As B2B moves online, how a distributor presents itself is increasingly important. 

Commerce platforms that are customizable often require extensive developer resources and investment

To face contemporary challenges, many platforms designed themselves to be infinitely customizable. This provides some flexibility, but burdens ecommerce leaders with setups that are expensive to get going, expensive to maintain, and often unscalable. Out-of-the-box capabilities are key to the success of a B2B platform: they empower distributors to implement features they need right away, without spending themselves into customization debt. 

Manual processes and bloated tech stacks lead to limited opportunities for growth 

Up to one-thirdof B2B transactions are still conducted via outdated, time-consuming methods like email and phone calls. Additionally, sellers can feel forced to manage B2B and DTC on separate platforms, leading to inefficiency and bloated tech stacks. But with a unified commerce engine, sellers can combine multiple back offices into one central front office, freeing them to adapt to customer needs and expand into new channels. 

What features and capabilities are vital for distributor success in ecommerce?

Today’s distributors need adaptability—without the hassles and high costs that come with trying to innovate under an outdated platform. Shopify empowers you to convert high-volume sales almost immediately, while building your ideal buying experience. 

Tailored wholesale buying

Make the wholesaler-friendly features of B2B ecommerce work for you. Shopify provides the capability to:

• Tailor pricing, currency, and store content using our core feature set to meet the diverse needs of your buyers across different markets and channels.
• Access unlimited catalogs to tailor pricing and product availability for every customer, in any currency, with support for fixed prices, percentage-off discounts, volume pricing, and quantity rules.
• Manage companies, buyers, and locations using profiles and permissions in the admin. 

Personalized storefronts 

Effective storefronts in digital B2B capture the relatability of DTC shopping. Make meaningful connections with diverse buyers using Shopify’s at-the-ready features to: 

• Create a powerful storefront experience with content personalized for each buyer, regardless of whether they are B2B or DTC.
• Choose from out-of-the-box B2B themes, full liquid customizations, or go headless with storefront and customer account APIs.

Self-serve purchasing 

Converting large orders at a frequent clip is a core benefit of B2B ecommerce wholesaling. The buying process should be as frictionless and intuitive as possible. Shopify makes it easy to: 

• Scale your operations by enabling customers to place orders with quick bulk ordering tools and manage their accounts with an intuitive and customizable portal.
• Drive a higher order frequency with easy reorders for buyers.

Sales rep support 

B2B sales cycles are often long and complex, involving multiple stakeholders across numerous customer touchpoints. Empower your sales reps with state-of-the-art tools to seize these customer development opportunities. 

• Sales reps are an integral part of driving B2B revenue, and Shopify streamlines the process directly in the admin.
• Allow your sales team to place orders and access information for their assigned accounts with permission levels specific to your business.
• Equip your sales reps with up-to-date product, pricing, and customer data to foster better interactions with buyers and increase sales. 
• Reduce your team’s manual hours with an intuitive admin to easily place orders instead of manually inputting them into an ERP or spreadsheet. 

Unified commerce

Applying the buyer-friendly features of DTC to B2B ecommerce becomes second nature when you’re running all your channels from a unified platform. Shopify allows you to:

• Streamline business operations, create brand consistency, and cut development costs by running B2B and DTC on the same platform.
• Reduce total cost of ownership with a unified platform that allows you to easily deploy and manage all of your channels from a single admin.

Robust integrations 

Successful distribution in B2B ecommerce requires mastering the ins and outs of your own platform. Here’s how to build an action-ready framework:

• Integrate with your preferred ERP, OMS, and CMS tools for seamless data, inventory, and product syncing.
• Use Shopify’s complete set of APIs, primitives, and developer tools to build seamless integrations with your systems.
• Leverage our best-in-class app ecosystem to add new features and functionality to your store in minutes, without the need for complex code.

Connect your ERP 

Streamline your ecommerce channels by setting them up to work with the IT that drives your business.

• Shopify has partnered with leading ERP providers—Acumatica, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Brightpearl—to build out-of-the-box integrations and simplify your tech stack.
• Use connectors like Boomi, Jitterbit, and Celigo to build custom integrations with your existing systems.

Adapt and launch quickly

Your business is better off launching with core capabilities in place and winning over early customers than tinkering for months without launching while costs pile up. Shopify helps you hit the ground running.

• Set up your store in weeks, not months, with a scaled composable framework and fast innovation.
• Minimize time to value by using our effortless, intuitive admin and first-party features to manage both sides of your business, no coding required.
• Once live, make adjustments through an intuitive UI to test new promos, messaging, markets, and segments, and update quickly based on customer feedback.

Unlimited flexibility

Digital commerce evolves rapidly. Shopify gives you the freedom to guide your business wherever you need to take it. 

• Tailor your business solutions with headless storefront APIs.
• Inject custom data with metafields. 
• Write custom logic with Shopify Functions. 
• Customize your checkout with Checkout Extensibility. 

Examples of ecommerce for distributors

With the right platform, B2B ecommerce can fast-track you toward your goals and outmaneuver competitors who are stuck on analog. Let’s take a look at three examples: 

Carrier reduces site costs by 95% 

Carrier is the globe’s leading provider of healthy, safe, sustainable, and intelligent building and cold chain solutions. While their HVAC solutions are especially recognized, Carrier also provides best-in-class refrigeration and building controls and automation. With varying priorities for each buying audience, Carrier sought a streamlined self-service commerce experience for all their customers. 

After migrating from their previous platform to Shopify, Carrier reduced costs from $2 million per ecommerce website to just $100,000 using Shopify’s composable framework. “If you want a lower TCO, rapid deployment, and a platform that is growing at a rate faster than you can develop it yourself, then I would encourage you to look at Shopify,” says Steve Duran, associate director of global commerce at Carrier. 

Filtrous boots their conversion rate 27% 

Filtrous is a multimillion-dollar laboratory supply company that serves businesses from small labs up through renowned institutions like UCLA. Filtrous wanted to build a modern wholesale experience—with a faster checkout and streamlined order fulfillment—to scale and stand out. However, an outdated ecommerce platform added unnecessary complexity to their B2B order process. “BigCommerce lacked the flexibility for us to fully control our site, and managing the customer experience was time-consuming,” says Yin Fu, director of ecommerce at Filtrous. 

After migrating to Shopify, Filtrous boosted their conversion rate by 27%. Additionally, Filtrous saved 12 hours of manual work per week for their teams by using B2B on Shopify’s self-serve purchasing platform. “Thanks to an exceptional self-serve experience and features like Shopify Flow, the team can spend more of its time selling,” says Yin.

Brooklinen unlocks their staff’s potential

Since 2014, Brooklinen has surged from Kickstarter success to a trend-setting DTC company offering premium bedding products to digitally-native customers. They’d always taken B2B orders, but by time-consuming, ad-hoc methods. To continue growing, Brooklinen sought to scale their B2B operations as customers placed more large, wholesale orders. “When Shopify announced they were going to be releasing B2B functionality, it was really natural for us to just opt in,” says Elizabeth Bell, director of product management at Brooklinen. 

Since teaming with Shopify Plus, Brooklinen staff now spend 80% of their time working with customers instead of back-end admin. “B2B on Shopify allows us to engage with these customers in a new way—kind of like a typical D2C customer but for B2B,” says Elizabeth.

The ecommerce revolution can work for you

We get excited hearing these success stories. It’s an auspicious time to be in ecommerce, and by making the right decisions, you can rise well beyond your business goals.

For distributors, building a strong ecommerce foundation is key. This means picking the right platform. Shopify’s best-in-class features are built to meet customer needs and help you scale for growth ahead. 

Everything you need to sell B2B online There’s no better time to expand into a market five times bigger than DTC. Learn how to start, grow, and scale your wholesale business the right way in this hands-on guide. Explore now

FAQ on ecommerce for distributors

What are ecommerce distributors?

Ecommerce distributors are companies that sell products digitally at wholesale bulk rates to retailers. They handle logistics and consumer relationship management through online channels, allowing retailers to self-serve with personalized buying options.

What is an example of ecommerce distribution?

An example of ecommerce distribution could be a kitchenware company that sells products like pots, pans, and other cooking utensils to worldwide restaurant chains through online channels at wholesale rates.

Is ecommerce direct distribution?

Ecommerce qualifies as direct distribution if a producer or manufacturer delivers its products directly to consumers, without intermediaries such as distributors. Ecommerce distributors can help streamline logistics and customer relations, facilitating larger transactions.

Which ecommerce platform allows multiple vendors?

Shopify is the ideal ecommerce platform for supporting multiple vendors. Shopify’s adaptability allows distributors to build online marketplaces where different vendors can sell directly and competitively to customers.

What is the best ecommerce platform for B2B?

Shopify is the best platform for B2B ecommerce. Create a personalized experience for B2B buyers with Shopify’s best-in-class features that make repeat, high-volume purchases easy.-