From Complexity to Agility: The Case for Switching Your B2B Ecommerce Platform

B2B blues: Why most ecommerce platforms are slowing you down

For those running a B2B business, it’s obvious that B2B is a far cry from B2C. Yet, many ecommerce platforms treat them the same. Or worse, make B2B an afterthought, resulting in processes that only slow you down.

With ecommerce making up 80% of the B2B sales in 2025, B2B should be anything but an afterthought in the online space.

B2B workflows are historically complex, but this doesn’t mean ecommerce workflows should be too. Just as ecommerce has helped streamline catalog browsing and marketing and beyond for the B2C space, it can help B2B organizations deliver a better experience.

But first, what kind of challenges are these platforms causing in the first place?

5 common challenges with many B2B ecommerce platforms

B2B orders are often larger than those in B2C. With big, high-dollar orders come equally big, high-stress workflows. The scale of these orders and workflows doesn’t mean a platform should be monolithic and difficult to navigate.

Sadly, this is often the case, with 81% of B2B buyers saying they run into issues trying to place orders, which often stems from outdated systems. Outdated systems alone aren’t the sole culprit, however. It’s the many challenges they spawn that result in a bad experience for buyers and your team alike.

Hindered agility.

Whether you’re trying to launch a new product on your site or aiming to update site functionality, a fast time-to-market is critical in the competitive B2B space. Every day you’re behind competitors is money left on the table.

Sadly, a lot of ecommerce platforms were either built without B2B in mind, or operate on a dated foundation that moves at a glacial pace. The wrong infrastructure or a heavy reliance on plugins can all lead to costly, slow developer cycles on your end, and difficulty launching much of anything.

High total cost of ownership.

Pricing is often another sticking point with ecommerce platforms in the B2B space. Often the result of unclear pricing models and a reliance on third-party, paid plugins, your total cost of ownership for a B2B ecommerce platform can eat a sizable chunk out of your profits.

Some platforms offer an open-source model, with a seemingly lower or even “free” tag. Even in these cases, total cost of ownership can balloon as your business grows, with:

• Increasingly expensive hosting from a third-party

• Rising developer needs and costs

• Greater security needs and equally greater costs

• A heightening need for more plugins to add functionality

Meanwhile, many B2C ecommerce platforms keep things simple with a monthly plan and predictable pricing.

Archaic workflows.

It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking brick-and-mortar workflows can make a 1:1 translation to the ecommerce space. Even in the oft-simpler B2C world this isn’t the case. In the B2B market? No way.

Convenience is a prime selling point of ecommerce, but when workflows are archaic and treated as an afterthought, that convenience goes out the window.

For example, in B2C, you can typically have a catalog with pricing, visible for anyone and everyone. In the B2B world, individual customers often have unique pricing, dependent on everything from bulk ordering to ongoing agreements.

Meanwhile, B2B ordering itself can quickly fall apart when ecommerce workflows aren’t optimized properly. Where a B2C order consists of a person adding an item to a cart, a B2B workflow can require input from several stakeholders on the buyer side, including legal review. If your platform lacks multi-user support, these orders can turn into a game of telephone for the buyer and drive them elsewhere.

Poor personalization.

Customers want a personalized experience, especially in the ecommerce space. In the B2C space, it’s commonplace: personalized marketing emails, personalized product recommendations, and even personalized web content.

In the B2B space, 90% of businesses are claiming to deliver personalization, yet only 20% of market leaders are actually achieving one-to-one personalization. With so many B2B ecommerce platforms making it difficult to customize and personalize efforts, this disparity should come as little surprise.

Complicated backend experience.

Large catalogs, large orders, complex customer hierarchies, and more can result in a data nightmare on the backend for B2B ecommerce organizations. Especially when many ecommerce platforms are designed with B2C processes and customer bases in mind.

Not only can a messy backend make it harder for your team to process customer orders, it can also hinder attempts at expanding into other markets and cause difficulties when trying to stay up-to-date with security and feature updates.

"We had a very customized version that could do anything for anyone, but it was scary to manage in an increasing world of cyber risk. We quickly fell out of kilter with various updates. To actually step through platform updates was going to cost us a fortune."

— Sam Galloway, Director, Snell

The big B2B benefits of BigCommerce

With an ecommerce platform that’s built for B2B, you can go beyond simply avoiding the above challenges and grow your company, do more with less, and beyond.

Meet BigCommerce B2B Edition: A headless platform where B2B isn’t an afterthought, but the heart of every workflow and feature. The end result?

Streamlined operations.

With BigCommerce, you can streamline historically laborious B2B workflows with:

• Sales-rep specific workflows

• Simpler reordering processes for buyers

• Buyer approval workflows that mirror real-world procurement

The above is a mere sampling of the workflows, as BigCommerce can also handle customization that makes it possible to fit your business, not the other way around.

Bio-Rad, a life science and clinical diagnostics product supplier, had an incredibly complex series of workflows, both internally and for orders. Their ecommerce platform was aging and holding them back and they knew they needed to move. But, with 2.3 million country-specific SKUs and price records, migration was a daunting task.

After a seamless migration to BigCommerce, they were able to not only maintain all those records, but also streamline numerous workflows. For instance, their standing order workflow, which previously sat at five pages, was reduced to one.

“Going from a monolithic system over to a headless architecture that leverages APIs has allowed us to move twice as fast.”

— Suzanne Lazarus, IT Direction, Bio-Rad

Faster time-to-market.

BigCommerce comes with a robust suite of features, many of which are typically found only via integrations and plugins. Less reliance on third-party solutions, coupled with a more user-friendly platform, means less headaches for IT and a faster time-to-market in general.

BigCommerce also utilizes an API-first, composable commerce architecture, letting you seamlessly integrate your favorite tools with the system. If you’re fond of a certain tool or solution, odds are, you can easily integrate it with your BigCommerce setup.

Banner Solutions, a provider of door hardware and security solutions, is a great example of the time savings possible via BigCommerce. Utilizing our composable architecture, they were able to add features and updates that previously took them months to do. Via BigCommerce? Those feature updates took a fraction of the time.

Simplified procurement.

Whether your buyers are procuring goods for their organization or buying for further distribution, getting B2B ordering workflows right is crucial to success.

BigCommerce makes it easy for your buyers and your sales teams alike with:

• Integrated buyer portals

• Self-service quote management

• Easy access to invoice payment

• Mobile-optimized quote engine

• Ordering on behalf of buyers

With 61% of B2B buyers preferring to order on their own, rather than through sales reps, self-service functionality is huge. And BigCommerce delivers.

A big move made easy

BigCommerce has helped countless B2B organizations realize improved sales, less stressful workflows, and a lower IT burden. In fact, many organizations who switch to BigCommerce B2B Edition can see:

• 391% three-year return on investment

• 50% more productive digital platform managers

• 13% increase in order value

• 24% more productive sales teams

BigCommerce is also regularly recognized by the Paradigm B2B, which invites select commerce vendors to undergo an intense evaluation. Out of 24 possible medals, BigCommerce earned a perfect 24 out of 24. (Not to brag or anything.)

“Customers consistently highlighted BigCommerce's deep commitment to B2B functionality, its robust partner ecosystem and its ability to handle the complex pricing, purchasing workflows, and integrations that enterprise buyers demand.”

— Andy Hoar, Chief Executive Officer, Paradigm B2B

Best of all? Migrating to BigCommerce is simple. Even if you’re coming from a giant platform like SAP Commerce.

With support for numerous migration methods, and our own migration app, you can take the pain out of migration, no matter the size of your organization or catalog. And, if you don’t want to tackle it yourself, we have a host of premium migration services that take the burden entirely off your plate.

Are you currently on the SAP Commerce Cloud and looking for more agility? Take a look at our SAP-specific migration guide and see how easy it is to make the big change, today.