B2B companies can't afford to ignore the important role that e-commerce plays in their ability to compete in the current market.
To meet the needs of today's B2B buyers, every B2B or wholesale brand needs a e-commerce site that provides an exceptional shopping experience.
There are many B2B companies that have created top-notch e-commerce sites that attract and convert businesses.
Here are 15 great examples of B2B e-commerce-
3DXTECH
The 3D printing company 3DXTECH, specialized in carbon fiber reinforced 3D printing filaments, is a good example of a B2B eCommerce website that is invasive but successful. Many eCommerce websites opt for using pop-ups and banners, but they often are annoying and counter-productive. This is not the case.
Their pop-up is well designed and offers a free product if you decide to provide your email. Additionally, their top banner always highlights a product that has just come back in stock.
The company also offers rewards for sharing on social media and leaving reviews. It focuses on attracting the customer by offering what they want and gaining with the offers.
Alibaba
The Chinese giant Alibaba is one of the largest B2B and B2C e-commerce companies in the world. It sells products in 40 different sectors, serves more than 18 million buyers and sellers in 240 countries.
The key to its success is innovation. It started building an ecosystem with Chinese manufacturers and the global market in 1999 when the internet was barely existent in China.
The company built a system that automatically scales with its success, focusing on customer needs and offering the same products adapted to each B2B market it entered.
What's more, it's free.
Alibaba connects buyers and sellers, making money from ads and commissions. Its success lies not so much in the website as in the way the company treats the customer, which translates into the experience of its site.
Amazon Business
Amazon Business offers a complete package that incorporates all the possible features that any B2B business could need. What exactly does it do to be so successful?
It is easy to use: it includes features such as invoice payment, approval workflow, multi-user accounts, and much more.
Adds value: Buyers have Business Prime with different levels that unlock more discounts. Each level is unique and offers specific pricing.
Innovates: Continuously tests new features and makes changes to the existing experience.
ACME
ACME is a packaging supplier for logistics operators and carriers. It has a minimalist website with a very carefully designed layout. Its B2B e-commerce site was designed with great attention to detail.
Each image, piece of content, and clickable area is carefully designed to please the viewer.
But it's not all about appearance, ACME also offers more than enough quality information about its products and services. The content and photos are designed to provide the information that the potential customer needs to see.
Curbell Plastics
This company is one of the leading suppliers of plastic prototyping sheets and materials in the United States and takes care of the customer experience by offering the simplest (but exciting) way to find their products.
The Curbell Plastics site works even better on mobile and provides suggestions to its customers on how to save money on its eCommerce site.
Firerock
Firerock is a company that supplies custom building materials for homes. The company quickly realized that images could tell a lot about their products and used that wonderfully on their site.
Its e-commerce website uses high-quality images to showcase their offerings attractively and even incorporates Pinterest to display its photos.
The company strives to mix business with pleasure, attracting people with beautiful photographs of what they do along with educational blogs that help them improve their homes.
OverDrive
OverDrive is a recognized provider of audiobooks and e-books for education and commerce. It serves a global network of schools, retailers, publishers, and libraries.
Getting there is not easy, but this company did it by striving to create long-term partnerships. In the end, it ended up offering one of the largest digital content catalogs.
Their product descriptions are exhaustive. The entire company site is user-friendly and doesn't overwhelm you with unnecessary content. The most important feature of the site is its search function, simple and fully responsive.
Quill
This educational and office supply provider created its website with the goal of having one of the best B2B e-commerce platforms.
The Quill site uses a full categorization, filters, guided navigation features, and much more. That level of organization has made the customer experience perfect.
In addition, Quill uses periodic rewards that attract even more potential customers. The offers include coupons, exclusive deals, and more. Of course, to take full advantage of them, it's necessary to subscribe to receive their email newsletters.
Blackbaud
Blackbaud provides software and services, as well as educational opportunities for non-profit organizations.
At first glance, its site is quite normal, but upon closer examination, you can see their effort in adding a good amount of useful infographics and case studies.
Their success lies in the interactive content they proudly offer. In fact, it includes a questionnaire, a survey, and two different calculators that allow the user to test the success of the company's clients for themselves.
In this way, the person can apply that formula on their own and see the results interactively. That provides a truly unique experience on their B2B eCommerce platform.
Freund
Freund Container & Supply is one of the largest providers of containers and industrial supplies in the United States.
Customers can use faceted search to narrow down their search using a wide range of parameters, including material type, color, shape, capacity, and function.
The product pages allow buyers to zoom in on high-resolution product images, view detailed product information, related products, and read customer reviews. They also have the option to request a quote and product samples.
Clarion
Clarion Safety Systems designs and manufactures safety labels and signs for products for over 25 years.
Buyers who come to their e-commerce site are greeted with full-screen rotating banners showcasing the company's products.
The site includes an extensive library of safety videos, safety articles, data sheets, and frequently asked questions.
B2B buyers can also obtain pricing with the site's custom quote request tool, request credit, place a purchase order, and get assistance through live chat.
Casey's
Casey's Distributing is one of the largest sporting goods distributors in North America.
The search by facets and advanced sorting options allow buyers to quickly find products and then view high-resolution images, detailed product descriptions, related products, and whether a product is available for direct shipping.
Casey's B2B e-commerce site also promotes flash sales where buyers can get great discounts on clearance products.
Restaurantware
This company manufactures and distributes restaurant supplies wholesale. The faceted search allows B2B buyers to filter their search by type of business, material, color, and more.
The product pages display multiple images that allow buyers to zoom in and view product specifications, reviews, related products, and delivery estimates.
Buyers can sign up to receive the Restaurantware printed catalog, view the FAQs, read their blog on trends and news in the food industry, and pay with different payment options.
Atlanta Light Bulbs
This company sells a wide variety of lighting products online since 1999.
Buyers on the Atlanta Light Bulbs B2B e-commerce site can quickly filter product searches by brand, price, length, base type, bulb shape, power and voltage, as well as read customer reviews, FAQs, lighting resources, and the company's blog.
Their e-commerce site also allows B2B buyers to download the company's mobile app, request credit, and get information on high-volume pricing and their loyalty rewards program.
Good Start Packaging
Good Start Packaging sells sustainable and compostable packaging and products to businesses.
In addition to having an elegant design with excellent photography, the advanced search capabilities allow buyers to delve into brand, material, product dimensions, and hot or cold foods.
Returning customers can quickly and easily reorder, save multiple shipping addresses, access order history, track orders, and save products to a wish list.
Key Factors that Make these B2B E-Commerce Examples Great
Now that you have seen this top 15 of great B2B e-commerce examples, it's time to delve into those aspects that make a B2B e-commerce site excellent. That will help you know what you should put on your shopping list to create your own B2B e-commerce site: Quality design, functionality, and useful features are the three key factors to consider when creating a B2B online store, although offering a highly personalized B2B shopping experience requires more effort. Let's see...
Mobile applications
Since 90% of B2B executives use mobile devices to research commercial purchases, having a mobile site is crucial. Ideally, you should use responsive templates that fit the needs of users. Responsive design allows you to create a consistent customer experience across all devices and screen sizes.
UI/UX Design
An elegant and user-friendly interface and high-quality images of your product or service will undoubtedly improve the discoverability of these. The consistency of navigation and information system components, such as breadcrumbs, tags, progress bars, and tool information will further enhance the buyers' experience.
Practical Site Search and Filtering
A highly relevant and naturally integrated e-commerce search engine for your B2B e-commerce platform will surely streamline the search and filtering process. Detailed filters will give B2B buyers precise search results and make it easier to find the exact product the customer is looking for. You, as a customer, know how much that is appreciated!
100% Reliable and Secure Environment
PCI DSS compliant secure payment is vital, it will help you authorize, deliver, and process B2B payments securely.
You can also enable HTTPS for your store's backend, payment, login, and profile pages, and enjoy SSL encryption options. These additional options will keep your B2B business secure no matter what.
Preparation for International Sales
If you want to expand globally at some point, your B2B e-commerce website must be prepared to accept payments in all currencies. For greater exposure, you should also translate your storefront into the languages used by your customers and offer affordable international shipping options.
High Performance
A suitable B2B e-commerce shopping cart should be as fast as a cheetah. The less loading time you have, even without any type of cache, the better.
Unlimited Scalability and Customization
A perfect B2B e-commerce site should be easy to adjust and modify. Choose a platform that you can customize from the beginning. There should be no limits to your template or programming language, as you will need to adjust your e-commerce site to your business's specific needs.
Updated functionality
A good B2B shopping platform is full of useful features that allow you to capture and retain the attention of online users and focus more on customer engagement. Some of these features are:
Call-to-action buttons that capture the customer's attention on most of your site's essential pages
Buttons that make it easy for the buyer to contact the seller or supplier of each product Social media buttons and a comments section on your site's blog posts to help you stay in touch with your audience in a more informal way.
If you haven't created an e-commerce site for your B2B business, now is the time to start so you can compete in the current market. If you already have one, take note of what these B2B brands are doing to make improvements and start converting more customers.
