B2B ecommerce is the process of a business marketing and selling products to other businesses online.
The goal is simple: expand customer reach and reduce cost-to-serve, driving more revenue for your business. For B2B companies that offer it, ecommerce is now the top revenue-generating channel, accounting for more than a third of all sales.
But how do you start a successful B2B business, and what does the future hold?
If you aren’t familiar with this ecommerce model, don’t worry. This guide will take you through how it works, show you how to get started with a B2B ecommerce platform, and provide successful B2B ecommerce examples to inspire your own operations.
B2B ecommerce is when one company markets and sells to another company online. Buyers can make B2B transactions via ecommerce websites and B2B marketplaces, or in person at conferences and trade shows.
Unlike in B2C, every buyer acts on behalf of a business, and the shopping experience includes contracts, approval workflows, tax handling, and account-level support. Today, B2B ecommerce is far more than a website that takes wholesale orders.
Take Dermalogica Canada, for example. After moving their global B2B store to Shopify, the brand incorporated loyalty-tiered pricing, stored credit cards for faster checkout, and workflow automation to increase conversion rates by 23%.
Globally, the B2B ecommerce market was worth $19.34 trillion in 2024 and is on track to more than double to $47.5 trillion by 2030, according to Research and Markets.
In the US, an EMARKETER forecast shows that site-based B2B sales climbed 10.5% in 2024 to $2.3 trillion and are on pace to top $3 trillion by 2028.
Buyers are leading the charge. A 2024 B2B Pulse Survey from McKinsey found that 39% of business buyers—up from 28% two years earlier—now feel comfortable placing self-service orders costing over $500,000, and 73% are happy to spend $50,000 or more online.
And sellers are responding with bigger budgets. The McKinsey survey also found that one-third of B2B companies boosted their ecommerce investment by 11% in 2024, betting on lower acquisition costs and the always-on reach that digital channels deliver.
Innovation and technology from B2B ecommerce platforms have helped drive the movement. B2B commerce traditionally involved labor-intensive manual sales and marketing processes. The introduction of digital commerce helps B2B companies reduce costs and improve efficiency through ecommerce automation.
B2B buyers have come a long way with their expectations. Seven in ten B2B buyers now prefer to place orders online rather than via phone or email, and they span an average of 10 digital and in-person touchpoints before they hit “buy.”
Originally plagued by clunky portals and sales rep callbacks, the younger generation of buyers (thank you, millennials) demand a more B2C-style experience.
A 2024 Forrester-commissioned survey found 73% of buyers expect the same convenient online experience they enjoy in B2C, from real-time stock to one-click reorders. And there is still a huge gap between execution and reality, as only 36% of buyers rate current B2B sites as “excellent.”
But just signing up for a B2B ecommerce platform and calling it a day won’t do the trick. If you don’t meet buyers with personalized, fluid experiences, they will walk away.
Procurement has made massive strides in the past 18 months, with 52% of CPOs in Keelvar’s Sourcing in 2025 study saying they already use automation or AI in daily sourcing workflows. Early adopters of Gen AI are enjoying 54% higher staff productivity and 47% lower process costs.
The change is driven by the shift in how and where B2B purchases are happening. Buyers are moving to a purely online, rep-free experience. Forrester predicts that more than half of big-ticket deals ($1 million or more) will be handled entirely through self-service or marketplaces in 2025.
To keep pace, teams are overhauling their tech stacks. PwC reports that 94% of procurement teams already run an end-to-end source-to-pay (S2P) suite, and the average department is targeting 70% process digitalization by 2027. One in two organizations will add or upgrade contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools in the next three years to reduce costs and save time.
Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm in recent years. McKinsey’s State of AI 2025 survey shows that 71% of companies already use generative AI in one business function, up from 65% a year earlier.
And for good reason. Accenture’s Next stop, next-gen report found that companies with the most mature AI-enabled supply chains are six times more likely to deploy generative AI widely, and experience 23% higher profit margins than their peers.
Some ways B2B ecommerce brands are putting AI and automation to work include:
As it stands, only 3% of organizations lack an AI roadmap, according to Salesforce’s State of Commerce report. Nearly everyone is planning for the AI-enabled future.
A wholesale business sells goods in bulk to other businesses, who then sell them to consumers at retail prices.
If you’re a wholesale supplier, buyer-oriented B2B marketplaces are a good way to advertise your products to buyers and retailers with less marketing effort. In buyer-oriented marketplaces, there are many buyers and fewer sellers.
In B2B2C retail, one business works with another business to sell its products or services. For example, a B2B2C business may manufacture a product and sell it to another business that then markets and sells it to consumers.
A key difference between B2B2C and wholesale is that the customer-facing storefront retains the branding of the B2B2C business, not the intermediary that handles sales to consumers.
Manufacturers produce goods in large amounts and sell them to other suppliers, wholesalers, or manufacturers. For example, a manufacturer might produce specialty shoelaces, which may then be sold to a luxury shoe manufacturer.
Distributors take care of packaging, shipping, and marketing, which a manufacturer may not want to do in-house. Manufacturers have the option of partnering with distributors to sell their products.
A manufacturer and distributor partnership can be created online. By conducting business through an online platform, the manufacturer and distributor can achieve faster, more streamlined supply chains to meet or surpass customer expectations.
B2B marketplaces are online platforms that bring together multiple third-party sellers and buyers. They act as a digital intermediary where businesses can search for, compare, and purchase products from a variety of suppliers in one location.
The big players here are Amazon Business and Alibaba, but niche marketplaces for specific industries—like specialty food (Mable) or industrial parts (Xometry)—are becoming more prevalent.
For sellers, marketplaces get you right in front of eager buyers. Buyers can also compare products, prices, and suppliers, making it easier to choose a vendor.
No B2B business journey is exactly the same, but there are a few phases almost every B2B business goes through as it grows. Here’s a look at how a business goes from a startup to a mature and profitable operation.
Think of the startup phase as the spark, when all ideas are fair game. At this stage, you’ve gone through ideation and have made a firm choice to start your B2B ecommerce business. You’re testing the market by bringing your idea to life—and getting those first few sales in.
The startup stage is the feedback stage. As you make sales—or fail to—and absorb market feedback, this is the perfect time to be nimble and readjust to meet market demand.
Some relevant key goals during the startup phase are:
Reaching these goals isn’t going to happen without your fair share of startup challenges. At this stage, you may find that your product has flopped and your audience isn’t interested in buying what you’re selling.
On the other hand, the opposite could happen: Demand for your product could be so high that you run out of the few goods you created for testing. As you scramble to create more, consumers get turned off by your out-of-stock announcement. This scenario is often the exception rather than the rule.
In the beginning, most businesses struggle to make sales and gain traction—but that’s okay. It doesn’t necessarily mean your business idea isn’t viable. As you listen to feedback, experiment with different iterations of your product, and sell to different segments of your market, you’ll eventually start to see growth. This takes us to the next stage.
At the growth stage, a few things are starting to come together. Your sales are increasing, becoming more predictable, and new customers discover you daily.
Here’s where you may start getting some room to experiment with offers, possible partnerships, and the chance to reinvest in the areas of the business with the highest return on your investment (ROI). In the growth stage, you’re also constantly revisiting your systems and refining supply chains, reimagining your approach to operations.
Some goals at the growth stage are:
Growth can be painful: Markets change quickly, and your business can be vulnerable to changing demands, costly mistakes, or fierce competition. Yet if done correctly, the growth stage eventually positions you at the point where it’s ready to expand more aggressively.
The expansion stage is where you can expect hockey stick growth—that is, growth that sharply rises on sales charts as you boost cash flow, move beyond breaking even, and diversify your distribution channels.
Depending on your company’s needs and the market, some common expansion goals might be:
Still, there are plenty of challenges at the expansion stage. Competition is fierce, you’re fighting to maintain market share, and revenue relies on critical budgeting decisions. But now you have resources to invest in overcoming those challenges and improving your offerings strategically.
At the maturity stage, your sales are predictable, you can rely on future forecasts to maintain cash flow and growth, and you can hire as needed.
At this stage, you’re likely:
The maturity stage is where you fine-tune your profit margins. You’re familiar with your target market and know what they like, consistently delivering great customer support and a valuable product.
As a business owner, you have the choice to pivot, try something new, plan your exit strategy, or test new approaches to business. At this stage, you’ve hit a huge milestone. You’ve made it. This means you can breathe easier and lean on reliable day-to-day operations, established business systems, and routines that ensure profitability.
Buyers judge a B2B brand on how easy you are to do business with. Your ecommerce platform, and how it integrates with the rest of your stack, influences revenue more than any single sales rep.
As more deals flow through the B2B storefront, you’ll want a platform that offers:
With Shopify, you can create a password-protected B2B portal on the same URL that powers your DTC store, so your inventory, search, and content stay in sync while wholesale buyers see their own price lists and MOQs. This approach has helped brands like AMR Hair & Beauty triple sales and increase B2B average order value by 77%.
“Right now, we have two login options, one for public consumers and one for B2B customers,” Ammar Issa, founder of AMR Hair & Beauty, says. “We have 10 different pricing tiers for B2B customers, and Shopify automatically shows them the right one based on their customer status.”
Plus, prebuilt connectors for NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SAP, Acumatica, and more route orders, inventory, and customer records both ways without custom middleware. Merchants moving to Shopify report up to 36% lower total ownership cost versus multi-system stacks, thanks to fewer servers, upgrades, and ad-hoc integrations.
B2B shoppers expect a website to feel like it was built specifically for them.
Adobe’s Personalization at Scale 2025 study found that nearly three-quarters of buyers want suppliers to “know when, where, and how” they prefer personalized transactions—yet many firms still miss the mark. It also discovered that companies that personalize the entire account journey are twice as likely to beat revenue and conversion goals, with 20% or more cumulative lifts over three years.
Great personalization can take many forms in B2B:
Contract-true pricing and terms: You can show shoppers tailored prices, MOQs, and net terms at sign-in. Industry West attached architect- and designer-specific price lists to trade accounts and saw B2B web order revenue jump 90% while average order value (AOV) rose 20%.
Dynamic catalogs: Only entitled SKUs and inventory show during browsing. WHO IS ELIJAH maps eight regional catalogs (each with its own price matrix) to one Shopify admin, driving 50% YoY wholesale growth.
Role-specific portals: Buyers, approvers, and finance see the data that matters to them. Shopify’s B2B company profiles let you assign user roles and permissions, so procurement sees quick add grids while finance downloads paid invoices.
AI-driven recommendations: Your site displays relevant bundles and add-ons that add value to the buyer’s journey. Search & Discovery and Rebuy apps on Shopify can surface accessories and refills, helping brands like DECKED lift revenue by 4% without discounting.
“We can match dealers not just by proximity and location, but also based on those who have our product displays or only carry specific items from our range,” says Taylor Straley, VP of ecommerce at DECKED.
“This capability allows us to tailor our customer experience and product discovery recommendation efforts more effectively. Importantly, it benefits the customer by enabling us to gather and utilize search and contact data, ensuring a direct connection from our website to the appropriate dealer.”
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Buyers now expect B2C-style experiences. They want to place, track, and reorder million-dollar deals the same way they book a rideshare—instantly, from any screen.
IDC’s 2024 buyer behavior study reports that 71% of tech-sector buyers feel comfortable placing large-ticket purchases through digital channels, and 73% already lean on digital tools for complex decisions.
To capture this market, create self-service portals that show pricing, inventory, and order history without manual intervention. Shopify B2B lets you attach price lists, payment terms, and quick order grids to each company profile.
Since nearly 65% of web traffic is mobile, every page, tool, and checkout flow must load in less than 1.5 seconds and fit on a 6-inch screen. Shopify’s native themes are responsive out of the box, and Shop Pay delivers one-tap checkout that converts up to four time higher on mobile than guest flows.
🥇 Case study: Superfood brand Laird Superfood scrapped phone-in wholesale orders for a password-protected Shopify portal. The switch saves $50K to $60K in labor each year and flipped the revenue mix. Wholesale now accounts for 75% of total sales, up from 25% before the move.
The big push to digital payments brings new problems to B2B: cybercriminals and regulations.
Data breaches cost a lot of money to clean up. IBM reports the global average loss is $4.4 million per incident, and finds that 97% of organizations hit by an AI-related breach lacked basic governance controls.
Fraud pressure continues to rise. Juniper Research forecasts ecommerce fraud losses will jump to $107 billion by 2029. Fake purchase orders and vendor bank change scams are two threats for B2B businesses to watch:
Some ways to stay ahead of security and compliance are:
Word of mouth still closes more deals than any ad, but now it travels through two new channels: referral programs and short-form creator content. Yes, even on TikTok.
Partner referral programs reward existing clients and channel partners for lead intros. The typical incentive is a percentage of first-year sales or credits towards their next purchase.
With influencer collaborations, you team up with niche creators who speak your buyers’ language and co-create with them. The goal is to either drive demo signups or raise brand awareness, like when Salesforce partnered with @CorporateNatalie to create a 45-second sketch on “What is CRM?”
The B2B ecommerce sector is experiencing a significant shift toward headless commerce, with data showing remarkable adoption rates. According to a 2025 trend survey, 80% of enterprises have already adopted—or are actively planning to adopt—composable commerce architectures.
The trend is driven by changing B2B buyer demographics, with millennials expecting seamless digital experiences. Businesses are adopting varying degrees of headless approaches, from fully decoupled architectures to hybrid solutions.
With Shopify’s headless tools, you keep control of your data and can change customer touchpoints as needed:
💡Did you know? A headless build with Hydrogen allows for smoother and more flexible integrations with the essential systems that power B2B operations, such as ERPs (for inventory and pricing), CRMs (for customer data), and PIMs (for product information).
📚 Read: Best Practices for Implementing Headless Commerce for B2B Businesses
You have big plans to sell overseas and create partnerships with more strategic companies. But if you don’t have the right infrastructure, it’ll be costly and cumbersome to implement.
Global selling involves many challenges, like:
Shopify Managed Markets helps you expand internationally with ease. From the same storefront already powering your B2B business, Managed Markets can translate website copy, convert currencies, and display international shipping rates at checkout.
Traditional SEO metrics don’t apply to B2B. Low-volume, technical keywords often signal serious buyers with specific needs.
But don’t let that sway you—First Page Sage’s 2025 ROI benchmark finds SEO delivers an average 748% ROI in B2B, the highest of all 11 marketing channels analyzed.
The name of the game is intent over volume. Long-tail queries like “chemical-free industrial degreaser SDS” may draw only dozens of searches, but every click could be a purchase-ready buyer.
To show up on Google Search or LLMs like ChatGPT, follow these three steps:
Follow these steps, and search will become your most predictable and profitable marketing tactic.
B2B websites generally convert below their B2C counterparts. Industry medians sit between 1.1% and 3.1%, depending on your niche.
Yet 98% of B2B buyers report having issues during the B2B ecommerce checkout, with 83% claiming they would abandon their purchase if there are no payment terms at checkout. CRO in B2B is more about removing blockers to high-stakes deals than performing A/B tests.
Some ways you can remove friction from your checkout are:
Through better search functions and checkout optimizations, AMR Hair & Beauty saw a 77% rise in AOV and 93% YoY growth in conversion rates. Read their story.
Short-form video and interactive tools now assist the B2B discovery process. LinkedIn’s 2025 benchmark found that 78% of B2B marketers already deploy video, and more than half will raise spend on video this year.
Types of content you can create include:
Brands like HubSpot regularly post video content on TikTok. While they don’t promote the software directly, the content gets views because it’s relatable. This helps the TikTok algorithm push the videos to new audiences and spread more awareness about HubSpot and their niche.
Case studies and social proof help answer a buyer’s biggest question: “Will this work for a company like mine?”
Forrester’s 2025 trust survey shows 79% of buyers trust current vendors, and almost three-quarters trust peer customers and analysts, far more than they trust ads or sales reps.
Social proof in B2B takes many forms:
Publish these proof points across your website, nurture emails, and social media profiles. These assets will reassure stakeholders that the risk is low and the ROI is real.
Content positions your brand as a subject matter expert that buyers can trust. Educational assets help stakeholders de-risk the deal and champion your solution internally.
You can publish content like:
If you want to collect marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), gate assets like white papers so that buyers have to provide company info before receiving the content.
While many people think a B2B ecommerce platform is just a tool for listing products and accepting payments, Shopify offers so much more. It acts as a control center where you manage everything from sales to commerce operations, whether it’s for B2B and wholesale customers or a DTC website.
What sets Shopify apart is our unique combination of platform strengths. For example, your B2B ecommerce site on Shopify can:
Moving beyond traditional methods like faxes, phone calls, and spreadsheets, businesses can now harness specialized wholesale features to accelerate growth.
If you’re getting into wholesale ecommerce, a B2B ecommerce solution can drive sales by helping you:
In the end, Shopify’s B2B platform brings together our strengths in innovation, flexibility, and ease of use to manage everything from one place, with endless growth opportunities. You can set up a password-protected and branded B2B online store today.
Founded in 2015, Daily Harvest revolutionized healthy eating by delivering organic, sustainably grown fruits and vegetables directly to consumers. After growing from a DTC success to securing retail partnerships with giants like Target and Kroger, they faced limitations with their homegrown tech stack:
The brand migrated to Shopify to handle these issues and saw positive results. Their new Liquid website enabled faster innovation and easier content management across all customer touchpoints. Shopify’s app ecosystem helped streamline operations, while Shopify B2B supported their retail expansion.
Now, Daily Harvest is exploring loyalty programs and enhanced discovery features, proving that the right technology partner can transform both direct-to-consumer and B2B operations.
After years of struggling with Adobe Commerce, luxury furniture retailer Lulu and Georgia turned to Shopify to solve critical growth challenges. With over 40,000 SKUs, they faced significant hurdles:
After migrating to Shopify, the brand experienced immediate benefits. The platform’s stability allowed the team to focus on creating better assets and products rather than fixing technical issues.
The extensive app ecosystem simplified everything from promotions to gift cards, while a unified checkout seamlessly served both B2B and DTC customers. Now, Lulu and Georgia is expanding into 3D technology and enhanced B2B offerings, proving that the right foundation enables endless possibilities.
💡 Read Lulu and Georgia’s story
As a global leader in HVAC and building solutions, Carrier faced a critical challenge: launching ecommerce sites for their diverse customer base across 180 countries took up to 12 months and cost $2 million per site.
Their mission to create frictionless, self-service user experiences was hindered by numerous obstacles:
Through their OneCommerce initiative built on Shopify’s platform, Carrier revolutionized their digital approach. Now, new ecommerce experiences launch in just 30 days at $100,000 per site, a 90% reduction in time and massive cost-savings.
This digital transformation allows Carrier to test billion-dollar ideas at startup speed while maintaining enterprise-grade capabilities, proving that even century-old companies can lead in digital innovation.
The B2B ecommerce industry is booming as B2B buyers get more comfortable making large transactions to the tune of $50,000 or more, without the need to meet face to face with suppliers. Still, despite the data, many B2B ecommerce myths persist.
You might be familiar with the more common ones, including:
These myths couldn’t be further from the truth. The bottom line is that the digital approach to large B2B transactions only streamlines the supplier and buyer relationship.
Suppliers are investing heavily in top-of-the-line websites where buyers can order thousands or even millions of dollars worth of products without needing to travel, meet in person, or wait to hear back on key production and scheduling information.
While B2B ecommerce involves one business buying from another business, B2C ecommerce involves an individual buying from a business.
To start a B2B ecommerce company, you’ll first need to decide what you want to sell and evaluate whether there’s market demand. You’ll also need to set up an ecommerce website to list the products you’ll be selling.
B2C sales are only about a third of the size of B2B sales, making B2B ecommerce the more profitable model in terms of global gross merchandise volume.
Yes, B2B ecommerce is growing and is expected to continue expanding in the coming years. Sales are projected to reach $47 trillion by 2030. The convenience, cost-efficiency, and speed of B2B ecommerce make it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes. Businesses are also adopting B2B ecommerce to expand their customer base and reach new markets.
