The B2B eCommerce market is already worth $12.2 trillion, and is already witnessing growth at an amazing rate of 10% per year. That makes it six times larger than the B2C eCommerce market and a chance that no other B2B supplier can ignore.
Such an immense growth has arrived at the same time with the advent of new B2B eCommerce platforms. They offer a much better accessibility and functionality at highly less costs. But with so many B2B eCommerce solutions on the market, it’s hard to decide where to turn.
Fortunately, we are here to guide you through this complex selection process. We will take a deep dive into the three traditional options of the B2B eCommerce platform - traditional, SaaS, and headless - looking at both, the pros and cons for each to find the best one for your brand.
Traditional B2B eCommerce Platforms
Key Companies: Magento
With traditional B2B eCommerce platforms, you just have to purchase a license fee and your development team then builds a solution on top. You get total control over your code, and there’s just so much that you can create. But developing your solution is a highly technical task. You will need a highly skilled IT team for building and maintaining the solution that’s a significant drawback when compared to modern alternatives.
A traditional B2B eCommerce platform is definitely not the easy way to go. You have to do it all: hosting (some have started offering this now), PCI compliance, patches and updates, integrations, as well as new features. It’s not a cheap option too. Even if you go open-source (no license fees), you will still be paying six times more than you would be paying for a SaaS solution. Why do so many firms go down this route of tradition then?
One of the biggest benefits of traditional B2B eCommerce platforms is the security. People think: “If we keep our sensitive data in-house, then nobody can touch it.” This might make a little more sense in theory, but not in reality, for the same reason you would not keep your life savings at any unsafe place at all. As Leo Reiter, CTO at Nimblix recently surmised: “Cloud providers live, eat, and breathe network security while most other organizations don’t list it as one of their core competencies.”
The biggest disadvantage of traditional B2B eCommerce platforms is their shortage of agility. Altering your website is slow, technically very tedious, and risks causing downtime. Scaling your solution and then trying out the new features is pretty more complicated than it would have been on a SaaS or headless platform.
PRO’s of traditional B2B eCommerce platforms
Total freedom on your website’s look and feel.
Control on the entire code.
Decide the way and method for hosting your website.
Loads of security options in case of specific requirements.
A comprehensive eCommerce solution with a combined back end and front end.
CONs of traditional B2B eCommerce platforms
Lack of scalability to modern alternatives.
Employing new changes is slow, highly technical, and very risky. A single mistake can bring everything crashing down.
They are monolithic - integrated as a single massive program - which renders them complex and rigid.
No person understands the entire platform, and DIY workarounds make matters all the more conflicting.
The total cost of ownership is an average six times higher than SaaS platforms.
SaaS B2B eCommerce Platforms
Key Companies: Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud
SaaS B2B eCommerce platforms are the most optimal choices for mid-sized enterprises as they are cost-effective and very easy to use. Most people can grasp the various dashboards and their drag and drop tools in a matter of a few minutes, and even take care of the custom coding tasks with a little bit of practice. With SaaS, you can easily launch your own eCommerce store in just a few weeks and instantly generate revenue. As opposed to a traditional B2B eCommerce platform, it can take months or even years to develop.
With SaaS, you essentially ‘rent’ an eCommerce solution that has already been developed by the SaaS vendor. All you need to do is ensure a degree of personalization of the platform. For a monthly fee, you get complete access to the software through your web browser and also its maintenance, hosting, security updates, and upgrades. You are not tied to a long-term contract, and costs are not very front-loaded, so you enjoy the freedom of switching to another SaaS vendor if the prices increase or better alternatives enter the market.
The biggest disadvantage to SaaS is that you do not have complete ownership on your website or code respectively. Every company sharing the platform runs the same technology as you do. This is why there are concerns over the customizability, but they get sorted with the help of APIs. With a few clicks, you can integrate a vast array of third-party specialist tools and technologies. With so much competition among different SaaS vendors, new in-built features come pretty quickly and exceed expectations on a number of occasions.
KBMax is such a tool that easily gets integrated in your SaaS B2B eCommerce platform. It provides a visual product configurator that the customers can use for customizing the products as per their requirements, with the remaining transaction gets handled seamlessly with the eCommerce platform. It’s a highly immersive shopping experience that can give the customers a clear understanding of what they are buying and boosts conversion rates by the average of 60%.
PRO’s of SaaS B2B eCommerce platforms
Built and managed for you, thereby bringing a high degree of reduction in the complexity of running your online business.
Costs are not front-loaded, reducing the financial risk and making them more ideal for new ventures.
Quick and easy to design and then configure so that you can enter the market in just a matter of weeks.
24/7 customer support for all vendors.
CONs of SaaS B2B eCommerce platforms
No ownership on your website, you only “rent” it from the vendor.
Access is only via your web browser, so a stable internet connection is highly needed.
Heavy reliance on your SaaS vendor. If it goes out of business, then you are screwed.
Lack of control over security and its compliance.
Headless B2B eCommerce Platforms
Key Companies: Elastic Path, Reaction Commerce, Four51 OrderCloud
With headless commerce, the front and back ends of your B2B eCommerce platform are “decoupled.” They each have their codebase, and they get developed, deployed, and maintained on their own.
The back-end handles the core operations of your eCommerce business, like logins and accounts, payment processing, inventory management, and even the fulfillment. You have complete freedom to use any front end that you want to display across the different channels.
An API layer manages information flow between your back-end services with the front- end touchpoints, granting your customers a streamlined omnichannel experience at any place where they interact with your brand, and with any device whatsoever.
This API-first approach means that new channels can be added easily or integrate a new technology like KBMax at any time with the minimal impact on your back-end systems.
PRO’s of headless B2B eCommerce platforms
Create and experiment with new customer experiences without hampering the stability of existing ones.
Make use of the latest and most trending front-end technologies.
Provide a consistent customer experience across all the main points.
No requirement to replatform. You can now rearrange and then further add to the patches that make up your solution. It is completely future-proof.
Tailor your platform as per the needs of your business. If you are more content than commerce, then you can use a CMS like WordPress or Drupal to boost your commerce layer.
CONs about headless B2B eCommerce platforms?
Technically more demanding than SaaS platforms, needing more input from the front-end developers.
Payment needed for both back end and front end services, making them more expensive than SaaS.
Lacking the rapid speed of SaaS.
Unnecessarily complex for B2B firms which need a stand-alone eCommerce site.