B2B shop and ordering portal: when they help and when they don't

What a B2B shop does

At first glance a B2B shop looks like an online shop for consumers, but it works by different rules. The customer logs in with a company account and sees their own prices, discounts and payment terms. They order in packaging units, see their previous orders and can repeat them in a few clicks. An ordering portal is the leaner version: no showcase of the range, just an order form with a product list and quick entry by item number.

For a wholesaler the advantages are clear. The order arrives structured, with the right item number and the right unit, and reaches the inventory system without retyping. Customers order at night and at weekends without anyone in the sales office sorting e-mails.

Why e-mails keep coming

Anyone who introduces a B2B shop sees the same pattern. The large regular customers come to like it after a while, while a good share of the others keep ordering as before. The restaurant owner writes a short e-mail on Sunday evening, the installer photographs his material list on site, and the buyer at an industrial customer sends a PDF from their own ERP. For that buyer your portal is one of twenty, and they have no wish to log in everywhere.

Forcing customers into the shop can cost you the customer. Many wholesalers therefore live with two channels: a shop for those who use it and an order mailbox for everyone else. The second channel often causes most of the work, because every order is entered by hand.

What matters when choosing

Before deciding on a B2B shop, look at your orders. How many customers regularly reorder the same items? They gain most from a portal. If instead you receive many small, varying orders from customers who order rarely, the shop will see little use.

Integration matters too: a B2B shop needs your customer prices, stock and items from the inventory system and has to pass orders back. Without that link you maintain everything twice. Shop systems with a B2B extension, standalone B2B platforms and the portals of some inventory systems differ mainly in how well that link fits your system.

The mailbox as the second order channel

Onshop is not a B2B shop and doesn’t try to be one. Onshop takes care of the channel the shop doesn’t reach: the order mailbox. It reads incoming e-mails, including a PDF, scan or photo attached, and turns them into a draft order with customer and line items. Items are matched to your catalogue by item number or exact name, anything unclear stays marked, and when information is missing Onshop prepares a question for the customer. Your sales office reviews and confirms.

Customers who don’t want to use the shop still get quick handling, without anyone retyping every line. You export confirmed orders as CSV for your inventory system; a direct integration is planned, as are orders via WhatsApp.

What this looks like in practice is described under Order entry for wholesalers.