Let’s explore differences between B2C and B2B ecommerce
Different objectives
In B2C commerce, a customer is an individual consumer. It has many choices, just a click away. Consumers could be exploring the latest fashion or looking to open a new bank account and they always expect great design, relevant marketing content, optimized checkout, promotions, and flexible returns. In many cases, B2C shopping is fun; it is entertainment. On the other hand, B2B customers come to your site with a quite different objective – they have a job to do. They want to accomplish their tasks fast and without mistakes. Productivity is essential to them.
Individual vs. Organization
In B2C, a customer is always an individual, one person, while in B2B, you are selling to an organization. In addition, the B2B buying process involves collaboration between multiple employees and departments. One person has the expertise to select what products to buy while another should approve the order, and somebody from the purchasing department will place it.
B2B Org structure In B2B commerce implementation, you need to give customers tools to recreate their Organizational structure with their departments or business units Each of these departments may have a separate budget, approval authority, and users. Customer account Administrator should have an interface to configure different roles, permission, and assign them to employees
Pricing
There are differences in pricing. It is common to show Net Prices to B2B customers. Also, in B2B prices can be customer specific and pre-negotiated ahead of time.
Product Prices in B2B Ecommerce
Payment Methods
You will need to offer different Payment methods – credit cards and PayPal for B2C customers and invoice for B2B. Value added taxes are also applied differently.
Workflows
And it is common to see complex Workflows in B2B like an approval or request for quote processes
Product Selection
In B2B, some customers may have access only to a subset of products in the catalog. Or a B2B customer may ask to limit product selection to employees in some business units of the organization. For example, on a site that sells computer equipment, all users can order a laptop, but only IT administrators can buy servers or network equipment.
Order History
In B2C case the My Orders page contains orders placed by a consumer while in B2B it will show orders placed by all people in the organization. And there are many other differences between B2C & B2B digital commerce
