Your B2B eCommerce portal is live. Customers can browse products, check their account pricing and place orders whenever they need to. Yet the phones keep ringing, purchase orders arrive by email, and your team continues entering orders manually.
It can be tempting to assume customers simply prefer the old way. However, low adoption deserves a closer look. A buyer who regularly calls an account manager already has a familiar process that works. Moving online needs to offer a clear improvement.
For wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors, increasing B2B eCommerce adoption means understanding those existing habits, removing practical barriers and helping customers experience the benefits themselves.
The objective is to make online ordering a dependable, convenient choice for everyday purchases while keeping personal support available when customers need it.
Understand what the phone call provides
A customer calling your sales team may accomplish several things in one conversation. They confirm the right product, check availability, receive their negotiated price and explain where the order needs to go.
Their account manager might also remember their usual quantities, identify an incorrect product code or suggest a suitable alternative.
Your portal needs to support the relevant parts of that experience. If ordering online leaves buyers uncertain, calling remains the easier option.
Start by speaking with customers who have access but rarely use it. Ask them to walk through their most recent purchase. What did they need to know? Where did the website leave them unsure? Why did they contact the team?
Include regular online buyers in those conversations. Understanding what works for them can reveal improvements worth extending to other accounts.
Make account pricing dependable
Pricing uncertainty gives customers an immediate reason to leave the portal.
A buyer who has negotiated specific rates expects those agreements to appear when they sign in. If the website displays a different price, they may assume their account manager needs to correct it.
Even when the final invoice would be accurate, an unclear buying experience creates extra work. Customers should understand the price before submitting the order.
Check that account pricing behaves consistently across product listings, product pages, carts and checkout. Include quantity breaks, pack sizes, tax treatment and different purchasing locations where relevant.
Our article on B2B eCommerce pricing, customer price groups and ERP integration explores how these arrangements need to connect.
Before encouraging wider adoption, test representative customer accounts against their actual agreements. Sales and finance teams should help confirm the results.
Give buyers stock information they can use
Availability often determines whether a B2B customer can proceed with a purchase.
A contractor might need materials for tomorrow morning. A manufacturer may be buying a component required to keep production moving. A retailer could need replenishment before the weekend.
A simple “in stock” label may leave important questions unanswered. Can the required quantity be supplied? Is it available at the correct branch? What happens if part of the order is unavailable?
Present stock and fulfilment information at the level your business can reliably support. Where exact availability cannot be confirmed online, explain the next step clearly.
As we discuss in connecting your online store, warehouse and ERP for inventory accuracy, the customer experience depends on consistent information across systems.
Customers need confidence that the order they place can be fulfilled as expected.
Make repeat ordering genuinely easier
Many B2B customers already know what they want. They purchase familiar products, use established part numbers and work from their own stock lists.
Asking them to browse a catalogue from the beginning adds unnecessary effort.
Depending on your customers’ workflows, useful capabilities might include:
- Reordering from previous purchases.
- Saving frequently purchased products into lists.
- Entering product codes and quantities directly.
- Uploading an order from a spreadsheet.
- Maintaining separate lists for branches, projects or departments.
Choose these features around observed buying behaviour. A small trade customer ordering ten familiar products has different needs from a purchasing team submitting hundreds of order lines.
Reordering also needs safeguards. Previously purchased items may have changed price, become unavailable or been replaced. Show those changes before customers submit their next order, with a clear way to resolve them.
Help customers find the right product
Repeat purchasing is only part of the journey. Customers also need to locate unfamiliar items, compare alternatives and confirm specifications.
A search experience that works for marketing descriptions may struggle with supplier codes, abbreviations or the terminology customers use at work.
Review actual searches and customer enquiries. Look for missing results, confusing matches and products that buyers repeatedly need help finding.
Product information should answer the questions your sales team hears most often. Depending on the catalogue, that could include dimensions, compatibility, technical documents, units of measure or suitable applications.
Our guide to choosing the right eCommerce search engine provides a useful framework for assessing discovery requirements.
The practical test is straightforward: can customers confidently identify and order the correct item without needing someone to interpret the catalogue for them?
Fit the customer’s purchasing process
A portal can be easy to browse and still fail at the moment a customer needs to place an order.
Business purchasing may involve purchase order references, account terms, approved delivery addresses or internal authorisation. Different people within the same organisation may have different responsibilities.
Map those requirements before assuming that a standard checkout is sufficient.
Can the buyer select the correct branch? Can they include the reference their accounts team requires? Are payment options consistent with their agreement? Where approvals are necessary, is the workflow supported?
Account access matters too. A customer should be able to understand which business they are purchasing for and what information they can view.
Our article on giving customers a reason to sign in considers how useful account features can support ongoing engagement.
Bring your sales team into the rollout
Sales teams are central to adoption because customers already trust them.
Explain how online ordering fits into the account relationship. Agree on which purchases are suitable for self-service and when customers should speak with someone.
Give account managers time to learn the portal using realistic customer scenarios. They need to understand pricing, ordering, account access and common problems well enough to guide buyers confidently.
Also review internal incentives. If staff believe online orders weaken account ownership or affect how their performance is recognised, adoption may receive limited support.
A practical approach is to retain clear account responsibility regardless of ordering channel. The portal then becomes another way for the team to serve its customers.
Encourage staff to record recurring obstacles and feed them into a shared improvement process.
Help customers complete their first order
A launch email creates awareness, but customers may still need practical help getting started.
Begin with a manageable group of accounts whose ordering patterns suit the portal. Confirm their access, pricing and delivery details before inviting them to use it.
Then help each buyer complete a real task. That might mean rebuilding their usual weekly order, creating a saved list or locating an invoice.
Keep guidance short and relevant to their role. A purchasing officer needs different information from a business owner checking account activity.
Make support easy to find during those first transactions. If something goes wrong, acknowledge it, resolve the issue and explain what happens next.
Follow up after the first order. Ask whether the process saved time and what would make the next purchase easier.
Build confidence after checkout
The online experience continues after customers submit their orders.
Buyers need to know that the order was received, what is being supplied and when they can expect delivery or collection. If confirmation is unclear, they may phone your team simply to check that everything worked.
Provide useful order references and distinguish between receiving an order and confirming fulfilment where your process requires it.
Make status updates accessible through the channels your customers use. Explain split deliveries, backorders and changes promptly.
Our article on keeping customers informed with order tracking explores this part of the experience.
Reliable communication gives customers confidence to return to the portal for their next purchase.
Measure adoption and keep improving
Registrations alone do not show whether customers are changing how they buy.
Track the proportion of eligible accounts placing online orders, how many return for a second purchase and which customers continue switching back to phone or email.
Review assisted orders separately where possible. An order entered online by your staff tells a different story from one completed independently by the customer.
Measure operational outcomes alongside adoption. Consider manual processing time, order corrections and enquiries about pricing or delivery. Our article on the hidden cost of manual work in eCommerce explains why these activities deserve attention.
Use the findings to prioritise improvements. A recurring pricing issue or difficult reorder process may deserve attention before another promotional campaign.
If your B2B portal is struggling to gain traction, talk to OSE about identifying the barriers and making online ordering easier for your customers.