Quick summary
Choosing a B2B eCommerce platform is mostly about matching the tool to how your wholesale business already runs and where you want to take it. Work through these steps:
- Know your starting point. Replacing a B2B tool carries different risks than setting one up for the first time.
- Map how you sell today. Price lists, minimums, pack sizes, payment terms.
- Rebuild your messiest account in the demo.
- Check the ERP and accounting connection. That is where budgets go.
- Work out the total cost of ownership.
- Pilot with your own buyers before you sign.
If you already sell on Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce, you might not need a separate platform at all.
Wholesale grows faster than the process behind it
If you sell wholesale, this probably sounds familiar. Orders come in by email, someone manually enters them, and the pricing lives in a spreadsheet only one person really understands. That holds up at ten accounts a week. At forty, a pack size gets typed wrong and you have eaten the margin on the whole order.
Finding a B2B eCommerce platform is easy, there are dozens and they all list the same features. Working out which one fits how you sell is the harder part.
This guide covers how to choose, whether you are buying your first platform or replacing something that has stopped fitting.
Why listen to us?
SparkLayer has built B2B ordering for more than 3,500 brands, including teapigs, Cubitts, Nkuku, Rave Coffee, and Schneider Electric. These businesses sell on Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce, using SparkLayer to add wholesale functionality without switching platforms.
We build exclusively for B2B, so we understand the practical trade-offs involved in choosing between a B2B layer and a standalone platform, from implementation and integrations to cost and time to launch. We're rated 4.9 out of 5 on the Shopify App Store from 362+ reviews.
How to pick the right B2B eCommerce platform
1. Are you replatforming or starting from scratch?
These are two different projects, and they go wrong in different ways.
Buying your first B2B platform
Your main risk is buying for the wrong size and having to replatform later because the tool is missing features you need. You do not need an enterprise build for fifteen wholesale accounts and a handful of price lists. If you are being quoted six figures for that volume, you are looking at the wrong tier. Size the decision on what you will be selling in eighteen months.
Switching platforms
The risk sits in the move itself. You have account logins, negotiated prices, order history, and buyers who have already learned one system. Ask each vendor what happens to that data, who does the migration, and what your buyers have to re-learn on day one.
2. Write down how your wholesale runs today
Every demo looks good against a tidy example, and yours probably is not tidy. Before you book any calls, write down the awkward parts of how you sell now:
- The customer who gets 40% off two product lines and list price on everything else
- The distributor who orders in pallets while the boutique orders in threes
- The account on 60-day terms because they have been with you since 2014
- The products you only want your wholesale customers to see
That list is your test script for every demo you sit through.
3. Rebuild your messiest account in the demo
Trade pricing is where these platforms quietly differ, and it is the hardest part to judge from a feature page. All of them say they support customer-specific pricing. In practice, that ranges from three price lists to per-account, per-product rules that refresh from your ERP overnight via API-driven pricing.
Take the messiest account from step 2 and go through the setup process as if you were a vendor. Most platforms offer a free trial, and running through the setup is the fastest way to find the gaps before you commit or your customers experience it. Four questions get you most of the way:
- Can you set a price per account, or only per customer group?
- Can a discount stack with a volume break, and which one wins?
- Can you set minimum order values and pack sizes per customer?
- When your retail prices change, do the trade prices follow automatically?
Anything they cannot do without a developer becomes a cost you pay later, an agency invoice, or someone on your team updating two systems by hand.
4. Check how it connects to your ERP and accounting
If you run an ERP or an inventory system, this step decides your budget more than the platform choice does. Ask about the connection early and ask specifically. Is there a native integration, a connector built by a third party, or an API plus a quote from an agency? Those three answers carry very different price tags.
Then check which way the data flows. Pulling stock and prices out of your ERP is one job - writing completed orders and invoices back into it is another. That second half is what saves your team the manual entry. Systems like Brightpearl, Linnworks, Unleashed, Cin7, and Katana come up constantly in wholesale. See our full integrations list or ask us for a bespoke recommendation!
5. Add up the total cost of ownership
B2B platform pricing runs from free to six figures a year, and the number on the pricing page rarely tells you much. The licence fee typically covers only 20% to 40% of what a full implementation costs. The rest goes on implementation, integration, data migration, and testing.
Build the full total from five lines:
- The platform fee
- Implementation and setup, whether that is an agency or your own team's hours
- Integration work for the ERP or accounting system
- Running costs like transaction fees, extra seats, or per-agent charges - see SparkLayer's pricing for a transparent breakdown of our B2B app pricing
- The internal time you will spend managing it once it is live
6. Pilot with your own buyers before you sign
Vendors will give you a trial, and it is tempting to spend it clicking around the admin. Your buyers are the ones who decide whether this works. Pick three or four accounts, a large one with complicated pricing, a small one who reorders monthly, and a rep-managed account if your sales team places orders. Give each a login and an order to place, then watch without helping.
You are looking for the moments they stall. Can they find last month's order and reorder it in one click? A wholesale portal your buyers avoid is worse than the email orders you already have, because now you are paying for both.
What if you just need a B2B layer on top of your existing store?
Everything above assumes you are buying a platform. There is a second route worth pricing out before you commit, and it can work out significantly cheaper.
Dedicated B2B platforms
Platforms like Adobe Commerce, and OroCommerce replace your storefront with deep wholesale features at the core. That is the right approach for distributors with complex catalogues, several warehouses, and an ERP at the centre, along with the implementation project that comes with it.
A B2B layer
A B2B layer works the other way round. It sits on top of the store you already run and turns it into a trade portal for logged-in wholesale customers. Your retail site carries on exactly as it is.
If you are on Shopify, check the native tools first. Since April 2026, core B2B features including company profiles, quantity price breaks, and net terms are available on all paid plans. Non-Plus stores are capped at three catalogues. If you sell to a handful of accounts on similar pricing, that may be enough.
SparkLayer is a B2B layer for Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. Trade pricing, pack sizes, payment terms, and company accounts sit on top of your existing products. The frontend only loads for signed-in B2B customers. Plans start free, onboarding included, live within a day. The Sales Agent Portal and Quoting Engine cover rep-assisted ordering. See where Shopify's native B2B stops.
Both routes are legitimate. Buy the full platform if you are routing orders across several distribution centres. A six-month migration is an expensive way to solve a pricing and login problem.
Ready to add B2B to the store you already run?
Are you rebuilding how you sell, or adding a wholesale channel to something that already works? If it is the second, you probably do not need a new platform. You need trade pricing, company logins, and orders that reach your back office without anybody re-keying them. That is what we built SparkLayer to do.
Start free and take the 14-day trial on any plan.
FAQs
How much does a B2B eCommerce platform cost?
It depends on the route you take. A B2B platform like SparkLayer layers onto your existing store and starts free, with paid plans from $49/month. A dedicated standalone platform that replaces your store entirely can run into six figures once implementation, integration, and data migration are factored in.
What features should a B2B eCommerce platform have?
At minimum: customer-specific pricing, volume rules, company accounts, payment terms, and self-serve reordering. Rep-managed accounts need a Sales Agent Portal and quoting workflows. ERP users need native integrations that write orders back automatically.
Does Shopify support B2B without an app?
Yes, up to a point. Since April 2026, Shopify's core B2B features run on Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans as well as Plus. Non-Plus plans allow up to three active catalogues. For capabilities beyond that, see our guide to Shopify B2B without Plus.
How long does it take to launch a B2B eCommerce store?
SparkLayer can go live within a day on your existing store. As Paleo Ridge noted, "We thought we'd be able to go live in a week, but it was all done in a day."
