Is your B2B platform failing you?
Choosing from countless options is overwhelming, and the wrong choice can stall your growth and frustrate your valuable customers.
You’re not just buying software; you’re committing to a partnership. A bad platform decision can lock you into years of operational friction.
The pressure is on. Research shows that 75% of B2B buyers now prefer buying online. This shift means a subpar digital experience directly hurts your bottom line.
But selecting the right platform doesn’t have to be a gamble. This guide helps you choose a solution that scales with your business.
In this article, I’m breaking down how to find the best B2B ecommerce platform. I’ll cover key features to help you avoid common, expensive errors.
You’ll learn how to identify a system that integrates smoothly, boosts sales efficiency, and provides a competitive customer experience.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shopify → | Mid-sized to large companies | |
| 2 | BigCommerce → | Mid-sized to large enterprises | |
| 3 | Adobe → | Businesses with creative focus | |
| 4 | Intershop Communications AG → | Mid to large B2B ecommerce managers | |
| 5 | Znode → | Manufacturers & distributors |
1. Shopify
Struggling to scale your B2B ecommerce operations?
Shopify offers robust features specifically designed to help your mid-sized or large B2B company streamline workflows. This platform empowers you to build a powerful online presence, manage orders, and deliver tailored buying experiences.
You can create custom experiences for wholesale buyers, integrating flexible pricing, discounts, and payment terms, which means you can meet your B2B customers’ unique needs with ease.
Here’s how you unlock new growth with B2B.
Shopify simplifies selling direct and wholesale, allowing you to reach and retain your customers effectively. This includes managing everything from product listings to shipping.
The platform offers a world-class checkout that’s fast, fully customizable, and optimized to close more sales, helping you boost conversions by exposing your brand to millions of buy-ready shoppers. Additionally, Shopify lets you sell across channels, from your online store to social media, and even in person with Shopify POS, ensuring your business is everywhere your customers are.
Plus, you can manage your entire business from a centralized admin or the mobile app, leveraging integrated marketing tools and insightful analytics. Shopify also provides access to capital and a vast App Store for specialized features.
While optimizing your ecommerce, ensuring data security is crucial. My guide on user activity monitoring software helps prevent breaches and stay compliant.
Key features:
- B2B and Wholesale Commerce: Create custom experiences for wholesale buyers, complete with flexible pricing, discounts, and payment terms to streamline B2B transactions.
- Omnichannel Sales & Management: Sell online, in person via POS, and across multiple channels, all managed from a centralized admin or the mobile app for seamless operations.
- High-Converting Checkout: Leverage a fast, customizable checkout optimized to increase sales conversions and connect your business with over 150 million high-intent shoppers.
Shopify features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Shopify is a strong contender for the best B2B ecommerce platform, especially for companies needing scalable solutions with robust B2B capabilities. Its comprehensive features, including custom wholesale experiences and high-converting checkout, directly address the pain points of scaling and integration, making it a valuable investment for your business.
2. BigCommerce
Struggling with scaling your current B2B ecommerce solution?
BigCommerce provides a flexible, professional-grade platform that directly addresses limitations like lack of integration and rigid features, ensuring your business can adapt and grow.
Their B2B Edition is specifically designed for complex B2B needs, offering the scalability and openness you require to transform your operations and empower your sales team.
Ready to simplify your B2B operations?
BigCommerce helps you achieve peak operational efficiency, streamlining quoting and invoicing while enabling you to manage both B2B and B2C channels from one platform. This means you can lower costs and mitigate risks across your entire sales process.
While we’re discussing operational efficiency, understanding how virtual PBX systems can support your hybrid teams might also be beneficial.
Additionally, BigCommerce offers a fully customizable Buyer Portal, delivering seamless shopping experiences for your B2B customers with advanced native functionality and robust partner integrations. You can also launch optimized storefronts instantly with Catalyst, creating stunning visual experiences and expanding into new markets or channels with ease.
The result: increased sales and reduced operational friction.
Key features:
- B2B Edition: Provides advanced features for enterprise plans, specifically designed for the complexities of B2B ecommerce, offering scalability, flexibility, and openness for your business.
- Multi-Storefront and International Capabilities: Allows you to manage multiple unique stores from one account and easily expand your brand into new geographical markets and channels.
- Streamlined Operations: Empowers your sales reps with peak operational efficiency, enabling you to streamline quoting, invoicing, and manage both B2B and B2C channels from a single platform.
BigCommerce features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: BigCommerce stands out as the best B2B ecommerce platform for mid-sized to large companies due to its B2B Edition, which simplifies complex workflows and offers critical features like multi-storefront management and international expansion. With reported 211% ROI in under eight months and 30% site conversion increase, it’s built to scale with your business.
3. Adobe
Struggling to make your B2B offerings truly stand out?
Adobe Creative Cloud’s 20+ apps and generative AI tools can help your content shine.
This means you can easily create compelling visual assets that address your challenges of information overload and complex product comparison, ensuring your products are presented with precise selections and instant color adjustments.
Here’s how to elevate your digital presence.
Adobe allows you to bring your ideas to life, which is crucial when your goal is to streamline B2B workflows and increase sales efficiency through engaging visuals.
You can work faster in Photoshop, achieving precise selections and instant color adjustments, while Adobe Express lets you enhance content with one-click animations and quick social clips, making effortless on-brand designs achievable.
Additionally, these capabilities support your digital-first strategies, ensuring your marketing collateral and product showcases are always top-tier, and ultimately reducing operational friction by providing tools that scale with your business growth and support a competitive customer experience.
The result is a more effective digital strategy.
If you’re optimizing your B2B operations, exploring headless ecommerce platforms could be beneficial for scalability.
Key features:
- Generative AI tools: Leverage advanced AI capabilities across 20+ apps to bring your creative ideas to life, enhancing efficiency and visual appeal for your B2B marketing.
- Photoshop precision: Achieve precise selections and instant color adjustments in Photoshop, allowing for high-quality product imagery that captivates your B2B audience.
- Express brand consistency: Enhance creative content faster with one-click animations, quick social clips, and effortless on-brand designs using Adobe Express.
Adobe features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For businesses seeking the best B2B ecommerce platform, Adobe Creative Cloud helps overcome information overload and product comparison challenges by empowering your team to create stunning visual assets. This robust suite ensures your digital content is always on-brand, helping you achieve improved ROI and reduced operational friction.
4. Intershop Communications AG
Is your current B2B ecommerce platform struggling to keep up?
Intershop Communications AG offers a commerce platform designed to start your perfect B2B buyer journey fast, with all features ready to use. This means you can increase customer satisfaction with a perfect online shop experience.
Their platform is built to streamline your sales processes, reducing manual data entry and automating approvals, helping you avoid costly errors and disruptive migrations.
This helps you adapt to your B2B market.
Intershop Communications AG aims to deliver seamless customer experiences and accelerate business growth from day one. You can increase your online sales with personalized pricing, recommendations, and smart product discovery. Here’s how it makes buying from you easier: it provides self-service options, account-based experiences, and quick reordering capabilities. Additionally, their platform allows you to go live fast, often within 90 days, thanks to pre-built B2B capabilities and a proven onboarding approach. Plus, their advanced AI tools deliver tailored buying journeys with personalized search, product recommendations, and smart assistants, boosting productivity for both buyers and internal teams through AI copilots and agents. The result is a streamlined sales process that saves time.
Beyond platform features, security is paramount. My guide on dynamic application security testing software helps reduce false positives and fortify your defenses.
Key features:
- Out-of-the-box B2B features allow you to quickly streamline your entire order and fulfillment process, reducing the need for custom development.
- Advanced AI tools deliver tailored buying journeys with personalized search, product recommendations, and smart assistants for enhanced customer engagement.
- A hybrid approach to composability frees you from rigid systems, enabling innovation, scalability, and adaptation at your own pace.
Intershop Communications AG features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: If you’re an ecommerce manager at a mid-sized to large B2B company looking for a robust, scalable solution that minimizes operational friction, Intershop Communications AG stands out as a strong contender for the best B2B ecommerce platform. Their AI-powered platform and composable architecture address challenges like integration, tailored experiences, and rapid deployment.
5. Znode
Tired of ecommerce platforms that can’t scale with your ambition?
Znode offers an API-first, distributed SaaS platform designed for limitless B2B ecommerce growth. This means you can handle unlimited stores, catalogs, and accounts.
If your current system limits product types or complex pricing, Znode provides native support for diverse inventory and the ability to create customized price lists down to the user level.
Here’s how Znode offers a truly flexible solution.
Znode delivers robust, customizable features, including an all-in-one platform with commerce connector, CMS, and PIM systems. This means you can streamline your operations.
You can manage complex inventory with support for standard stock, variant, virtual products, kits, and bundles. Additionally, built-in B2B approval workflows help control budgets and user order limits. You can also create personalized catalogs unique to various shopper profiles and channels, plus utilize quote management for self-service or reviewable quotes.
The result is a platform that simplifies complex B2B workflows and ensures efficient sales operations.
Key features:
- Unlimited Scalability: Supports limitless stores, portals, catalogs, accounts, and price lists, ensuring your platform grows with your business without limitations.
- Comprehensive B2B Capabilities: Includes complex inventory and pricing rules, personalized catalogs, list management, and B2B approval workflows for efficient operations.
- Integrated All-in-One Platform: Provides a unified solution with Commerce Connector, Content Management System, Order Management System, PIM System, and Site Search.
Znode features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Znode stands out as the best B2B ecommerce platform for manufacturers and distributors needing extensive customization and scalability. Its ability to manage unlimited stores, complex pricing, and B2B workflows, as seen with customers like MacGregor Schoolwear and Land & Coates, ensures your digital-first strategies are supported for long-term growth and reduced operational friction.
6. PrestaShop
Struggling with an ecommerce platform that can’t scale?
PrestaShop directly addresses this by offering flexible solutions like Classic, Hosted, and Enterprise options, letting you choose how to deploy your store. This means you can get started quickly or maintain full control over your data and code.
This flexibility ensures your platform grows with your business, helping you avoid costly, disruptive migrations later. You truly maintain full ownership of your online store.
Here’s your path to sales efficiency.
PrestaShop offers robust customization, allowing you to tailor your store with thousands of modules and themes. This helps convert visitors into loyal customers and supports your digital-first strategy.
Plus, with PrestaShop Essentials like Checkout, Marketing, and Shipping modules, you can streamline your B2B workflows and automate processes. This simplifies complex operations, from secure payment processing with PayPal to synchronizing your catalog with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to reach a broader audience. Additionally, features like PrestaShop Automation with Klaviyo and Metrics with Google Analytics provide crucial data for informed decisions and improved ROI, empowering your business to scale from hundreds to millions in revenue.
Ready for seamless growth?
As your business scales, managing your team effectively becomes critical. My article on workforce planning software offers insights into forecasting talent needs.
Key features:
- Customizable Platform: Offers thousands of modules and themes, ensuring your B2B store can stand out and convert visitors into loyal customers.
- Integrated Essentials: Provides essential modules for streamlined operations, including secure payment solutions, marketing automation, and simplified shipping processes.
- Scalable Solutions: Gives you full control over your data and code, offering Classic, Hosted, and Enterprise options to grow from new entrepreneurs to business leaders.
PrestaShop features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: PrestaShop is a strong contender for the best B2B Ecommerce Platform, offering customizable solutions and essential integrations to scale with your business. Its focus on user control and a robust community support system helps businesses streamline workflows and increase sales efficiency, crucial for mid-sized to large B2B companies aiming for digital transformation.
Conclusion
Choosing the right platform is tough.
The wrong choice leads to costly errors, operational friction, and frustrated customers. This stalls growth when your business can least afford a setback.
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions will be fully digital. This digital-first shift is no longer a trend; it is a fundamental change demanding the right technology.
So, here is what I recommend.
From my experience, Shopify is the clear winner. Its robust and scalable features directly solve the biggest B2B ecommerce challenges.
I’m impressed with its custom wholesale experiences and a high-converting checkout. Choosing the best B2B ecommerce platform like this one empowers your entire team for future growth.
I recommend you start a free trial of Shopify to see how its B2B features work firsthand.
You’ll see the impact immediately.
