B2B, or business-to-business, refers to purchase transactions taking place between two or more companies or businesses, usually on a large scale. B2B is different from other forms of transaction types, such as B2C, which is the standard business-to-customer model, or B2G, business-to-government. The main activity of B2B is to provide other companies with the items and parts that they will use on the retailer end. For this reason, the raw amount of materials sold between businesses is greater than those sold within B2C. For example, a retailer sells a finished product combined of several items, all of which were purchased either from one or more vendors. In the last decade, business has taken a considerable turn from brick-and-mortar shops to online transactions, a prominent subset of B2B sometimes known as E-B2B. Business-to-business itself is comprised of several subcategories which will be discussed in this post.
Company Websites
Company websites serve as online warehouses, are largely designed to advertise products in bulk or services to other companies and/or create a company’s online presence. An example of such a relationship is a printer manufacturer that purchases card hoppers, printheads and print ribbons in order to produce the final product of a printer. The printer manufacturer buys these parts directly from the manufacturer or through a dealership site, which is the topic of the next section.
Dealership Websites
Dealership Websites act as intercessors between companies seeking to purchase specific products or services and between the companies that provide them. A good model to understand the seller-dealer-manufacturer relationship is a real estate agent, who actively seeks out potential home renters or buyers and puts them in contact with those renting, leasing or selling their homes. The benefit of using the help of a dealership is that they are often well-versed in the specific industry and provide competitive prices.
Procurement Websites
Procurement websites allow companies to interact with a vendor in a more detailed fashion, allowing them to make requests and bids on a vendor site. Procurement sites typically specialize either a specific market or in a range of industries.
Gateways
Gateways are websites that act as their own self-contained internets,” providing businesses with an array of information such as chat functionality, discussion forums and product listings. Some gateways allow visitors to buy and sell as well.
Informational Websites
Informational websites are designed to provide businesses with a specific set of information relevant to the industry at hand and can take the form of blogs or news release pages but also include specialized search sites.
The Adrecom Solution
The last decade has seen considerable success for B2B with statistical studies published as early as 2000 showing that B2B exceeded internet retailing (or e-tailing) by ten times. Adrecom facilitates the growth of your business by providing specific key features with a track record of bringing success to businesses. We offer distributors and wholesalers a self-service portal with tiered pricing and quick payment orders and high profile manageability to create and maintain sub-accounts.
Other Key Features Include:
- Profile management ability to create and maintain sub-accounts with master user functionality.
- B2B buyer's registrations, approval and accounts settings with personalized confirmations.
- Quote Management capability for dealers and sales representatives to create quotes, store them in the back end system and make them accessible for customers through their accounts.
- Customer Shipping Configurations such as flat rate shipping, free shipping, or table-based rate schedules.
- Out-of-the-box virtual POS capability and phone ordering automations.
- Automatic orders and customer account synchronization with Intuit QuickBooks and Sage Act accounting systems.
- Ready-to-go-web services and EDI-based integration with orders fulfillment, ERP and CRM systems.
