B2B sales are higher in volume than B2C sales on successful e-commerce websites. Because of this, e-commerce websites must make the preferences of their B2B customers paramount. Almost all B2B customers order huge quantities and want to pay later, most commonly on Net 30 terms. A Net 30 policy means that a customer will make the payment after 30 days.
Therefore, for any e-commerce website having both B2B and B2C customers in their client base, it becomes essential to offer all flexible payment models. Offering both online and offline payment models for their customers’ comfort level.
Problem
On e-commerce websites with just B2C business, it’s easy to handle one type of customer and simple to add credit card, PayPal or other payment methods. But if an e-commerce website also has B2B business, they will need to add a few additional payment methods. Specifically Net 10, Net 30 and Net 60 for their wholesale customers, which should not be available to their other retail customers.
Unfortunately on Volusion and many other e-commerce platforms, e-commerce websites dealing in both B2B and B2C can’t setup specific payment models for different customer groups. Besides all other payment methods, like PayPal and Bank Transfer, they need to make traditional payment methods available. In particular to their Net D or PO to B2B customers.
Recently, a growing e-commerce business owner reached out to us with the same need for his e-commerce website, and we changed his problem into an opportunity with the following custom solution.
Solution
We enabled him to manage different payment methods for specific customer groups with backend programming. Our solution begins by creating two groups of their customers. We grouped their customers based on their business model into two main categories, wholesalers and general customers. Then we allowed them to assign any payment method to each group by simple check/uncheck feature in the admin panel.
(This is how it appears to ONLY wholesale customers)
Results
The nice thing about our customer solution is that your single e-commerce website will act differently for B2C and B2B customers with the same customer UX. This makes a complex B2B+B2C business as easy as B2C for you.
Besides that, it is also easy for your customers to buy from your site with the convenience they demand in making payments.
Final Words
Not every business order can be processed online. By taking care of your customers’ requirements, you may need to have many offline payment methods available on your checkout page.
Contact us and we will create a custom-built feature enabling you to add any other payment terms you require, like Net 10, Net 60, Net 90, PO or COD, and restrict it to any specific group of your customers.
