What criteria should you check before choosing a B2B ecommerce solution?

Af: Anders Thue Pedersen, Business Unit Manager, Ecommerce

Before you choose a B2B ecommerce solution, check how flexible it is on a set of concrete points:

pricing logic and discounts
assortment and stock segmentation
payment terms
order flow and reordering
where data lives
user rights
cost and implementation time
hosting and maintenance
language
currency

Some solutions handle what you need out of the box. Others require consulting hours or development to support the same thing. Abakion B2B Ecommerce covers most of the points below directly from Business Central, with no extra development.

How flexible does the pricing logic need to be?

The pricing logic needs to be flexible enough to match the way you already price customers today, without requiring consulting hours or development for every new pricing rule.

Most solutions can be set up to show customer-specific prices. But many of them require consulting hours to set up, or development hours to program, every time you have a new type of pricing rule. A good question to ask is therefore: does each customer or customer group have its own prices today, and does the solution support that without special programming?

Abakion B2B Ecommerce supports the standard prices in Business Central, whether you use the old or the new pricing model. If you have developed your own pricing logic in Business Central, you can switch to that instead of the standard calculation. The same principle applies to discounts: if you give different discounts by customer group or customer type, they work on the webshop with no extra setup.

How detailed does your assortment and stock segmentation need to be?

You need to be able to segment assortment and stock at least as granularly as you already do today, for example by country, customer type, or special agreements.

Some solutions only let you segment on simple customer discount groups, and you quickly hit a wall if your needs are more specific. So ask how freely you can set up access, and whether it requires programming.

Abakion B2B Ecommerce lets you segment on:

item numbers
variants, so some customers can only see specific versions of an item
unit of measure codes, so some customers can buy pieces, others boxes or pallets
stock figures, so a customer only sees stock from the warehouse they are linked to

You can also decide which stock figure customers see. It can be total stock minus open sales orders plus incoming purchase orders, or stock per location, where you can exclude specific locations entirely. You can also show goods in transit, calculated from purchase orders or transfer orders, depending on how you move goods into your own warehouse.

How should customers be able to pay, and what happens at the credit limit?

By default, customers should be able to trade on invoice, without paying immediately, but the solution also needs to be able to stop an order if the customer is over their credit limit.

It's important to ask whether the platform can block orders based on a credit limit, and whether it can require prepayment or card payment from specific customers before they can place an order.

Abakion B2B Ecommerce can be set up to allow open sales orders regardless of credit limit, to block orders if what the customer owes plus what they are about to buy exceeds their credit limit, or to let the customer pay by card and always be able to order.

Where does the order end up, and how should customers be able to reorder?

The order needs to end up as an open sales order in your ERP system right away, and customers need to be able to reorder in more than one way, not only by typing a brand new order.

Ask whether a web order becomes a real sales order in the ERP system immediately, so you can release it for picking quickly. Also ask which ways customers can reorder: from an old order, from a favorites list, or from a blanket order where they can see how much they have left.

In Abakion B2B Ecommerce, a placed order becomes an open sales order in Business Central right away. Customers can reorder from open sales orders, invoices, and credit notes, see blanket orders and how much they have left on them, and create and order entire favorites lists, for example a list of the items a specific customer always buys.

Where should your data live, and how open should the platform be to the outside?

Data should live in one place, not two, and you should decide for yourself whether the platform should be open to visitors or only to registered customers.

Many solutions require you to create items in the ERP system and then sync them to a web platform, where you add images and descriptions. That means you have to maintain data in two places and remember to update both if, for example, you rename an item number.

With Abakion B2B Ecommerce, you only maintain data in Business Central. At the same time, the platform can be both open and closed, as you decide: you can build pages that describe products and the company for visitors who aren't customers, while still requiring that someone is registered as a customer before they can see prices and order.

How many logins and rights should a customer be able to have?

A customer needs to be able to have several logins, and each login needs to be able to have its own rights, if more than one person at your customer trades with you.

Ask whether a customer can have several users, whether some users can see prices and order while others can only see the assortment, and whether some users need to be able to approve other users' orders. Also ask whether a single user can have access to several customers, which matters if you sell to chains with a purchasing manager who buys for several companies.

In Abakion B2B Ecommerce, a customer can have several logins, and you set up rights per email address: some can order, some can only see prices, and some can't see invoices or credit notes at all. The same email address can also be added as a contact on several customer cards, so the user can choose which customer they log in as.

What does a B2B ecommerce solution cost, and how long does it take to get started?

The price typically consists of an onboarding fee and an ongoing subscription fee, and you should ask whether the subscription is calculated from your revenue or is a fixed price.

Solutions that take a percentage of your revenue are often cheap to start with, but can become expensive as you grow. Also ask how long an implementation takes, because developing prices, stock logic, and integrations can stretch the process out over several months.

Abakion B2B Ecommerce has a low onboarding fee and a fixed subscription price. The installation itself on Business Central takes about 30 minutes, after which you can place an order in the shopping cart. What typically takes time is getting your own data and your own look set up, which normally takes from one week to three months, depending on how much data you need to bring in.

Who is responsible for hosting, updates, and maintenance?

Ask whether the subscription covers hosting, updates, and security, or whether you have to handle it yourself as an extra task on the side.

Some of the cheaper solutions require you to find and pay for hosting yourself and close security holes yourself. On the larger solutions, this is normally included in the subscription.

The subscription for Abakion B2B Ecommerce covers everything: new versions, updates for new versions of Business Central, and all server costs. The only thing you pay for yourself beyond the subscription is a domain from a domain registrar.

Does the solution support multiple languages, currencies, and companies?

The solution needs to support the languages and currencies your customers trade in, and you should ask whether you need one shop per company if you operate in several countries.

Abakion B2B Ecommerce supports multiple languages and currencies out of the box. If you run multiple companies, for example one in Denmark and one in Norway, you need one shop per company, because the platform runs live inside Business Central and therefore can't move data between separate systems.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to develop anything myself to get customer-specific prices working?

No, not with Abakion B2B Ecommerce. The solution supports both standard prices and your own pricing logic from Business Central directly.

Can I show different items to different customers?

Yes. You can segment on item numbers, variants, unit of measure codes, and stock figures, so different customers see a different assortment.

Can a customer trade even if they are over their credit limit?

No, if you set the platform up to block at the credit limit. You can, however, choose to let the customer pay by card instead, so they can always order.

Does a web order become a real sales order in Business Central right away?

Yes. An order placed in Abakion B2B Ecommerce becomes an open sales order in Business Central right away, ready to be released for picking.

Do I need to maintain product data in two places?

No. You only maintain data in Business Central, as article 4 also describes.

How long does it typically take to get started with Abakion B2B Ecommerce?

The installation itself takes about 30 minutes. Getting your own data and your own look set up typically takes from one week to three months, depending on the scope.

Do I need to handle hosting and security updates myself?

No. The subscription for Abakion B2B Ecommerce covers hosting, updates, and security. You only pay for a domain yourself.

Can I use the same solution in several countries with different companies?

You can use the same solution, but you need one shop per company, because Abakion B2B Ecommerce runs live inside each individual Business Central company.