How to Build a Scalable B2B eCommerce Store

If you're looking to sell your products to other companies, you have excellent prospects. However, this process has its own unique challenges. It's important to consider that sales growth in this case can be much higher than in traditional B2C projects. Therefore, it's important to consider scalability. Modern platforms and their powerful commercial potential are ideal for this. In this article, we will examine key considerations for creating a B2B store with Amasty solutions.

Requirements of B2B Commerce

Since working with other companies is significantly different from retail sales, both the website and its platform have unique requirements. These aren't just whims; all of these features are essential for the project's success. Please make sure that the content management system you choose supports the following features:

  • Scalability and performance. The platform should handle extensive catalogs and workloads. You need to be able to upload hundreds of thousands of products and visits while supporting complex B2B processes.

  • Flexible pricing. The settings let you set wholesale prices, apply discounts for specific volumes, and make other convenient adjustments. This is important when companies work under contracts with individual terms.

  • User and company management. In the B2B version, customers can create a "company" and assign several users with different roles to it—director, accountant, purchasing manager. Credit limits and budgets can be set, and multi-level order approvals can be enabled.

  • Order acceptance based on quotas and negotiations. For example, a B2b e-commerce suite supports the "negotiable quotes" feature, which lets a customer create a shopping cart, request a customized quote, and have a manager agree on prices, terms, and conditions. Negotiation history is saved for both parties.

  • Quickly order and reorder sheets. Regular customers can use the quick order form: enter SKUs, upload a CSV file, or add products to the cart from a list. Requisition lists are also available—essentially reusable shopping carts where sets of products for regular deliveries are stored.

  • Advanced analytics. You need a wide range of reports to help you analyze and adjust your strategies as needed. ‍

At first glance, this feature set may seem excessive, especially if you have a small business. However, keep in mind the growth potential and prepare in advance.

Define Business Requirements and Architecture

Before you begin creating your store, carefully consider all preparatory steps:

  1. Describe your business models in detail: who your customers are (companies, distributors, partners), what your sales logic is (e.g., different pricing for different customer groups, minimum order quantities, branded goods/wholesale), and what processes are in place (request for quotes, order approval, repeat purchases).

  2. Consider the architecture: will you manage a single store with both B2B and B2C modes or two separate sites (B2B often requires different rules, pricing, and catalogs)?

  3. Think about scalability from the outset: how many products, how many product pages, how many users and orders do you project in 1-2 years? The platform must be ready for growth. For example, Adobe's official documentation notes that Magento/Adobe Commerce can scale "on demand," providing resources as needed.

A clear vision of how you sell, to whom, and how you'll grow is the foundation without which even the most advanced implementation can fail. So, don't neglect these steps and plan for scalability from the start.

Infrastructure Setup: Performance and Scale

When it comes to B2B, "lots of orders" and "lots of data" aren't just empty phrases; your store needs to be fast and reliable. Here's what's important:

  • Choose the proper infrastructure: cloud hosting with horizontal and vertical scalability is the key to stability.

  • Optimize your code and database: the larger the catalog and the more complex the data, the greater the load on queries and indexing. Schedule regular reindexing, log cleanup, and table optimization.

  • Monitoring and testing: regular performance measurements (PageSpeed ​​Insights, GTmetrix), load tests, and error and slowdown monitoring. Without these, scaling can simply break the system.

  • Design so that the database and servers can grow as the business grows—this may require separate services (e.g., separate database, separate search engine, separate job queues).

A truly scalable infrastructure is not a "powerful enough server to start with," but a system that is ready to grow and adapt.

Guidelines for B2B: A Checklist

If you've decided to build a B2B portal, consider a few essential tips:

  1. Create requirements and validate business processes. You can't imagine how many projects have failed due to supply chain disruptions and the desire to cut corners on logistics. Be sure to plan for this and assign responsibility to oversee all stages.

  2. Find a competent team. It's important to attract specialists with experience in the selected CMS, DevOps, and integrations. Without them, the project may drag on and become unprofitable.

  3. Plan the architecture and infrastructure. To ensure fault tolerance, you need a server cluster, CDN connectivity, configured caching, and search. Consider licensing costs for additional modules and services.

  4. Start with an MVP. It's best to start by testing and running the entire chain on small volumes. This reduces risks and allows you to collect feedback. Train users and build support services. Even the best portal can be ineffective without proper training for dealers and support. Invest in staff training and business process definitions.

Conclusion

The world of B2B sales is changing rapidly. Customers want to order products at any time, receive personalized pricing, instantly see shipment statuses, and pay invoices online. It means you should select a platform capable of providing a high level of flexibility, scalability, and functionality for large companies.