What is a B2B e-commerce platform?

A B2B e-commerce platform is an online sales environment designed for a business-to-business context. In B2B, everything revolves around an ongoing customer-supplier relationship, rather than one-off purchases. Your existing customers place orders through an online system instead of calling or emailing. While this can be a selling point for attracting new customers, the biggest advantage lies in streamlining work with your existing clients and eliminating the extra administrative tasks associated with their orders.

A B2B e-commerce platform is therefore much more than just a webshop. Marcando is built specifically for B2B: fast ordering, barcode support, and personalized data, such as:

• customer-specific information
• customer-specific catalogs
• customer-specific pricing

More than a webshop: also a tool for sales representatives with automatically processed orders via email and purchase orders

Many B2B companies have sales representatives on the road in addition to their webshop. They often manually enter their orders into the ERP in the evening or send WhatsApp messages to the internal sales team. This often leads to information being lost, shared twice, or becoming unclear.

That is why Marcando offers a separate application for sales representatives that is directly linked to the ERP. It contains all the information needed to visit a customer; the representative places an order on-site, and that order is immediately reflected in the ERP. Even before the representative is back in the car, the order is ready for processing and delivery. In addition, at Marcando we use AI for order intake. AI captures emails, including attachments such as PDF purchase orders, extracts the relevant data, and converts it into an order. This allows customers, sales representatives, and the internal team to focus on high-quality work instead of manually typing order lines into an ERP system.

How can an SME use a B2B e-commerce platform?

An SME primarily uses a B2B e-commerce platform for two things:

• Improving the customer experience. Today, customers expect an online platform, quick notifications after placing an order, and sales representatives who are well-informed when they visit.
• Freeing up time for the internal team to focus on more valuable work. Think of calling customers who may have forgotten to place an order, following up on issues, and discussing the future of the company.

By eliminating manual email processing and data entry in the ERP, order processing becomes more efficient and the experience for sales representatives is also improved. Orders are entered into the ERP faster, which speeds up processing and delivery. And because the platform stays synchronized with the ERP, fewer errors occur: you simply cannot sell products that are out of stock.

In short: customer experience, employee experience, and internal operations all improve.

What is the added value for an SME?

The added value is primarily operational and financial. Because the administrative back office has far less routine work, one person can often handle the workload that previously required two or three employees.

We focus on three experiences:

• employee experience
• customer experience: fast, online, and error-free ordering
• sales representative experience: all customer info at their fingertips, orders directly in the ERP

“The built-in dashboard provides strategic insight into ordering behavior and product trends, which allows us at Hebea to respond much better to our customers' needs.” Suzanne De Pauw

There is also a tangible cost saving. We see that sales representatives with a Marcando account can cancel their ERP account. That saves on license fees. Marcando is built for the B2B context, with a deep ERP integration at its core and AI-driven order intake that automatically converts emails and purchase orders into orders.

How does Marcando solve this? The key features

Marcando offers many features that are specifically useful in a B2B context:

• Deep ERP integration: with customer-specific agreements that are immediately visible online.
• B2B-specific webshop features: customer-specific catalogs, pricing and discounts, volume pricing, minimum order quantities, barcode scanner, and automatic addition of product supplements (such as a deposit that is automatically charged).
• Product information management (PIM): Marcando retrieves product data from the ERP and also functions as a PIM, allowing you to enrich product information. You can also connect to a standalone PIM, creating a triangle between the ERP, PIM, and e-commerce platform for maximum information coverage.
• Attachment synchronization: files linked to products in the ERP are synchronized as well. Think of installation guides or allergen information for the food sector.
• Restricted access: critical data such as prices, stock, and downloads are only visible after logging in. The webshop can be completely closed off to non-customers, who must register first.
• Customer portal: customers can filter by previously ordered products (order history), download invoices, update master data such as delivery addresses, and purchase on account. The ERP monitors the 30-day invoice limit; those who do not qualify must pay immediately.
• Accurate delivery cost calculation: costs are calculated per customer and orders are sent back to the ERP.
• Quote-to-order flow: customers request a quote that is automatically converted into an order upon approval.
• Application for sales representatives: each representative sees their own customers' information, while sales managers can view all customers.
• AI-driven order intake: the system processes emails, PDFs, Excel and Word files, and attachments, as well as the content of messages via email, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

One of the upcoming features we are developing focuses on mobile ordering, allowing distributors or manufacturing companies to serve their customers with minimal internal administration.

The ERP connection as a foundation

A B2B e-commerce platform stands or falls by its ERP connection. Customer-specific prices, stock, discounts, and agreements are already in the ERP, and without a connection, your webshop remains an isolated island that someone has to maintain manually. At Marcando, the ERP integration isn't an add-on; it's the foundation. Everything visible online stays perfectly in sync with your ERP.

Marcando is the B2B e-commerce platform designed for wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturing companies. We automatically sync your online sales with your ERP’s inventory, pricing, and customer data, ensuring your clients always order from an up-to-date catalog at their specific rates. Our AI functionality even converts emails and purchase orders into sales orders automatically. The result: more orders processed faster, with fewer errors and less manual work, giving your internal sales team and representatives more time to focus on your customers. Curious about what this could mean for your business? Get in touch for a no-obligation demo.

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