B2B ecommerce

B2B ecommerce is selling to companies through a digital storefront. The transaction looks similar to consumer ecommerce on the surface. Underneath, almost everything differs. Account structure, pricing model, approval flows, payment terms, order frequency, and integration depth all change. The buying behaviour is fundamentally different. A consumer browses, adds to cart, checks out. A B2B buyer logs in, sees catalogues filtered to what their company is allowed to buy, applies negotiated pricing, places repeat orders against past purchases, and pays on invoice 30 days later. The same storefront has to handle both modes if the merchant sells across segments. Many do. ## What B2B requires technically Account hierarchies. A buying organisation has multiple users at different permission levels. Purchasers can place orders. Managers approve them. Finance pays the invoice. Each role needs its own view of the storefront. Customer-specific pricing. Catalogue prices are baseline. Real prices come from price lists tied to the account, negotiated contracts, volume tiers, or special agreements. The storefront has to resolve the right price for the logged-in account on every product view. Order history that is a primary screen, not a tab. B2B buyers reorder. The shortest path from "I need to restock" to a placed order matters more than discovery. Order history, quick reorder, and saved shopping lists are not extras. Quote workflows for non-standard orders. When the buyer needs custom quantities, special configurations, or unusual delivery terms, the storefront should route to a quote instead of forcing checkout. Invoice payment. Most B2B sales settle on terms, not on a card at checkout. Klarna, Walley, and Svea all offer B2B invoice options. The storefront has to support them. Integration depth. The ERP, the CRM, and the customer portal all have skin in the B2B game. Order data flows into accounting. Customer records flow from the CRM. Pricing comes from the PIM. A B2B storefront with shallow integrations becomes a duplicate data entry tool. ## What Frntkey ships for B2B Frntkey ships the B2B baseline by default on Norce and Shopware. Login mode is separate from anonymous browsing. Price lists resolve per account. Order history, quick reorder, and shopping lists are core pages, not add-ons. Invoice payment routes through Klarna, Walley, or Svea depending on the merchant. Tendenz uses the same baseline. B2B textile and branded merchandise, migrated from Jetshop to Norce, with Voyado CRM and customer-specific catalogues. The hardest project in the Frntkey reference set, and the proof point for B2B order flows on Frntkey. Quote workflows are on the Frntkey roadmap. Trustpilot and Yotpo reviews, and order tracking inside My pages, round out the next B2B-relevant additions. ## The honest tradeoff If your B2B model is very unusual (configurable industrial products with custom CAD attachments, marketplace dynamics between buyer accounts), the packaged frontend will need extension work. For the standard B2B catalogue, login, price list, order history, invoice flow, Frntkey already ships it.