B2B Sales Portal: How It Differs From a Regular Online Store

When a wholesaler or distributor decides to «sell online», the first instinct is to build an e-commerce store. But a couple of months in, it turns out a standard storefront with a cart and online payment doesn't cover even half of the real tasks. B2B sales follow different rules: every client has their own price, payment comes on terms, orders often pass through a sales manager, and stock and debts live in 1C. Let's look at how a B2B portal differs from a retail store and what it should actually contain.

The core difference: we don't sell to everyone the same way

In retail the price is the same for everyone — both the buyer and the search engine see it. Wholesale doesn't work that way. A top-tier dealer, a regional partner and a new client each see three different prices for the same product. The price depends on purchase volume, relationship history, partner status and terms a manager negotiated personally.

That's why the heart of a B2B portal is not the catalog but a per-client pricing engine. Once logged in, the client sees exactly their own prices, their own discount columns and the assortment available to them. Some trade only one category; others are blocked from scarce items. A regular online store can't do this — it shows one storefront to everyone.

Payment terms instead of online checkout

In Uzbekistan, wholesale almost always runs on payment terms: goods ship now, payment arrives in 14, 30 or 45 days per the contract. A «Pay by card» button isn't needed here and is even harmful — it breaks the familiar way of working.

On a B2B portal, a credit limit and balance work instead of payment. The client sees how much they already owe, their contractual limit and how much more they can ship. If the limit is exhausted or there's overdue debt, the portal can warn or block a new request — protecting the supplier from cash-flow gaps.

• Current debt and remaining limit right in the cabinet;
• shipment and payment history with reconciliation statements;
• warnings as a payment due date approaches;
• rules for what to do when the limit is exceeded — block the request or route it for approval.

Not an «order», but a «request»

In retail, placing an order is the final step: you pay and the goods are yours. Wholesale is softer and more cautious. The client builds a request, and it goes through an approval cycle: the manager checks availability, confirms the price, clarifies shipping dates and reserves the goods in the warehouse.

That's why a B2B portal needs a clear request status: «draft», «submitted», «in processing», «confirmed», «shipped». At any moment the client sees what stage their order is at, without calling a manager. This removes the main pain of wholesale — the endless «where's my stock?» and reconciliations by phone.

Often it's convenient to build a request not only from the catalog but by uploading a list of SKUs or repeating a previous order. A dealer's buyer orders roughly the same thing every month — they value speed, not pretty product cards.

1C integration — the heart of the portal

This is the point that separates a working B2B portal from a pretty picture. All the real data — warehouse stock, prices by client category, accounts receivable, shipping documents — lives in 1C (or another accounting system). The portal shouldn't keep parallel records; it should be a storefront on top of 1C.

What is usually synced:

• Products and stock — so the client doesn't order what isn't on the shelf;
• Price lists by price type — each client category pulls its own column;
• Requests from the portal into 1C — the manager doesn't re-key the order; the request lands as a customer order;
• Debts and mutual settlements — balance and limit in the cabinet come from accounting, not manual entry;
• Statuses and documents — invoices, waybills and reconciliation statements available for the client to download.

The dealer cabinet

The cabinet is the partner's workplace, not a profile page. A good dealer cabinet covers a buyer's recurring tasks without involving your manager: place a request, check the debt, download a waybill, repeat a past order, check a shipment status.

It helps to add roles inside a client: a dealer may have a buyer who builds requests and a director who approves them or watches the limit. For a distributor with field sales reps it's a separate story entirely — requests are often created from a phone right at the client's premises.

The more routine moves into the cabinet, the lighter the load on the sales team. The manager stops being an «order taker» and focuses on what brings money — growing accounts and handling problem situations.