Why aren’t more of your customers ordering online?

You’ve invested in an ecommerce website. Your products are online, customers have been given logins and your team regularly reminds them that they can place orders through it.

Yet a large proportion of your orders still arrive by email or phone.

It is easy to assume that these customers simply prefer ordering offline. Some wholesalers conclude that their industry is too traditional or that their customers are resistant to change.

Often, the real problem is much simpler: the website just doesn’t understand the customer’s account.

When customers order offline, they benefit from all the knowledge held by your sales and customer service teams. Your staff understand their pricing, approved products, delivery locations, spending rules and individual arrangements.

If that knowledge is missing from the online experience, using the website can feel like starting the commercial relationship again from scratch.

A customer account is more than a login

In the consumer/B2C world, most customers are treated in broadly the same way. We all see the same products, pay the same prices and choose from the same delivery options.

B2B wholesale is different.

Two customers buying the same product may have completely different agreements with you. One might receive a negotiated price and another qualifies for a rebate. One may be able to order the entire range, while another is restricted to an approved product list.

We frequently see B2B customer accounts requiring purchasing details such as:

• Multiple buyers with different permissions
• Several delivery addresses or operating sites
• Individual budgets for each site
• Approval requirements for certain orders
• Agreed delivery days or methods
• Customer-specific product codes
• Call-off or scheduled orders
• Special offers based on the customer’s agreement
• Access to invoices, credits and order history

These requirements form a central part of how the customer buys from you.

What happens when those rules disappear online?

Imagine a customer who has negotiated prices, an approved product range and several delivery sites.

When they phone or email, your team knows how their account works. They check the order against the correct terms, assign it to the right address and resolve any questions.

If that same customer was to use a basic ecommerce site, they would see your full catalogue rather than their agreed range. Their negotiated pricing may be missing or unclear. The delivery address they need might not be available. If the order exceeds a site budget, there may be no approval process to handle it.

The website might technically allow them to place an order, but it doesn’t make the process easier.

The customer now has a decision to make. They can try to work around the website, or they can send the order to the person who already understands their account.

Most will choose the second option.

This is one reason some B2B ecommerce sites struggle to achieve meaningful adoption. The problem is not necessarily that customers dislike online ordering, but rather that ordering online introduces uncertainty.

Is this definitely my price? Am I allowed to order this product? Will it be delivered to the right site? Has the order gone through the correct approval process?

One unanswered question can be enough to push the customer back to ordering via email or phone.

The online account should reflect the real relationship

A good B2B ecommerce experience should recognise the customer in the same way your team does.

That starts with showing the right products and prices. Customers should be able to sign in and immediately see the range they are allowed to buy, using the terms agreed for their account.

For some wholesalers, that might mean a completely customer-specific catalogue. For others, it could mean different prices, product labels, pack sizes or offers depending on who is signed in.

The website should also understand the people within the account.

A buyer at an individual site may only need access to that location and its approved products. A regional manager might need visibility across several sites. Someone in finance may need access to invoices and credits without being able to place orders.

Permissions, budgets and approval processes allow each user to do what they need without giving everyone unrestricted access.

Delivery arrangements matter too. The correct addresses, delivery options and shipping charges should already be connected to the account. Customers should not need to re-enter information that you already hold or explain established arrangements every time they order.

For customers using call-off orders, rebates, standing orders or other commercial agreements, those should also be reflected wherever appropriate.

The closer the online account matches the real customer relationship, the less reason there is for the buyer to leave the website and contact your team.

Convenience is not enough without confidence

B2B buyers want convenience, but they also need confidence.

A fast website and a simple checkout are useful, but they do not solve the problem if the information behind them is wrong. Customers need to trust that what they see online is specific to them and consistent with the agreement they have with you.

That means the website cannot operate as an isolated system.

Most of the information that defines the customer relationship already exists elsewhere in the business. Pricing, stock, product records, credit information, delivery addresses and account terms may all be held in the ERP or connected systems.

The role of integration is to bring that information into the online experience accurately. When something changes in the system your team uses, the customer should see the relevant change online without somebody having to update the website separately.

This gives the customer confidence that the website is a reliable way to place an order, rather than a separate channel that may or may not reflect their account correctly.

Better online adoption is earned

Wholesalers sometimes try to increase online ordering through incentives, repeated reminders or by directing customers away from email.

Those things can help, but they do not address the fundamental question the customer is asking:

“Is ordering through the website genuinely easier for me?”

If the customer has to check a price, request a missing product, confirm a delivery arrangement or send the order elsewhere for approval, the answer is probably no.

When their account is properly represented, the experience changes - online ordering becomes the simplest route, so customers begin to use it naturally.

That is a more sustainable way to build adoption than trying to force customers towards a channel that does not yet meet their needs.

What does this mean for the wholesaler?

Higher online adoption reduces the number of routine orders and queries that need to be handled manually. It can also reduce pricing mistakes, incorrect products and delivery errors caused by information being copied between emails, order forms and internal systems.

More importantly, it improves the buying experience for the customer.

Larger and more complex accounts are often the ones that benefit most. They may have more users, sites, rules and reporting requirements, but they also tend to place more orders and consume more administrative time.

Giving those customers an online environment built around their account can make your business much easier to buy from.

Your sales and customer service teams remain important, but their time can be focused where it adds the most value. Instead of repeatedly explaining prices, checking routine orders or finding invoices, they can help customers with genuine questions, new requirements and opportunities to develop the account.

Does your website understand your customers?

The success of B2B ecommerce should not be measured by whether customers can technically complete a checkout.

The more useful question is whether they can manage the real requirements of their account online.

Can they see their prices? Find their approved products? Order for the correct site? Work within a budget? Follow their approval process? Access the documents and information they regularly ask your team to provide?

If the answer to several of those questions is no, your customers probably aren’t resistant to ecommerce as a concept - they may simply be waiting for an online experience that properly reflects the way they already buy from you.

Apparatus helps wholesalers create account-specific ecommerce experiences connected to the systems and processes they already use.

Book a demo to show us how your customer accounts currently work, and we can explore how those rules could be reflected online.