Many B2B projects start with an apparently simple requirement: “We need a shop for business customers.” In reality this often hides a complex digital sales model.
B2B customers buy differently from consumers. They order repeatedly, compare less emotionally, need individual terms, work with budgets, roles, shopping lists and internal approvals. Often the shop is not just a sales channel but a self-service portal for existing customers.
Shopware now positions itself strongly around B2B capabilities, modular architecture, open-source flexibility and agentic-intelligence approaches.
What B2B shops really need
1. Customer-specific pricing
B2B rarely means “one price for everyone”. Typically you see:
- Individual customer prices
- Tiered prices
- Net prices
- Price lists
- Customer-specific discounts
- Project-based terms
- ERP-led prices
The central architectural question is: are prices calculated in the shop or delivered from the ERP?
2. Roles, rights and company structures
A B2B shop often has to model multiple users per company. Typical roles are:
- Buyer
- Approver
- Administrator
- Field sales
- Accounting
- Technical contact
These roles need different rights, budgets and access options.
3. Quote and approval processes
Many B2B orders don't go through a direct “buy” but through enquiry, quote, approval and order. A good B2B shop has to digitise these processes without making them unnecessarily complicated.
4. ERP and PIM integration
In B2B the shop is rarely the leading system. Prices, stock, customer data, invoices and orders typically live in the ERP. Product data comes from a PIM. Interface architecture is therefore critical.
What matters:
- Robust API communication
- Clear data ownership
- Error monitoring
- Queue mechanisms
- Import and export processes
- Clean status logic
5. Customer-specific assortments
Not every customer is allowed to see every product. Some assortments are customer-specific, contract-dependent or regionally limited. That affects search, category tree, SEO, availability and checkout.
Why B2B projects often fail
B2B projects rarely fail on the storefront. They fail on unclear processes.
Typical mistakes:
- Applying B2C thinking to B2B
- Bringing ERP processes in too late
- Underestimating price logic
- Failing to define roles and rights cleanly
- No clear data ownership
- Interfaces without monitoring
- Too many special cases in the first release
A sensible B2B project approach
For B2B shops we recommend a structured approach:
- Process analysis
- Data and system analysis
- Roles and permissions concept
- MVP definition
- Interface architecture
- UX concept for B2B users
- Technical implementation
- Monitoring and continuous optimisation
Allers Technology perspective
We see B2B commerce not as a plugin project but as digital sales architecture. Shopware 6 is a strong foundation for this when strategy, technology and processes are thought through together.