One Site, Two Buyers: The Case for Hybrid Ecommerce
The conventional wisdom in rep-driven sales organizations is that B2B buyers prefer people over portals. And in many cases, they do; not because they’re resistant to digital, but because the digital experience has never been one worth switching to.
For brands serving both B2B buyers and consumers, the challenge goes a layer deeper: the site has to earn the trust of two audiences with different needs, different purchasing contexts, and different definitions of a good user experience. The platform is the same. The product data is the same. But the path to purchase is different, and building around that distinction is where most hybrid ecommerce projects either earn their value or fall short.
Two Buyers, Two Purchasing Realities
Today’s buyer decides when, where, and how to engage—and that’s as true for a trade professional as it is for a consumer. A consumer browsing for a home renovation and a trade professional placing a reorder are both visiting the same site, but they’re not doing the same thing. The consumer is early in a decision. They need inspiration, product context, and enough information to feel confident when they’re ready to buy. The trade professional already knows what they want. They need their account pricing, accurate inventory, lead times, and a checkout that reflects how their business purchases.
These are different purchasing realities. A hybrid ecommerce site that doesn’t account for both will create friction for one audience or the other.
PDI Kitchen, Bath & Lighting, a wholesaler of commercial and residential plumbing and lighting products, knew this firsthand. Their trade buyers had established rep relationships they valued and used, in part, because PDI’s previous site gave them little reason to do otherwise. Slow load times, inaccurate search, and a cluttered navigation made the phone call the path of least resistance. PDI’s goal was to give buyers a self-service option worth using for transactions that didn’t necessarily require a rep.
What One Site Serving Two Buyers Requires
Unified commerce—the idea of a single platform managing the full range of customer touchpoints and transaction types—is becoming the architectural standard for brands serving multiple audiences well. But the platform is the starting point, not the complete solution. The experience built on top of it is what determines whether both audiences get what they need.
For PDI, that meant building on a single Shopify Plus storefront with a more seamless B2B experience accessible through account login. Consumers land on a brand-forward discovery experience. Trade professionals log in to an environment built around their account, their pricing, and efficient reordering.
Several capabilities that PDI’s B2B buyers required weren’t available natively in Shopify Plus and had to be custom-built, including:
- Account-based dynamic pricing that surfaces each trade buyer’s specific pricing on login
- Real-time inventory visibility by location so buyers know exactly what’s available before committing to an order
- A checkout experience that reflects how B2B buyers think about fulfillment, surfacing delivery preferences and lead-time messaging
Each customization closes a gap between what a standard ecommerce implementation offers and what a B2B buyer actually needs to feel confident placing an order online.
What Happens When the Site Works For Both
A hybrid ecommerce site built around how each audience purchases changes the dynamic between digital and sales—but for the better. Routine reorders, catalog browsing, order status—the digital channel can own these. Complex purchases, new account relationships, and high-touch negotiations are areas reps can own. Both channels become more effective at what they’re meant for.
For B2B buyers, a site that reflects how they purchase removes the reasons to pick up the phone for routine transactions. For PDI, that translated to a 50% increase in ecommerce sales within three months of launch. The rep relationship stays intact, but stops being a workaround.
The self-service channel your buyers will use doesn’t come out of the box. It gets built— around how your buyers purchase, what your sales team needs to hand off, and where your current experience isn’t delivering.
The Office of Experience helps brands build ecommerce experiences their buyers will use, including custom functionality that platforms don’t offer natively. If you’re ready to improve your buying experience, let’s talk.
