Ordering portal or ecommerce
B2B ordering portal or ecommerce: which fits your business?
Ecommerce and a B2B ordering portal solve partly overlapping and partly different problems. Neither is inherently better — it depends on who's ordering, how often, and under what terms. This page is meant to help you make that call, independent of whether Ordanta ends up being the right fit.
Short answer
What usually settles it.
Choose ecommerce when public discoverability and a broadly standardised way of buying come first. Choose a B2B ordering portal when known business customers order repeatedly under their own agreed terms. Consider both when winning new customers and giving existing customers a structured way to reorder are equally important.
Side by side
Ecommerce and a B2B ordering portal, side by side.
Neither is wrong on its own — it's about which fits your situation. This comparison deliberately uses cautious terms, since a lot depends on the specific setup.
Comparison
Modern ecommerce platforms can, depending on the platform, plugins and custom development, support a good part of this B2B functionality too. This comparison is about which approach fits more naturally, not about what's technically impossible.
When ecommerce fits
When ecommerce is the more obvious choice.
- You sell to many new buyers you don't already know
- A public catalogue with product information matters for the sale itself
- Pricing is largely the same for everyone
- Search traffic and discoverability play a big role in winning new customers
- A purchase resembles a normal consumer journey: browse, cart, checkout
- Paying online at the point of order is a central part of the process
When a portal fits
When a B2B ordering portal is the more obvious choice.
- Customers already have an account or an ongoing business relationship with you
- Prices differ per customer, based on agreed terms
- Assortment differs per customer
- Customers place the same or similar orders on a regular basis
- Orders follow fixed quantities or packaging increments
- Customers would rather use a private, logged-in environment than a public storefront
- Fast reordering matters more than acquiring new customers through the portal itself
Today's reality
Where email, WhatsApp and Excel fit into this picture.
This comparison becomes especially relevant when today's alternative isn't ecommerce at all, but recurring orders arriving by email, message or spreadsheet. In that case the question isn't only "ecommerce or portal" — it's also whether the current, informal process is still keeping up. More on that is on replace email, WhatsApp and Excel orders.
Can you use both?
Combining ecommerce and a B2B portal.
For many businesses this isn't an either-or choice. A public website or webshop can attract new customers, while a private B2B portal serves the established, recurring ones. That's not a technical integration or automatic sync between the two — they're two separate environments, each serving its own purpose.
Focused on acquisition and discoverability.
Focused on efficient reordering.
Check for yourself
A short checklist.
A portal is worth considering when several of these are true:
- Most orders come from existing customers
- Repeat orders are common
- Prices differ per customer
- Assortment differs per customer
- Customers expect their own login
- A public checkout isn't the main way customers buy from you
If the opposite is true for most of these, ecommerce is probably the more logical starting point.
What Ordanta is
What Ordanta is specifically built for.
Ordanta is built around the private, recurring B2B ordering case — not around public product discovery or new-customer acquisition. More on who operates Ordanta is on the About Ordanta page.
- A private, secure portal per customer, with its own login
- Customer-specific pricing and assortment
- Order history and quick reorder
- Minimum order quantities and fixed packaging increments where relevant
- CSV import for your product and pricing data
- Structured orders, ready for further processing
See the full B2B ordering portal overview.
When Ordanta probably isn't the right choice.
Ordanta is less of a fit if:
- You mainly sell to consumers, not business customers
- Most buyers are one-off or occasional, without agreed terms
- Public product discovery is your main need
- Public online checkout/payment is central to your sales process
- An existing webshop or ERP setup already handles ordering well enough
Pricing
What it costs.
Plans start at €149 a month, with no commission on your sales and no extra per-user cost. The standard implementation fee doesn't apply during the Pilot Programme. See full pricing and plans.
Pilot Programme
The Pilot Programme.
Ordanta is currently onboarding up to three European Pilot Partners directly, with the standard implementation fee waived and every application reviewed personally. Read more about the Pilot Programme, or go straight to the application.
Still not sure?