The best platform to build a B2B ecommerce store will have the following features:

Marketing Tools

With marketing becoming critical for business growth, you simply cannot afford to choose an Ecommerce platform that comes with built-in marketing tools.

For instance, your B2B ecommerce solution should have a built-in email marketing software that will allow you to create and schedule a series of automated emails to your prospects and customers.

Marketing tools like Google Analytics can also help you to better understand your customers. On the other hand, ecommerce with social advertising tools will enable you to sell your products on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Talk about marketing and one simply cannot forget to mention about SEO, which plays a key role in improving your site's visibility on search engines. So ensure that your B2B ecommerce solution has all the SEO tools you need to drive organic traffic.

The best B2B ecommerce platform will also allow you to export your product catalog on different marketplaces. In today's times, where multi-channel selling is the norm, depending only on your online store for business is not a feasible option.

It is important that you do business on other sales channels. This is possible only if your ecommerce platform has the provision to export your product catalog to popular marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, etc.

Scalability

If your ecommerce platform is not scalable, how will you meet your future growth needs and handle expansion in the scale of your business operations?

With a scalable ecommerce platform, you can quickly increase your site capacity during a traffic overload. Simply put, you can increase your ecommerce processing resources as and when the need arises.

Highly Customizable

When you want to Build an ecommerce store, make sure to choose a platform that is highly customizable.

An ecommerce platform that isn't customizable as per your business needs is not worth buying.

Customization is a means of addressing your evolving business needs. Hence it doesn't make sense to choose an ecommerce platform that doesn't offer customization options.

Customization gives you the opportunity to personalize your store's layout, colors, etc.

From changing the look and feel of your store to creating a customer-specific catalog, customization is crucial to stay relevant in today's times.

In order to boost sales, it is necessary to enhance the shopping experience. This is possible only if you provide a customized checkout. A highly customizable site will give you the opportunity to customize the checkout page, which can have a positive impact on your business.

Access Flexibility

Will you be going to the office everytime you want to process orders? If yes, your business will remain tied to your office. This can impair productivity and efficiency of your sales reps who are always on the run.

A better option is to go for a cloud-based ecommerce solution that will give you the flexibility to manage your online business from any Internet-enabled device.
With a cloud-based solution, Internet connectivity to your laptop is all you need to run your ecommerce business.

24/7 Technical Support

You want to choose an ecommerce platform that comes with 24/7 technical support, which will ensure any issues encountered or customization needed will be immediately addressed.

Without 24/7 technical support, it will be difficult to resolve issues that occur at any point of time. When you are unable to get any help, when you really need it, it can have a negative impact on your business.

Unlimited Bandwidth

You definitely don't want your website to crash during your busiest sales season. If your website crashes during high traffic, it indicates that your ecommerce provider has given you limited bandwidth.

Choosing ecommerce platforms with limited bandwidth is one of the biggest mistakes to avoid. Websites with limited bandwidth can restrict growth and moreover demand fees for excess bandwidth.

On the whole, if you are serious about growing your business, choose an ecommerce solution that comes with unlimited bandwidth.

Multipass/ Single Sign-On

In case you have a separate website, apart from your store, choose an ecommerce platform that comes with a single sign-on solution.

Multipass logins eliminates the need for repeat logins. It will allow your customers to directly login to your store from third-party sites.

Author's Bio: 

Arnaldo is an American writer for various digital news publications. After being in the ecommerce industry for more than 15 years, he has a good understanding of what it takes to make an ecommerce business successful.