BigCommerce B2B Edition Review: Is It Really Built for B2B eCommerce?

Pranu Dhyani

Brands & Communications

BigCommerce has long been a heavyweight in the DTC eCommerce world—fast, flexible, and packed with features for growing online brands. So, when it launched its B2B Edition, many wholesale and manufacturing businesses took notice. Finally, a major platform that claims to bring enterprise-level B2B tools to the table—without the usual enterprise headache.

But here’s the catch: just because a platform offers B2B features doesn’t mean it’s built for B2B.

Talk to any brand with multiple pricing tiers, role-based catalogs, or buyers who still email purchase orders—and they’ll tell you: it’s one thing to slap “B2B” on your product page. It’s another to actually support the messy, non-linear, approval-heavy reality of enterprise buying.

BigCommerce B2B Edition is marketed as an all-in-one solution for wholesalers, manufacturers, and B2B brands. And yes, it brings a lot to the table—especially if you’re transitioning from DTC and want a familiar interface.

But is it really built to scale with the complexity of modern B2B operations?

Let’s take a closer look.

The Pitch: What BigCommerce B2B Edition Promises

On paper, BigCommerce B2B Edition looks solid. It combines the core strengths of the BigCommerce platform—flexibility, headless capabilities, and a strong partner ecosystem—with a bundle of B2B-specific features designed to make wholesale selling easier.

Here’s what it highlights:

Customer-specific pricing and price lists
Shared shopping lists and requisition tools
Company accounts with user roles (e.g. buyers, approvers)
Request-a-quote and quote management tools
Sales rep masquerade (order on behalf of a customer)
Buy again / quick order functionality
Integrations with common ERPs and PunchOut providers (via partners)

For businesses new to B2B or layering wholesale on top of an existing DTC setup, these features sound like a game-changer. And in some cases—they are. It’s a big improvement over trying to hack together B2B flows on a purely DTC engine.

But that’s also where the limitations begin to show.

Let’s start with where BigCommerce B2B Edition actually works well.

If you’re adding a wholesale channel to a DTC brand, the B2B Edition gives you a fast way to launch without rebuilding your stack.

The UI is clean. The admin tools are familiar. You can spin up shared shopping lists, enable buyer accounts with approval roles, and start offering tiered pricing without a full custom build.

For businesses with smaller catalogs, simple price rules, and direct relationships with independent retailers, it delivers just enough structure to make B2B manageable. And thanks to BigCommerce’s open APIs and growing app ecosystem, you’ve got flexibility—so long as you don’t mind relying on third-party tools.

But that’s also where things start to crack.

Because once you move beyond surface-level B2B—once you need complex contract pricing, buyer-specific catalogs, approval workflows with multiple stakeholders, or native PunchOut and email order handling—BigCommerce B2B Edition starts feeling like exactly what it is: a DTC platform with B2B features bolted on.

“74% of B2B buyers say they’ll switch suppliers if the digital experience doesn’t meet expectations.” — Gartner, B2B Buyer Behavior Report 2024

The catalog segmentation, for instance? It works, but it’s limited. Showing a specific set of SKUs to a single buyer group? Possible.

Doing it at scale across multiple regions, roles, and verticals? Not without serious workarounds or third-party middleware.
Need ERP-level pricing synced in real-time? Or dynamic rules that trigger based on buyer behavior, geography, or contract terms?

You’re looking at custom dev—or settling for near-real-time syncs that break when the volume spikes.

And then there’s the order flow itself. BigCommerce still assumes that most B2B purchases happen like DTC checkouts. That’s fine if your buyers use credit cards and click ‘Buy Now.’ But if they send purchase orders via email, expect your sales team to manually rekey those orders—or invest in custom workflows that pull them into your ERP.

Same goes for PunchOut support. BigCommerce technically supports it… but only through partner platforms like TradeCentric.

That means another layer of cost, complexity, and coordination.

And while quoting tools exist, they’re built for simplicity. Multi-tier quote approvals? Custom negotiation flows? You’re back to workarounds and app stacks again.

Bottom line: if your B2B strategy is simple and you’re already invested in BigCommerce, the B2B Edition can extend your reach.

But if your business starts with complexity—if your ops team is drowning in price lists, approvals, and emails—you’ll quickly feel the friction.

So who’s BigCommerce B2B Edition actually built for?

It fits best if you’re a brand with a strong DTC foundation, now expanding into light wholesale. Think: small to mid-sized businesses selling to independent retailers or distributors, where the buying journey is still relatively linear—log in, browse, buy. If your pricing rules are simple, your approval flows are minimal, and your sales team isn’t juggling dozens of contract terms, it gets the job done.

It’s also a smart move if you’re trying to unify your B2C and B2B storefronts without running two completely different platforms. The interface is clean, extensible, and backed by a well-known ecosystem of apps and developers.

But if your B2B workflows look anything like enterprise selling—custom quotes, contract pricing, bulk orders, punchout catalogs, and buyers who still send orders via email—you’ll feel the platform’s DTC roots quickly. You’ll spend more time integrating, customizing, and compensating than actually selling.

And that’s where it matters

Because B2B buyers aren’t just looking for convenience—they’re expecting it. According to Forrester, 74% of B2B buyers now expect self-service portals with account-specific pricing, order tracking, and quote history. If your platform can’t keep up, they won’t wait around.

BigCommerce B2B Edition is a step in the right direction—but for many brands, it’s just that: a step. Not the finish line.

Awesome—let’s close the blog with a strong, confident CTA and a punchy feature comparison table that reinforces BetterCommerce as the more complete solution.

Feature Comparison: BetterCommerce vs BigCommerce B2B Edition

Feature	BetterCommerce	BigCommerce B2B Edition
Platform Architecture	API-first, headless, modular	DTC-first core with B2B features layered on
Custom Pricing	Native multi-tier, customer-specific, ERP-synced pricing	Tiered pricing & price lists supported, but limited dynamic control
Catalog Segmentation	Role, region, and buyer-specific catalogs out of the box	Basic segmentation; deeper control needs workarounds or apps
Quote & Approval Workflows	Native workflows, quote routing, multi-step approvals	Basic quoting tools; advanced flows require custom dev
Punchout & Email Orders	Native support for PunchOut + email-to-order automation	PunchOut via partners; no native email order automation
ERP/PIM Integration	Real-time sync with ERP, PIM, OMS	Integrations possible, often middleware-reliant
Front-End Flexibility	Composable storefront with modern UX	Strong theming engine, but tied to BigCommerce’s templating system
Designed For	Mid-to-enterprise B2B brands with complex workflows	DTC brands expanding into light B2B

Ready for a Platform That’s Actually Built for B2B?

BigCommerce B2B Edition is a great starter kit if you’re easing into wholesale. But if your B2B operation already includes custom workflows, multi-currency catalogs, or a sales team knee-deep in emailed POs, you’ll quickly run into limits.

“The fastest-growing B2B brands are those who align technology with buyer complexity—not around workarounds.”
— Forrester B2B Tech Leadership Forum, 2024

BetterCommerce was built from the ground up to handle complex B2B—without third-party duct tape. Punchout? Native. Email order automation. Built in. ERP sync? Real-time. No workarounds. Just workflows that work.

👉 Book a Demo with BetterCommerce – Let us show you what B2B at scale should feel like.