Why a Platformless Platform Is the Future of Wholesale Ecommerce

Wholesale commerce is changing rapidly, as evidenced by the fact that 80% of B2B sales are expected to happen in digital channels this year. The transformation of wholesale commerce being digitized is largely being driven by retailers, given that 90% of B2B buyers want “DTC-style” experiences from the brands that they buy from. 

Retailer buyers are forcing brands to make changes to the way in which brands do business in a vertical that is ripe for change. Gone are the days of brands sending sales reps into accounts to collect an order or a brand calling a store taking an order over the phone. Instead, brands are directing retailers to place orders on their wholesale ecommerce store (one that is often separate from their DTC site). They assume that it’s easier for retailers to order this way. 

At first, it sounds logical: a dedicated place for your retailers to shop. But the truth is, a new wholesale site likely introduces more friction for the buyer while also creating significantly more work and friction for you, the brand. 

Our belief is that most brands don’t need an entirely new wholesale platform; they can leverage their existing Shopify website to introduce a frictionless ordering experience for retailers. We firmly believe in brands deploying in what we’re calling a “Platformless Platform” to drive wholesale growth. 

Read on to understand why we don’t think it’s necessary to deploy an entirely separate wholesale platform. And if you’re reading this and already have a Shopify wholesale site, you can easily leverage Vanik to drive growth (more on that below)! 

Retailers Want Frictionless Ordering – Not Another Website to Log Into

Your retail partners are busy. They’re running stores, managing inventory, helping customers, and putting out daily fires. The last thing they want is to remember yet another password or navigate yet another platform. One of your retailers could be buying from 20+ different brands - imagine having 20 different portal logins to remember to place an order! 

With this in mind, retailers don’t need a dedicated wholesale portal to login to, they want: 

• A simple way to place orders

• Easy access to their past purchase history

• Automatic reminders when it’s time to reorder because they are likely to forget that they need to restock until they are out of product

• Streamlined payment options

They’re looking for speed and convenience, not complexity. In fact, today 100% of buyers are looking for a streamlined self-serve process for ordering. If placing an order feels like work (for them AND you), it’s easy for them to delay or skip it altogether and find another supplier.

The Hidden Costs of a New Wholesale Site

Spinning up a separate wholesale ecommerce site isn’t something that should be taken lightly, as it comes with serious overhead. This includes: 

• Upfront work - designing, configuring, and integrating the new site into your tech stack

• Ongoing maintenance - updating products, pricing, and content in two places

• Extra costs - paying for hosting, apps, and platform fees

• Integration headaches - keeping it synced with your inventory, fulfillment, and invoicing systems

Instead of streamlining your wholesale business, a second site can actually double the work for your team and open up a can of worms related to potential technical challenges. Vanik takes about 30 minutes to set-up, and once it’s set-up, it requires very little ongoing attention. 

Shopify Works Perfectly for Wholesale 

While Shopify is famous for D2C stores, it’s also incredibly capable for wholesale. Not only has Shopify’s B2B service doubled in the past year, but using your existing Shopify site (or creating a sub-domain) for wholesale often makes the most sense. This is because:

• Shopify can act as your foundation, storing customer data (name, email address, physical address, ordering history, etc)

• The Shopify App Store offers thousands of tools, including wholesale-specific apps

• Having one online storefront for DTC and B2B means that you have a single source of truth - all products, orders, and customers live in one platform

• One site will require less maintenance - update it once for your DTC and your wholesale experiences 

• You’ll be able to deliver a stronger retailer experience - they can order just as easily as your D2C customers, without extra logins or portals

Keeping all of your customer data in one place makes it far easier for you to take action on it fast, all while delivering a stronger experience to your customers. 

How Vanik Makes Shopify Wholesale Even Better

If you want to make wholesale seamless without creating a whole new site, Vanik can transform your existing Shopify store (whether that’s a D2C or a wholesale site) into a wholesale powerhouse.

With Vanik, you can:

• Leverage your existing Shopify data to deliver a personalized retailer experience, allowing them to place an order in as few as two clicks

• Although DTC customers and retailers are similar, they are not the same audience, which is why it’s important to send retailers slightly different types of communications (which Vanik does) 

• Notify retailers when it’s time for them to place a reorder to avoid stockouts 

• Keep invoicing, shipping, and fulfillment all in one place (in Shopify) 

• Set specific payment terms for retailers 

• Remove friction for retailers to place reorders 

• Go live in 30 minutes or less and then “forget” it since everything from Shopify syncs to Vanik in real time 

We designed Vanik to be the “Platformless Platform.” You get all of the benefits of delivering a strong, revenue driving wholesale experience to your retailers without the headaches and costs associated with creating a separate wholesale portal. 

Brands like Sound Coffee are using Vanik and are seeing reorders 45% faster than before Vanik, while generating 40% more revenue. 

The Bottom Line

Your retailers don’t need a separate wholesale site - they need a faster, easier way to buy from you. By keeping wholesale on the same Shopify site that you run DTC through and using a tool like Vanik, you can give them exactly that. 

Instead of managing multiple platforms and experiences, you’ll have one streamlined system that’s easier for you and better for your retailers.

So before you invest time and money into building a whole new B2B ecommerce site, ask yourself: do you really need one? Chances are, the answer is no

If you’re looking to learn more about how Vanik can help you transform your existing Shopify site into a dynamic and revenue generating wholesale experience, set-up time to talk with us.