Ask a B2B operator what frustrates them about their ecommerce platform and you'd expect the usual gripes: it's slow, the admin's clunky, something breaks at the worst possible moment. That's not what's coming back.
We've been gathering responses to our B2B Platform Benchmark. It's early and the study's still open, so this is a first read rather than the final word, but one signal is clear. For most operators, the platform itself isn't the problem. The frustration is with everything B2B piles on top.
The basics hold up
The operators we've heard from so far are running a real mix of platforms:
Shopify (Plus and B2B)
Adobe Commerce (Magento)
BigCommerce
SparkLayer
Salesforce
Across that mix, few respondents reported things breaking, and most can change pricing, a catalogue or a rule themselves without raising a ticket with a developer. So usability and uptime aren't the problem here. The frustration sits a level deeper, in the mechanics of B2B itself.
B2B as an afterthought
The strongest theme so far is that B2B often feels bolted onto a platform built for selling to consumers, rather than designed for B2B workflows which are different from consumer experiences. As one Adobe Commerce user put it: "It's a glorified Ecom solution, it needs an EDI connection or more robust data interfaces to be a true B2B solution."
The frustrations gather in the same few places:
Customer-specific pricing and catalogues
Quoting and draft orders
Configuring complex or made-to-order products
Moving orders and data cleanly between the storefront and the systems behind it
The more complex the operation, the more those gaps sting. As one operator on an older Salesforce system put it: "Functionality is limited, it does the basics - nothing outside of standard processing etc."
So operators improvise. Plenty described running parts of the operation outside the platform, in reporting tools or back-office systems, not by choice, but because it couldn't keep up.
The hold-up isn't always the platform
When we asked what usually holds up a fix or a change, the most common answer wasn't the platform, or a developer. It was operators' own backlog, and whatever was sitting ahead of the B2B work in the queue. Plenty did point at platform limitations too, but for a good share of teams, capacity gets in the way as much as the technology does.
Why this matters
If the platform is rarely the whole problem, then the opportunity sits in what you build on top of it. The wins in B2B come from getting the operational layer right: how pricing is set, how quotes get raised, how orders and data move between the storefront and the systems behind it. Good platforms like Shopify and Adobe Commerce can handle all of this well, once that operational layer is built properly around them. That build is the difference between a B2B setup that just about works and one that actually grows revenue.
That's why we're running this survey: to show B2B operators where setups tend to break, how their experience compares to everyone else wrestling with the same things, and what the teams who've solved it did, so they can plan properly instead of finding out the hard way.
We're still gathering responses, so if you run a B2B operation, particularly one with serious complexity under the hood, we want to hear how it holds up for you. Everything you share is reported anonymously and you'll receive the full report before it goes live. Plus, we're gifting the first 50 respondents a £50 gift voucher as a thank you for their time.
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