In short An eB2B platform is the app, web link or chat where sari-sari stores, drugstores, dealers and distributors order from your brand online. They buy at their own price, any hour, without waiting for the booking salesman. Judge one on four things. Each store sees only its own price. Every order reaches the right distributor untouched. Owners can order without installing anything. An order placed offline arrives once.
It is 8 p.m. in a barangay in Quezon City, and a sari-sari store has just sold its last strip of 3-in-1 coffee. The salesman is not due back until Tuesday. The owner can send him a Viber message and hope. Or she taps reorder in your app or Viber chat, and the stock comes on the distributor’s next delivery. That second path is eB2B.
What eB2B means in Philippine trade
eB2B, or electronic business-to-business, is a store, dealer or distributor buying stock from a supplier on a screen instead of face to face. The buyer resells, rather than buying for home. B2B ecommerce and B2B commerce are other names for the same thing.
Two examples from an ordinary week:
- A drugstore in Iloilo logs in to its distributor’s web portal, checks its price and sends the weekly order.
- A paint dealer in Cebu checks its remaining credit, then orders more over a chat.
A factory buying cartons online is eB2B too, on the procurement side. This guide covers selling to the trade. Here is how that differs from B2C, the online shopping your end customers do:
| A sari-sari store restocking on eB2B | A shopper buying online (B2C) | |
|---|---|---|
| The buyer | A store, dealer or distributor that resells | A person buying for the home |
| What it pays | Its own price, with trade promos and discounts | One listed price for everyone |
| How it pays | Often on credit (utang), settled later | Up front, at checkout |
| Who brings the goods | Its usual distributor, on the route | The seller or a courier |
Per-store prices and a distributor in the middle make eB2B harder than a web shop. Get either wrong and the owner goes back to texting the salesman.
Three kinds of eB2B platform, and who runs each
There are three kinds, split by who runs the platform and who keeps each store’s order history.
| Kind | Run by | What the store owner sees | Who holds the order history | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your brand’s own ordering app | Your brand | Your range only, at its own price, credit and promos | Your brand | Brands serving many sari-sari stores through distributors |
| A distributor’s or wholesaler’s portal | The distributor, wholesaler or stockist | All the brands that distributor carries | The distributor | Distributors tired of Viber orders |
| A B2B wholesale marketplace | A third party, often with its own stock and delivery | Many brands side by side, ranked by the platform | The marketplace | Reaching stores your network misses |
Wholesalers and stockists in traditional trade often take orders over Viber or a portal of their own. Your brand then sees only the data they pass on.
If your distributor network works, your own app should be the core. A marketplace can add sales on small islands or in far provincial towns your network does not reach. Do not make it the only online route for stores you already cover, or they become the marketplace’s customers.
Build your own only if you will keep a software team on it for years. Most brands do better buying one already linked to distributors and salesmen, and spending the effort on adoption.
What happens to one order, from store to distributor
Back to that 8 p.m. order. On a well set-up brand app:
- She opens the app, a web link or a Viber chat and sees your catalogue at her price.
- It shows the promos she qualifies for and suggests a basket from her usual orders.
- It checks the order against your rules, for example the minimum order and her credit limit.
- The order lands with the distributor that serves her barangay, directly in its distributor management system, so no one re-encodes it.
- The distributor confirms, bills and delivers on its next route or van run, and she tracks it in the app.
- Your salesman for that area sees the order in his field sales app before he visits her again.
Without step 4, someone at the distributor re-encodes orders into Excel and errors creep in. Without step 6, the salesman arrives to take an order she placed last night.
Why salesmen and distributors back the app, or resist it
A salesman may visit once a week, or less on island routes. A midweek stock-out leaves the shelf empty, or open to a rival. The app lets her reorder at once and takes over the dull part of the visit, reading out the usual list. That leaves the visit for what needs a person: placing a new SKU, fixing the display with the promodiser, asking why a suki has gone quiet.
Two decisions settle whether salesmen and distributors push the app or quietly resist it:
- Credit app orders to the salesman’s quota. If it does not count for him, he keeps writing orders by hand. Count it, and he signs stores up for you.
- Route each order to the store’s own distributor. Distributors fear a brand app will sell around them. When every order goes to the one already serving that store, the app brings them orders they no longer chase on Viber.
Four tests to run in an eB2B platform demo
The best eB2B platform depends on your prices, distributors and salesmen, and feature lists all look alike. Run these in the demo with your own data:
- Three stores, three price lists. Sign in as a sari-sari store, a drugstore and a wholesaler on different terms. None should see another’s customer-specific pricing, promos or payment terms.
- Track one order end to end. It should reach the right distributor’s system untouched, and appear in the salesman’s app, counted to his quota.
- Nothing installed. Hand over a bare phone and ask for an order by chat or link. Some owners will never install another app.
- No signal. In the app, order with mobile data off, as on a provincial route after a typhoon, then switch it on. The order should arrive once, not twice and not lost.
Fail the first three and a platform may still demo well, but orders keep coming by text.
Running the pilot across your distributors
- Start with two or three distributors whose territories are alike, say in Metro Manila and nearby Luzon provinces. Hold back a similar territory to compare.
- Clean up every store’s price, credit line and promos before launch. An owner charged more in the app than the salesman quoted seldom tries it twice.
- Have salesmen sign stores up on a regular visit. Owners trust the person they know, and one walk-through of her usual order beats any launch announcement.
- Expand only after pilot stores have reordered on their own a few times.
During the pilot, watch the share of orders stores send in themselves, how many reorder with no salesman involved, and how many orders the distributor still encodes by hand.
BeatRoute’s eB2B app for brands in the Philippines
BeatRoute’s B2B Customer App is your brand’s own eB2B app. It runs on the platform 200+ enterprise brands use in 20+ countries for field sales and distributor management. Stores, dealers and distributors order on Android, iOS, a web app, Viber or WhatsApp, along the six steps above. The Order AI Agent suggests each basket.
A leading paints brand in the Philippines improved sales productivity by 30% on the BeatRoute platform, told in the leading paints brand case study.
BeatRoute suits brands whose reps sell to many retailers through distributors and want distributor management on the same platform. If you sell to a few big accounts from your own warehouse, a B2B web store will probably fit better.
Book a demo and see it set up with your own distributors, price lists and promos.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between B2B and D2C?
D2C, direct to consumer, is your brand selling to shoppers itself, with no store between. On an eB2B platform you sell to the sari-sari store or drugstore, and it sells to the shopper.
Can stores buy on credit (utang) through an eB2B app?
Yes. With your own app, credit and its risk stay with whoever extends it today, usually the distributor. The app lends nothing: it shows each store its credit limit and balance due, and holds back an order that would go over. On BeatRoute, each account carries its own credit limit, and orders sync to your ERP.
Does eB2B work outside FMCG?
Yes, though the app’s job changes. In FMCG, it is lots of small, frequent orders from sari-sari stores and wholesalers. Pharma brands use it to keep each drugstore to the range it is allowed to stock. Paints and building materials see bigger orders from hardware dealers on credit. Agri inputs bring seasonal peaks around planting, often where the signal is weak.
