Using the Right Domain Name for Your B2B Portal

Congratulations on deciding to plunge into the fast-growing world of B2B eCommerce! Now that you’re ready, have you been wondering which domain name to use for your online B2B store? Well, we’ve got a few ideas that will make this decision easier.

There are many important decisions to make in the process of switching to eCommerce, including deciding to move your business from offline to online in the first place, deciding which software you’ll use to set up your B2B eCommerce portal, and deciding what you’re going to fill the digital shelves of your new online storefront with. Yet one seemingly small decision may be giving you some serious concern—choosing the right domain name for your B2B eCommerce portal.

Although choosing the right domain for your online B2B storefront might seem on the surface as simple as choosing a name, this one choice is one of the most important decisions wholesalers face. After all, your domain name is an integral part of your wholesale business’s brand. In general, be sure to follow these basic guidelines when choosing your storefront domain name:

• Keep it short.
• Keep it relevant to what you offer your customers.
• Keep it easy for them to memorize and pass along to others when recommending your business to potential prospects.

3 Tips to Help You Choose the Right Domain Name for Your Online B2B Portal

1. Create a dedicated subdomain for your online B2B eCommerce store.

Scenario: You are a manufacturer that sells both to wholesale businesses and to consumers.

So far, you’ve been taking B2B orders “offline,” while your brand’s website allowed your B2C customers to make their purchase online. As you’re setting up your new online B2B portal, it’s normal to wonder how you will be able to keep your B2B and your B2C activities separate. Good news! You can use a unique, wholesale-dedicated subdomain for your B2B storefront that you share exclusively with your wholesale customers.

Here are a few examples of naming a dedicated subdomain:  

• wholesale.shutters.com
• orders.shutters.com
• b2b.shutters.com

What if you already have a website? 

If you have an existing general website where you present your B2B business and its products, and you’ve now decided to start taking B2B orders online, you don’t have to let go of this site. Instead, you can simply link your new B2B portal to your existing website and redirect your prospects and customers to your new B2B eCommerce portal subdomain. That link can appear anywhere on your current website—from your main menu to your footer. The choice about how discreet you want to be about this new B2B portal link is all yours.

2. Keep your online B2B eCommerce store public

‍Scenario: You want to use your online B2B portal both as a website and as an online ordering system.

This scenario is easy! With the right eCommerce software, you can use your main domain name for setting up your online store, where you can then present your products and catalogs publicly. In this way, both your existing customers and your potential prospects will be able to access your new B2B storefront, browse through your product catalog, and place their orders quickly and easily once they log in or register. This also means that you can use the name of your business or product for your domain name.

What happens to your price lists if your online B2B store is public?

You may be reluctant to make your online B2B portal public for many reasons. For example, you may wonder if this means you’ll need to make your pricing uniform across the board for all customers, regardless of whether they’re VIP customers or not. But this is not the case.

A smart B2B eCommerce platform allows for flexibility. In fact, with the B2B Wave eCommerce platform, product prices are invisible to the general public and are only shown to users who have logged in to your site. Also, all products are private by default, yet you can easily change the default setting through the Admin Dashboard and choose to make them publicly visible and accessible if you prefer.

3. Something to remember

When it comes to choosing the right domain name for your online B2B portal, it’s important to remember that long domain names are harder to remember and are at increased risk of being misspelled. This could be counter-productive, so follow the guidelines we mentioned earlier and keep your domain name short (i.e., under 25 characters), simple, and easy to recall.

Are you ready to start name-dropping?

With the B2B Wave's eCommerce platform, you can link your existing website to your new online B2B storefront, use a dedicated subdomain strictly for your wholesale business, and create your public online B2B ordering site.