What’s next for B2B ecommerce in 2025

4 key trends Shopify can deliver on for your wholesale business.

Ecommerce is evolving, fast. For years, B2B ecommerce has lagged behind its B2C counterpart. Wholesale websites have been available as clunky afterthoughts and sales teams have been relied on to manually deal with every price query, product recommendation and reorder. 

That’s not going to cut it for today’s buyers. They expect more and at speed. With millennials making up around 70% of B2B purchase influencers and decision-makers, they’re looking for the same seamless, intuitive experience they’re used to as consumers. 

Your B2B offering needs to deliver a B2C experience. 

If your wholesale business is still running on outdated technology, that’s not going to be possible. 

In this article we’ll explore: 

• How wholesale buyers are demanding more consumer-like experiences
• The 4 key trends reshaping B2B ecommerce
• How Shopify’s powerful B2B capability can help you innovate online to scale and stay competitive

B2B ecommerce is booming but wholesale buyers’ expectations are changing

56% of B2B sales are expected to be generated digitally by the end of 2025 in the UK (up from 46% in 2023 and 33% in 2021), in a market projected to be worth over $167.42 billion in the UK alone. 

There’s huge opportunity there for the wholesalers who can offer business buyers the experience they’re looking for. 

Millennial B2B buyers are bringing consumer expectations with them. These include: 

• Browsing and buying online, at any time
• Easy account access, fast reordering and accurate pricing
• Personalised storefronts featuring curated catalogues
• Getting a quote without having to pick up the dreaded phone

Regardless of generation, according to McKinsey, 80% of B2B buyer prefer remote or self-serve interactions over traditional in-person sales. To the extent that they’re prepared to pay more for it. But if your ecommerce experience doesn’t meet their expectations? They’ll look elsewhere. 

For many wholesale businesses, the key is to modernise – fast. 

“The most successful B2B companies are embracing automation, personalisation and ecommerce platforms that scale.”

‍McKinsey

4 B2B ecommerce trends you can’t afford to ignore in 2025

If you’re a wholesale ecommerce director looking to transform the way you sell online, you need to be ahead of these shifts.

1. Self-service over sales reps

B2B buyers don’t want to rely on being able to get hold of someone by phone or email every time they want to place an order. They want the autonomy to browse catalogues, manage their accounts and place reorders themselves. 

Can your customers access their order history, quotes, pricing and real-time stock levels without speaking to one of your team?

Enabling this functionality ensures better customer experience and leads to increased order frequency and average order value without reliance on your sales reps.

With Shopify B2B, you can: 

• Set customer-specific price lists
• Offer personalised product visibility
• Let buyers manage their own shopping lists, budgets and repeat orders

It’s not about replacing your sales team. It’s about modernising your website to enable it to work harder. Shopify offers a B2B retail solution that delivers the UX your customers want while freeing up your team to focus on relationship development and driving growth. 

2. Automation over admin

Manual admin is out, streamlined workflows are in. Whether it's inputting orders, sending invoices or updating stock, manually carrying out these processes eats up time and introduces errors.

Using AI and integrations allows for repetitive tasks to be handled by smart systems. Time consuming processes transformed into just a few clicks. 

With the functionality of Shopify Flow and the ability to build custom integrations, you can save time and scale smarter. Reduce recurrent tasks so your team can focus on improving customer experience and growth rather than admin.  

3. Personalisation throughout the journey

Every buyer is different. Whether you sell to small retailers or multinational chains, expectations around pricing, product selection and payment terms vary wildly. 

Including names in emails isn’t enough anymore but neither do you need expensive custom development. With its impressive personalisation tools, Shopify’s modern B2B platform enables you to tailor the experience for each of your customers. 

With account-level control, you can provide adaptive user journeys across:

• Storefronts
• Pricing
• Catalogues
• Quotes
• Payment terms

Being able to offer these tailored experiences will lead to better customer retention and stronger relationships.

4. AI-powered efficiency

AI is playing an increasingly major role in B2B ecommerce. It has the potential to accelerate all three of the previous trends we’ve looked at. Gartner’s Future of Sales report estimates that by 2030, 70% of routine tasks will be automated and 80% of of sales leaders will consider AI integration in sales workflows as a crucial factor for competitive advantage. 

Shopify is actively building AI into its platform with: 

• AI-driven search to improve discoverability
• Dynamic pricing
• Predictive analytics for smarter inventory and demand planning

AI isn’t going anywhere – it’s time to embrace it to make your operations more efficient and responsive to your customers’ needs. 

A modern B2B stack out of the box

Shopify goes far beyond their direct-to-consumer offering. The platform’s B2B capabilities provide powerful, practical wholesale ecommerce solutions, letting you bridge the gap between your B2B and consumer-facing presence online within a single ecosystem. 

Shift to a next-gen B2B ecommerce offering with:

• One backend for DTC and B2B (no clunky third-party portals)
• Custom price lists, company accounts and payment options
• Fast, scalable infrastructure that supports complex catalogues
• An open ecosystem of apps and integrations (ERP, CRM, warehousing and more)
• Flexible custom storefront options 
• Automated workflows with Shopify Flow

Shopify is built to handle the complexity of modern wholesale and keep you ahead of the curve.

Is your business ready for the future of B2B ecommerce?

Ask yourself: 

• Can your customers place orders online without speaking to your sales team?
• Are your teams still spending hours on manual data entry?
• Does your ecommerce experience reflect the service level your brand is known for?

If the answer to any of these is ‘no’, it’s time to explore how Shopify can help you take your business to the next level online. 

Conclusion: The opportunity ahead

The future of B2B ecommerce is self-serve, automated and customer-centric. The next generation of B2B buyers is here and they’re digital first. They expect speed, control and transparency and they won’t wait for your sales-rep heavy legacy systems to catch up. 

Shopify gives you the tools to meet – and exceed – their expectations. 

At GPMD, as an official UK Shopify partner, we help wholesale businesses take full advantage of Shopify’s B2B capabilities. Whether you’re migrating from another platform, bringing your wholesale operations online for the first time or integrating with a complex ERP, we’ve got the experience to help you move faster, sell smarter and serve better.

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