B2B eCommerce for IT Resellers: How to Build an Online Sales Channel

What an IT Reseller Needs From a B2B eCommerce Channel

For IT resellers, eCommerce is part of a larger sales and fulfillment process, not a standalone storefront. If product data is outdated, customers see incorrect information. If pricing isn’t account-specific, routine purchases still require sales involvement. And if online orders don’t connect with procurement, the team ends up doing the same work manually.

Building an effective online sales channel therefore means connecting the customer-facing buying experience with the systems and processes that already run the business. The eCommerce channel needs to make it easier for customers to find the right products, see the right pricing, place and manage orders, and move purchases through existing sales and procurement workflows.

A B2B eCommerce channel should address these challenges by providing capabilities such as:

Product discovery and merchandising

• Updated product catalogs
• Account-based product catalogs
• Rich product content
• B2B purchasing

Customer-specific and contract pricing

• B2B and B2G buying support
• Purchasing controls
• Online ordering and repeat purchases
• Secure customer logins

Sales and procurement

• PunchOut support
• Quoting and procurement
• connections

Customer and Sales Management

• Built-in CRM

For IT resellers, these capabilities come together to create an online sales channel that supports the entire buying process, from product discovery and pricing to ordering and procurement. VARStreet brings these capabilities together in a B2B eCommerce platform designed specifically for IT resellers.

How to Build an Online Sales Channel

Start with your product catalog and pricing

Your online store is only as useful as the product data behind it. For IT resellers, that can be difficult to manage when product catalogs, pricing, and availability change across multiple distributors.

VARStreet brings this data together in one searchable catalog, aggregating 7M+ products from 50+ IT distributors. A reseller only needs an account with the distributor. Once connected, the distributor’s product feed can auto-sync with VARStreet’s quoting, CRM, and eCommerce modules, so product information does not have to be manually copied across systems.

VARStreet also provides real-time cost and inventory information from major IT distributors. This helps resellers show current pricing and availability instead of relying on outdated distributor data when customers browse products or place orders.

The catalog is also enriched with product content from Etilize and Icecat, including images, specifications, and product descriptions. This content can populate the online store automatically, so resellers do not have to write product pages or manually add product details for every item.

Finally, pricing has to match how you sell. VARStreet supports customer-specific catalogs, contract pricing and account-level pricing controls, so each customer sees the products and prices assigned to their account when they log in. This matters most for resellers serving commercial, government and education accounts, where pricing is often tied to specific contracts.

VARStreet also supports customer-specific catalogs, contract pricing, and account-level pricing controls, so customers can see the products and prices assigned to their accounts after they log in. This is useful for IT resellers serving commercial, government, and education accounts, where pricing can be tied to specific contracts or customer agreements.

Make the buying experience more B2B specific

Business customers don’t shop like consumers. They reorder the same products, follow internal purchasing rules, and often have to buy through their own procurement system. Your store needs to support that.

• Let customers buy from their procurement system. Many corporate and public-sector buyers can only purchase through platforms like SAP Ariba, Coupa or Jaggaer. With VARStreet’s PunchOut support, they open your store from inside their procurement system, shop with their contract pricing, and send the cart back for approval.
• Give buyers guardrails. Purchasing controls let you set which products each user can buy and how much they can spend, so a customer’s team can order on their own while staying within company policy.
• Make reordering fast. Order history, reorders and saved lists let customers repeat last quarter’s laptop order in a few clicks instead of starting from scratch or emailing a rep.

Connect your store to your sales and procurement workflow

An online order should not create a second process for your team. In VARStreet, it moves through the same sales and procurement workflow you already use.

Customer logs in → views account pricing → orders online → order reaches the back office → PO goes to the distributor → customer is invoiced

Because the store, catalog and back office are one system, your team spends less time copying order details between systems. Sales reps do not need to handle every routine purchase, and procurement gets the information needed to place and fulfill the order. Orders placed through PunchOut follow the same path once the customer’s system sends the approved PO.

This also reduces handoffs. A customer can place a repeat order online without emailing a sales rep, waiting for a quote, and having someone re-enter the order manually.