E-commerce platform BigCommerce acquires BundleB2B

BigCommerce, an open software-as-a-service e-commerce platform serving brands like Ben & Jerry’s, SC Johnson and Vodafone, announced that it has acquired BundleB2B, a technology company that provides added functionality for online business-to-business sales.

BundleB2B, a longtime partner of BigCommerce (NASDAQ: BIGC), has an offering geared specifically toward B2B merchants on the Austin, Texas-based company’s platform. The two companies already partnered this past June to roll out BigCommerce B2B Edition, a suite of tools for business-to-business sellers that features streamlined onboarding, support and contract services.

BundleB2B also provides a slew of other functions that help businesses save time, shorten sales cycles and automate manual processes. 

Those include an account management portal that organizes buyers into tiers based on specific permissions; order tools like shared shopping lists and buy-again functionality; a quote management tool that lets shoppers request quotes directly from merchants; and a tool that enables the merchant’s sales team to assist customers with purchases.

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Through the acquisition, those functions will see an even tighter integration with the BigCommerce platform.

“Consumer brands may have pioneered e-commerce, but B2B companies are quickly catching up,” said Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce. “This acquisition further cements our commitment to being the best e-commerce option for B2B merchants.”

In particular, BigCommerce is competing with Shopify, a mainstay in the e-commerce space that stumbled in its latest earnings report. The company in February cited an economic slowdown as the primary culprit for slowing profits.

The same macroeconomic trends that affect Shopify will also impact BigCommerce. But Shopify’s sluggish quarter could provide an opportunity for companies like BigCommerce to gain market share.

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“BundleB2B is the reason we switched from Shopify to BigCommerce,” said P.J. Greco, president of health and beauty brand William Roam. “We want to drive our B2B customers to order online as much as possible, and without BundleB2B, we would have to hire a development team to customize a complicated website. With BundleB2B, we can manage the website ourselves, which is important to us.”

Sam McGee, president of Green Egg Design, added, “The combination of BigCommerce and BundleB2B has been critical for helping us scale our B2B business with Major League Baseball teams. Through our site, they can easily design their bats and automatically get pricing and shipping quotes. That simple process has been huge as we’ve grown to selling tens of thousands of products to teams all over the country in just a couple years.”

BigCommerce’s acquisition of BundleB2B comes just a few months after it bought B2B e-commerce software solution provider B2B Ninja, another long-standing partner, in February, integrating its quoting solution with BigCommerce’s platform.

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Source: freightwaves - E-commerce platform BigCommerce acquires BundleB2B
Editor: Jack Daleo