Consumer e-commerce has grown to the point where the payment options are straightforward with credit card and online payment services leading the way. B2B e-commerce on the other hand, still had a long way to go. Buyers are looking to purchase on credit, with large volumes and intense demands. The consumer purchasing options simply will not work. However, there are a few top payment options for B2B sales to consider.
These payment systems are well established and commonly used. However, online purchasers can be anonymous which makes it easy for them to abdicate payment. For that reason, payment by purchase order must be through a list of pre-approved existing clients or those that have gone through underwriting. NetSuite allows you to establish credit limits and holds to control how much credit you give to your clients. The Credit Limit sets the maximum a customer can accumulate in outstanding receivables. When the limit has been reached the Credit Hold comes into play, not allowing them to place new orders until they are not up to date with their payments. Credit Limit cannot be bypassed in NetSuite, so you can only manage a transaction, if the customers credit is not on Hold.
Similarly, companies can extend credit to clients by working with third party financiers or factoring organizations. Buyers have months or years to complete the purchase with interest, while the seller gets the funds upfront minus the financing fees. At Tavano we recommend Dimension Funding to design a financing program to our customers looking for different eCommerce software projects.
Companies can also integrate their existing procurement systems with their vendor systems. There are already many vendors on the market that provide this including Oracle. Companies with tighter technical integration are more trustworthy and easier to track. Vendors can then extend better terms to those buyers.
This uses the traditional banking system to complete online payments. The positive aspect is that the transfer is going through a more secure interbank network. The negative is that the transfer may be slower and will not be confirmed on weekends, banking holidays or the evenings. You can configure your ecommerce platform to allow customers to pay via e-check or ACH.
Last but not least, businesses may use traditional credit cards for online purchases. The purchase may exceed that maximum credit limit of a card though, which makes the transaction more complicated.
