What does hybrid e-commerce mean?
B2C (business-to-consumer) selling means offering products at public prices to anyone who visits your site. B2B (business-to-business) selling means selling to your dealers, corporate customers and wholesalers on their own terms. In many companies these two run on separate systems: an e-commerce site for retail, and phone, email or a separate portal for dealers.
Hybrid e-commerce brings both together on one platform. Product, stock and order data are shared; who sees what, and at which price, depends on who the user is.
What do dealers get?
- Dealer groups and special discounts: Each dealer group can have its own discount rate and price list. When a dealer logs in, they see their own prices.
- Dedicated product pool: Some products can be opened only to dealers, others only to specific dealer groups. Consumers never see these products.
- Wallet and balance: Dealers can top up a balance with prepayment or shop within an assigned credit limit on their current account. "Dealer collection" can be offered as a payment method.
- Contract and invoice flow: Dealer-specific contract approval, billing details and order documents are managed within the system.
- Branch and store-level ordering: For dealers with multiple branches, orders are tracked per branch.
- Corporate quote flow: For bulk purchases, the customer can request a quote instead of going straight to the cart; the quote is prepared in the panel and sent for approval.
What changes for consumers?
Nothing gets more complicated. Consumers don't see dealer-only areas, prices or products. What they get is a simple, fast, mobile-friendly shopping site. Confusion is the biggest risk of serving two audiences on one site; in IMFLEXI, that separation is solved at the core of the software.
Why should it be one system?
Separate systems create these problems:
- Stock is kept in two places, and one of them is out of date.
- Product information, images and technical documents are entered twice.
- Dealer orders arrive by email and phone, leading to errors and delays.
- To see how much was sold through which channel, you have to merge spreadsheets.
In a hybrid setup, all of this runs off a single record. When a dealer order comes in, stock drops instantly, the order appears in the same panel and is transferred to your ERP.
Who is it for?
This setup saves a great deal of time, especially for manufacturers and distributors. For an industry perspective, see our wholesale and B2B distribution page; for solutions focused only on the dealer side, take a look at our B2B dealer portal service.
Frequently asked questions
Do dealers log in from a separate address?
Either works. Dealers can log in to the same site with their own accounts, or a separate dealer store can be set up for them on its own domain.
Can dealer applications be collected on the site?
Yes. A dealer application form is set up; once an application is approved, the user is assigned to the relevant dealer group and starts seeing their own prices.
Can a dealer's account balance come from the ERP?
Yes. Once ERP integration is in place, the current account balance and risk limit can be read from the ERP.
If you want to bring your dealer and retail sales into a single system, talk to us.