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Wholesale B2B Portal
Contact Us
We will get in touch with you to discuss your business goals and provide a clear demonstration of an online store example.
Wholesale auto parts portal increased average order value by up to 30%
This is the story of how we built an online portal for a large auto parts distributor — a portal that now generates 25% of their B2B segment sales.
- 10 000 000 +SKUs
- 1 000 +cities across Russia and CIS countries — delivery coverage
- 200 +direct manufacturer contracts
- 1 380 +satisfied clients
About the Project
- Client: a large wholesale supplier of automotive spare parts. The automotive industry is continuously evolving, and the spare parts market evolves with it. The past few years have brought sweeping changes. The companies that emerged as leaders did two things: they built effective online operations, and they gave customers quality aftermarket alternatives to OEM parts. All e-commerce projects follow the same growth trajectory — and at each stage, there are specific IT scaling challenges to overcome.
Growth Stages Every Auto Parts Business Goes Through
Project Launch
At launch, off-the-shelf IT solutions are usually sufficient, but they are not enough to sustain growth — let alone achieve a breakthrough.
Bespoke Development
The next stage is custom development. The vast majority of our clients go through a phase of building their own websites. This seems like a reasonable path, but only at first glance. It requires tight oversight from the business owner. Bespoke codebases are also often disproportionately expensive, come with poor admin interfaces, and are difficult to optimize.
Scaling
As businesses enter serious expansion and move into new market segments, work shifts to customizing established platforms. This is where companies that outsourced their IT work have the advantage — they can focus fully on their business: sales and marketing, not technology maintenance.
How the Platform Arrived at 1C-Bitrix
The wholesale online project began in 2019, when the B2B segment was still in early development and a small module on the retail site was sufficient. Management recognized the strong potential of wholesale sales and decided to separate wholesale from retail. What followed was a classic progression: a modular solution, then a bespoke custom build, and eventually the scaling challenge.
The company had no in-house developers at the required level and no desire to hire and maintain them. Leadership also recognized the importance of security for online commerce. After weighing the options, the team selected a ready-made platform that delivered the required functionality, supported responsive design, and placed no limits on the ambitious scaling roadmap — that platform was 1C-Bitrix. Within 8 months, the first dealers were onboarded.
The company had no in-house developers at the required level and no desire to hire and maintain them. Leadership also recognized the importance of security for online commerce. After weighing the options, the team selected a ready-made platform that delivered the required functionality, supported responsive design, and placed no limits on the ambitious scaling roadmap — that platform was 1C-Bitrix. Within 8 months, the first dealers were onboarded.
How the Platform Arrived at 1C-Bitrix
The wholesale online project began in 2019, when the B2B segment was still in early development and a small module on the retail site was sufficient. Management recognized the strong potential of wholesale sales and decided to separate wholesale from retail. What followed was a classic progression: a modular solution, then a bespoke custom build, and eventually the scaling challenge.
The company had no in-house developers at the required level and no desire to hire and maintain them. Leadership also recognized the importance of security for online commerce. After weighing the options, the team selected a ready-made platform that delivered the required functionality, supported responsive design, and placed no limits on the ambitious scaling roadmap — that platform was 1C-Bitrix. Within 8 months, the first dealers were onboarded.
The company had no in-house developers at the required level and no desire to hire and maintain them. Leadership also recognized the importance of security for online commerce. After weighing the options, the team selected a ready-made platform that delivered the required functionality, supported responsive design, and placed no limits on the ambitious scaling roadmap — that platform was 1C-Bitrix. Within 8 months, the first dealers were onboarded.
At this stage it became clear that the development capacity was insufficient to sustain further growth: sales volumes were rising, developers were slow to deliver, and the site was falling behind the business.
The automotive parts business has many nuances and hidden complexities. The site lacked the technical capacity to deliver accurate bulk price lookups across a large number of suppliers. The dealer base was also growing. The company knew the direction they needed to go and were looking for developers who understood cross-reference codes and could connect suppliers with different nomenclature structures via API.
The turning point came in October 2020. Portal sales were growing visibly, and the scaling problem had become urgent. A reliable IT partner with proven auto parts expertise was needed immediately.
This is when our paths crossed. After meeting at a trade show, it became clear there was a strong fit. Our competencies matched the client's requirements exactly. We received the first technical brief and began work.
The automotive parts business has many nuances and hidden complexities. The site lacked the technical capacity to deliver accurate bulk price lookups across a large number of suppliers. The dealer base was also growing. The company knew the direction they needed to go and were looking for developers who understood cross-reference codes and could connect suppliers with different nomenclature structures via API.
The turning point came in October 2020. Portal sales were growing visibly, and the scaling problem had become urgent. A reliable IT partner with proven auto parts expertise was needed immediately.
This is when our paths crossed. After meeting at a trade show, it became clear there was a strong fit. Our competencies matched the client's requirements exactly. We received the first technical brief and began work.
The Real Problems Facing Garages and Auto Repair Shops
Growing sales requires expanding into new markets. A new segment means a new challenge. After analyzing the data, the company identified the core obstacle to working with small retail clients. Auto repair shops and independent garages often lack fast internet, use outdated equipment, and have no budget to upgrade. The portal needed to be easy and intuitive to use on any device.
This became our brief: build a product that would enable the company to enter this challenging segment — ready to serve anyone with even an old smartphone.
This became our brief: build a product that would enable the company to enter this challenging segment — ready to serve anyone with even an old smartphone.
“
We are currently working on geographic sales expansion at the street level. We started with large wholesale only, then mid-sized wholesale, then retail. There is a significant parts shortage right now, so we are moving further down into smaller retail segments. Our current goal is to reach independent garages, small workshops, and micro-repair shops. They often don't have modern browsers or high-speed internet. So we needed a tool that would work on any computer — even a phone. There are no off-the-shelf solutions like this on the market, so we decided to fully digitize the business and build our own platform.
The auto parts niche has its own operating logic: visual presentation — photography and video — takes a back seat. What matters most is interface simplicity, fast search by specified criteria, and convenient pricing calculations.
Accurate Bulk Price Lookup — Satisfied Clients
Working with automotive parts catalogs requires accounting for several important factors:
-
different suppliers have different prices, delivery lead times, price list formats, and sometimes even different units of measurement - all parts are linked to a specific vehicle make and model
- every part has alternative equivalents that must also appear in search results
Bulk price lookup searches all available catalogs simultaneously, returning a complete list of alternatives with prices and delivery lead times. This helps sales managers build the best possible offer for each buyer. The more efficiently this feature performs, the less time managers spend on each request — and the more productive the sales team as a whole.
Results of a bulk pricing request
Optimizing search processes is a critical priority for any wholesale auto parts store. The presentation of search results matters equally. Wholesale portal clients now receive a results file that contains not only the items matching their query, but all available alternatives as well.
We also implemented a feature specifically important to wholesale trade, which we called visual markup. In their B2B account, wholesale partners can set their own markup on products and show end buyers a price that already includes the markup. This significantly simplified and accelerated the workflow for intermediaries — they no longer need to spend time manually processing price files.
We also implemented a feature specifically important to wholesale trade, which we called visual markup. In their B2B account, wholesale partners can set their own markup on products and show end buyers a price that already includes the markup. This significantly simplified and accelerated the workflow for intermediaries — they no longer need to spend time manually processing price files.
Markup configuration functionality
Key Features Implemented
During the Engagement:
How We Solved the Performance Problem
We need to continuously test, analyze, and optimize site performance. The key constraint is this: the portal must be accessible on any device, even outdated hardware. We achieved this by separating the frontend from the backend. All calculations and page rendering are performed on the portal's servers, not on the end user's device. As a result, even the most low-spec phones, tablets, and computers can render the interface quickly enough.
Conclusions
Building an effective wholesale e-commerce portal is complex. The cart and checkout are only the surface. A wholesale partner's B2B account must function as a full business workspace. Automating communication with wholesale clients requires building a sophisticated system — one with many interconnected business processes, data sources, and integrations.
- Right now we use the portal largely as a management tool for optimizing internal processes. Everything that happens on the portal fully automates the wholesale ordering process — and that is great. Our main goal for 2024 is for the site to drive some sales on its own, to be promotable, and to become a revenue channel in its own right. We plan to develop it not just as a business workspace, but as a platform for marketing activity.the client's Project Manager
- We would like to highlight the exceptional professionalism of the client's team. Structured project management, constructive ideas, clearly articulated hypotheses, and well-prepared technical briefs — these were the key success factors.Agency Project Manager
Results
The portal now covers the full market assortment, and the wholesale ordering process is fully automated for clients. A wholesale buyer can find a part, place an order, and immediately generate an invoice for their own client — with their markup already applied. No extra effort, no strain on their hardware (a known constraint in this segment). The wholesale B2B account on the portal functions as a true business workspace.
A wide product range and competitive pricing attract new clients to the portal, while the simplicity and usability of the wholesale account keep them engaged long-term. The portal now generates 25% of wholesale sales volume, and one third of the active client base has fully migrated to it. Average order value increased by approximately 30%, driven by clients seeing not only in-stock inventory but also cross-docking options.
A wide product range and competitive pricing attract new clients to the portal, while the simplicity and usability of the wholesale account keep them engaged long-term. The portal now generates 25% of wholesale sales volume, and one third of the active client base has fully migrated to it. Average order value increased by approximately 30%, driven by clients seeing not only in-stock inventory but also cross-docking options.