An Overview of the B2B Platform

The B2B platform is a digital portal that enables you to display your product collections to attract sales from retailers.

Think of it as your online wholesale store.

Uphance makes it easy to set up a B2B platform for your business, and in this document, we will show you how to go about it and invite buyers when you are done.

You can easily log into your B2B platform with a few taps of the button. To do so, simply click the Go To B2B Portal button.

Setting up your B2B platform is straightforward. All you have to do is navigate to Apps >> All Apps >> B2B Platform. Add the app and after that click the Configure button to initiate the configuration process.

Once you have your B2B platform up and running, proceed to add a logo, favicon, and main banner image. This is, of course, very easy - only be sure the images you upload meet the required specifications.

Click the Save Changes button at the top right corner when you are done.

After adding branding images, the next step is to enter a name for your platform, a description and a store URL.

Once you do, Uphance will assign a link to your B2B platform based on the Store URL you typed in using this naming convention: https://buyer.uphance.com/storename.

For example, in the illustration above, we set the store URL as demobrand. Automatically, the B2B URL became: https://uphance.com/demobrand.

But if you wish to use a custom domain rather than the default URL, scroll down to the lower section of this article to learn how to go about it.

Once you've added a logo, banner image, and URL, scroll down to the General Settings page to perform additional configuration to your B2B platform.

Here, you can select the default channel for your platform, make products visible to the public, enable drops, display add-ons, and select brands and warehouses. Be sure to save all changes.

You can choose to set your showroom layout to boxed or full-width. To do so, simply click the design tab at the top corner:

The orders and payments tab is where you get to configure your order settings. Here, you can choose how you want to split orders, accept payments, add notes in carts, allow ship entry dates, etc.

By default, your B2B platform will be enabled as soon as you install the app. However, you can always turn it off by clicking the toggle button at the top:

Once you are done setting up and configuring your platform, the next step is to invite your customers to it.

While there are a couple of ways to do this, the easiest is to just click the Invite All Customers button.

Once you click that button, an email invitation will be sent out to all your customers.

But if you would rather invite buyers individually, navigate to Customer Relationships >> Contacts. Locate the buyer you would like to invite and click the Invite button.

Note: When you send out invitations to contacts, they will receive the invitation link to create an account before signing in to your platform. However, if they have been invited by another brand on Uphance before, they won't need to create an account.

The invitation email looks something like this:

You might want to set up a buyer account for testing purposes to have a first-hand experience of your newly created B2B platform.

To do so, simply invite yourself using a different email as a buyer. Accept the invite and log into your platform as a buyer.

You can customize your platform's colors, font styles, buttons, etc. making them match what you already have on your store. Doing so will ensure your customers enjoy a consistent purchasing experience across all your channels.

Customizing your B2B platform is a straightforward process, and can be done via the following steps:

To do so, start by clicking the Customize Platform button and edit the active theme, which is The Night Watch theme by default. Of course, you can always pick a different theme simply by clicking the Apply button next to it.

From here, you can change the font option and color, button color, pagination text color, and many more.

When you launch your B2B showroom, it will come with a default text that looks something like this:

To change this text, open the Homepage template page, edit the active theme, and then change the text as shown below:

Be sure to save the edits you made.

To change font type, select the active theme, click the Text button, and then select your preferred font type. You can also change the font color. Save when you are done.

Note: This font change will only affect the body of your B2B page, leaving out the navigation menu and product card text.

Like buttons, you can also set a color for text links, both in hover and clicked states. To do so, click Link Text and set the colors like so:

To change the button color, simply click on Button and then select the color, font color and size. You can set the button background, hover, dropdown and dropdown hover colors. You can also set the font color as well as the font hover color.

Hit the Save button when you are done.

Note: Changing the button color this way will only affect the button in the navigation menu, leaving out the other buttons.

To change the color of the other buttons, you'd have to open the Homepage editor, edit the active template, and set your button colors as shown below:

Also, note that you don't have to manually set your colors. If you have the Hex code, just paste it in.

By default, the season menu will always show on your B2B page. It should look something like this:

But if for some reason it isn't showing, you can always enable it by editing the Homepage template and adding a Custom Menu like so:

Don't forget to hit the Save button once you are done.

Unlike the season menu, the brand menu isn't displayed by default on your B2B page. You'd have to enable it.

To do so, you can either duplicate the existing Seasons menu and change it to Brands:

Upon saving, you will notice that the Brands Menu has been added to your page.

Another way to add the brands' menu is to drop a custom menu wherever you want on the page and then change it to Brands. Check the layer manager to be sure you selected the right component. In the event other menus are added, delete them and keep just "Brand". Don't forget to save the changes you made.

While updating your page designs, you might want to have a sneak peek of the changes you made before saving. You can do this by simply hitting the Preview button:

Adding search makes it easy for your customers to find the products they are looking for quickly. You can add the search function on your home, product, or any other page you want.

To do so, open the page you wish to add the search function to, add a column where you want to display the search, add a text component, change the Merge tag to Search button and save.

This is what it will look like on your B2B website:

Adding the "Sort by" feature on your pages makes it easy for your customers to filter for products based on prices or featured products.

To add one, first, you need to determine the page where you want to add it. A good place to start is your home or season page.

Next, open the page (which is the Season page for this example), edit the active template, add a text component to where you wish to display the sorting filter, and then change the merge tag to "sort by". As an additional step, change the default text (Insert your text here) to anything you want. Then save.

If you did it correctly, you should see the "sort by" feature on your season page:

You have the option of adding a banner image for the collections/seasons you display on your B2B platform. By banner image, we mean something like this:

To add a banner image, first open the Seasons template page like so:

After that, add the banner image to the spot you want on the season page. Be sure to insert it properly, as the image will need to stretch across the page. Next, change the image's merge text to Season Banner Image. Then hit the Save button.

The final step now is to upload the image you want to use for each season. You'd have to navigate to the season settings to do this. Don't forget to update the season when you are done.

Note: For best results, the image you intend to upload should have a minimum width of 1920px.

Finally, head to your B2B platform page and open the season you just updated. You should see the banner image you just uploaded.

The process for adding a banner image for brands is similar to that for seasons. First, you open the Brand template page, add an image, change the merge text to Brand Banner Image, and then upload a banner image.

When you enable your B2B platform, it will come with a default banner image, which you might not like. Thankfully, you can easily swap the image out with the one you want in a few steps.

To do so, simply upload an image for the B2B Main Image. Ensure you pick an image that matches the stipulated dimension. Then Save Changes when you are done.

To ensure your platform flows well on both desktop and mobile screens, we've incorporated responsive design into our document designer.

This means you can easily switch between different screen sizes as you customize your platform.

While setting up your B2B platform, you have to select the warehouse you will be picking products from. Thankfully, the selection process is very simple and you can select as many warehouses as you want.

Don't forget to save changes when you are done.

When you set up a platform in Uphance, it will have a generic domain URL.

For example, if your brand goes by the name “awesome” and you set up a platform in Uphance, it will have the URL below:

buyer.uphance.com/awesome

Now, that URL might be too ugly for your liking. Even if it isn’t, your customers might not find it appealing.

The other reasons to set up a custom domain are as follows:

Interestingly, Uphance makes it easy to use a custom domain for your platform.

First, open the configuration page. Enter your custom URL in the Custom domain input field. This can be a full domain or a subdomain of your existing website.

When you are done, hit the Save Changes button at the top right corner. And you are done.

For your platform's custom domain URL to work well, you have to create a CNAME and point it to buyer.uphance.com.

How you add the CNAME record depends on the hosting provider you use. Here are the guides for popular hosting solutions:

If your web host isn't listed here, reach out to your hosting provider for help.

Managing seasons and products