You can’t help but notice a growing trend towards more online sales if you are a wholesaler, distributor, manufacturer, or other B2B seller. This is because buyers today rely on the internet for product research. Forrester research shows that 74% B2B buyers conduct their product research online. Statista projects that B2B eCommerce will reach $3 trillion in 2024. We thought it would be a good time to look into software that can support B2B sales online and offline, given all the interest in B2B eCommerce.
Who is Oro Inc.
Oro Inc. owns OroCRM and OroPlatform. They are well-known for their open-source solutions and have a large and talented community around them. Oro code has a wide range of third-party integrations that can be used to report on the progress of Oro code.
Oro, Inc. was founded in LA by the former Magento leadership team of Yoavkutner, Dima Soroka, and Jary Cary. Oro has offices located in LA, Germany and France as well as support for several languages, including English, French and German.
They have many customers including France Air, AnimalSupply and Aldo.
Oro helps B2B companies with digital transformation. We offer B2B eCommerce and CRM products to help them. These products leverage technology to give business tools that increase sales and build relationships. It seems that the B2B market loves it.
To date, Oro products have:
- More than 400,000 active installations
- Over 40,000 new installs per quarter
- Used in over 100 countries
The Oro Philosophy
Oro believes the best software can be used in any environment and is always open-source. All of their products are available on-premise and in the Cloud. You can also easily switch between deployments to meet your business’s needs. This is part of their “deploy anytime, anywhere” philosophy. This is not something you’ll find in other B2B-focused products.
Software that runs on Windows, iOS and Mac devices is developed with the same philosophy. Websites built using Oro’s OroCommerce eCommerce platform for B2B eCommerce work flawlessly on all devices, platforms and browsers.
OroCommerce
OroCommerce can be used to support any type of B2B eCommerce model. OroCommerce is available for all business types, including B2B2C and B2B2C. It even supports multiple vendor marketplaces.
The platform’s flexibility to create eCommerce sites, marketplaces, customer portals, wholesale portals or customer portals will appeal to mid-market and enterprise users.
OroCommerce is a great tool for managing corporate accounts, controlling complex pricing structures, creating custom catalogs and defining custom workflows.
No cost trial and pricing
OroCommerce lets you demo their products directly without having to speak to a sales representative. It’s easy to get the wheels turning.
When compared to other enterprise-grade solutions such as SAP Hybris or Oracle, pricing is very competitive. You’ll get a shorter time to return on investment because your license costs are usually lower than other enterprise-grade solutions like Oracle or SAP Hybris.
The Community Edition is free. It does not include features like multi-warehouse management or multi-organization support.
Training and Support
Oro provides a rich support and training program that can be tailored to your needs. Oro can be contacted directly or through a partner. You’ll have access to their incredible community of experts in any way.
The vast library of videos and documentation will be helpful to DIY types who want to do as much in-house as possible. The product is open-source and widely used so there will likely be a solution for any problem.
Oro can provide more structure and support for your training. You can also receive in-person training as well as online training via webinars and podcasts.
Both competitive and standard features
OroCommerce offers all the features you would expect from an eCommerce platform. It is easy to set up landing pages for marketing purposes and to build product catalogues. OroCommerce’s unique and competitive features are what sets it apart. These features are not available in other solutions, which we were amazed by.
Pricing engine If you have complex pricing structures that include multiple price points and tiers, you will appreciate the flexibility of this pricing engine. You can easily propagate pricing changes.
Workflows engine No two companies can process transactions in the same way. The robust workflows engine adapts software to your business, not vice versa.
Personalization capabilities You’ll be just as impressed by the many ways this solution supports personalized marketing and product pricing as we were.
Scalability Don’t let hundreds and thousands of SKUs slow down your business. OroCommerce is able to handle millions of SKUs with minimal processing time. You can also deploy on-site, or as a SaaS service to scale your business.
Product engine Complex product structures and attributes will not be a problem with OroCommerce’s product platform. No matter how complex your product family, you can easily configure products worldwide or by customer.
RFQ Support It is strange that many B2B eCommerce platforms do not support the RFQ process. This is how so many business transactions start. OroCommerce shows that it understands business. It has a workflow built in for the RFQ process. This can be modified and configured further by the workflow engine.
Multiple user rights – Most B2B transactions involve multiple parties, so OroCommerce allows customers (customers) the ability to set their own authority and permissions. Customers can easily get all approvals and reviews prior to submitting their PO. This is a very common business practice, so it is surprising that other solutions do not include this feature.
Built in CRM – OroCommerce includes OroCRM. Combining these tools will give you powerful tools to better segment your market, analyze the sales funnel, and manage your sales pipeline.
Simple integrations This is an important feature of Oro. The community and company will have access to a large number of APIs that allow OroCommerce to work with other solutions.
These are only a few of many competitive features that caught our attention. All the features can be found on the OroCommerce site.
Oro Products: The Pros and Cons
OroCommerce has a lot to offer and a few that we didn’t like. We recommend OroCommerce products to companies involved in B2B sales and looking for a competitive advantage.
These are the pros and con’s.
The pros
OroCommerce was designed from the ground up to help B2B do business. It is not a B2C platform that has been repurposed to serve B2B. That is what we find refreshing. We also like:
- It comes in a box that contains almost everything you need. If you want to modify it, it is easy to do so.
- Access to high-quality training is easy
- If you have a problem, we can offer more than enough support
- The interface is easy to use
- Online reviews are very positive
The Cons
Many of the things that we didn’t like about Oro are common to all business solutions.
- Oro isn’t transparent about the prices on its website
- If you don’t have sufficient technology knowledge to implement the project, it may be necessary to hire developers.
- Users of the free plan receive limited support
Are you ready to give OroCommerce a try?
OroCommerce overall is simple to use, flexible and easy to navigate. It boasts many integrations and capabilities. It may be worthwhile to opt for the free plan until the platform is perfect. You can always upgrade later.
Oro is a great product for digitizing your back-office, improving your B2B customer’s buying experience, and giving you a 360-degree view on your customers. It gives you all the tools to track customers, understand their behavior and offer better customer service, marketing and sales.
