Does a B2B Webshop Make Sense if You Build to Order?

Every machine builder, metalworker and technical wholesaler runs into the same question sooner or later. A B2B platform sounds obvious for a distributor with a fixed catalog. But what do you do with one when your products get drawn and calculated per order?

The doubt is fair. A product that only exists after a drawing and a calculation doesn't fit in a shopping cart with a fixed price next to it. What usually follows, “so online isn't for us”, arrives too fast. Three assumptions sit behind that conclusion: that a webshop is the same as ordering online, that the entire assortment is custom, and that online has nothing to offer once checkout drops away.

Below, what can go digital with configuration and engineering on order, and where the limit sits.

1. Almost no custom manufacturer sells only custom work

Alongside the configured products, most companies run a second stream: spare parts, wear parts, fasteners, filters, lubricants, maintenance kits, accessories, standard components that recur in every machine. Those items get ordered repeatedly, often in small quantities, usually by a technician or warehouse worker who knows exactly what is needed.

They're also the orders with the worst ratio between order value and administrative load. A phone call, an email, a confirmation, a re-entry into the ERP, a packing slip. For an order the customer could have placed themselves in forty seconds.

That second stream is rarely the least profitable one. Across thirty industries, McKinsey found that aftermarket activities at industrial manufacturers average a 25 percent EBIT margin, against 10 percent on new equipment sales. On parts, gross margins run above 30 percent. That analysis dates from 2017 and covers manufacturers worldwide, but the ratio is familiar to most machine builders. The margin sits in the parts ordered after installation.

A first test: what share of your order lines last year went to items you had already delivered to that same customer before? At most manufacturers that share runs considerably higher than the feeling in a sales conversation suggests.

2. What gets called custom is usually configuration within limits

There's a difference between engineer-to-order and configure-to-order. In the first, a draftsman starts from a blank sheet. In the second, the customer chooses within fixed parameters: length, diameter, material, coating, connection, voltage, left-hand or right-hand version. Such a decision tree is a variant structure with rules built into it.

Once those parameters sit in a PIM as attributes, customers can filter on them. Instead of a list with twelve thousand item numbers, three filters leave the eight versions that are possible in that situation. For what doesn't exist as a finished article, the same filter shows which combination can be made.

That technical products can be captured in attributes isn't a software vendor's opinion, by the way. Entire sectors have already agreed on it among themselves. ETIM, the classification model for technical products, is described by Koninklijke Hibin, the Dutch federation of building materials distributors, as “a sector agreement between manufacturers and the rest of the supply chain about which technical characteristics are delivered digitally, in a structured way, for which products” (translated from Dutch). The model runs in nineteen countries. In the Netherlands it is managed by Stichting Ketenstandaard Bouw en Techniek, backed by Bouwend Nederland, FME and Fedet among others. Since May 21, 2025, ETIM 10 has been the base version there.

Techlink, the Belgian federation of installation companies, puts it more practically: classifying technical product specifications is necessary if you want to use that data at every step of your business process. Manufacturers supplying installers or technical wholesalers are often already required to do this by their own customers. Anyone who has done that work is closer to a filterable online catalog than expected. The heavy part, structuring the product data, is already behind them.

On the demand side, the available research points the same way. Sana Commerce, a competitor of ours in the B2B e-commerce market, surveyed 750 professional buyers across six countries for its B2B Buyer Report 2025. From that: 36 percent say they struggle to find products online, and 64 percent expect to see the price agreed with them displayed online. These are figures from a party with a commercial interest in the outcome, so read them with that caveat.

This is exactly why a PIM weighs more heavily than the webshop itself at companies like these. The product data determines whether someone finds what they're looking for. Without structured attributes, every catalog, online or on paper, stays a search that ends at the sales support desk.

3. A webshop doesn't have to end with an order button

A quote flow is a webshop too. The customer assembles a configuration, sees the filled-in specifications, and sends a request. No price appears and nothing gets charged. Yet something material changes: the request arrives complete.

Compare that with the usual sequence. A phone call with half the specifications, two emails to track down the rest, a quote that goes out three days later. Bintz Technics and Fluxer, both in industry and machine building, use their platform this way: quote requests online, with the calculation still done by people.

In that same Sana research, 77 percent of buyers call a good online product display decisive for complex orders. For a custom product, that mostly means drawings, specifications and application information on the page, even without a price next to them.

Fonda has a separate package for this. Essentials puts products and documentation online with a quote request, without online ordering. For companies that calculate a price per order, that's often the logical first step.

4. A completely standard process surrounds a custom product

The machine is unique. The order confirmation isn't. The delivery date, the packing slip, the invoice, the open quote, the backorder, the service report: that process runs identically whether the product was drawn to order or shipped from stock.

Count what the incoming calls are actually about. “Has my order shipped?” “Can you send that invoice again?” “What was the delivery date again?” None of those questions is about custom work. They're about information the company already has and the customer can't see.

5. With custom work, the documentation is a large part of the product

Technical drawings, CAD files, declarations of conformity, certificates, material certificates, maintenance instructions, revision history. Customers request these documents at purchase, at inspection, during a breakdown, and sometimes four years later when the part needs replacing.

A DAM that links these files to the article and to that customer's order history answers such questions without anyone stepping in. At Fonda that component sits in the free Basic package. A company can therefore set up its document management before there's any talk of a webshop.

6. The second time around, a custom part is a standard article

After the first delivery the product exists: there's a drawing, an item number, a price history, a production time. When that same customer needs it again, it's a repeat of something already designed. In a portal with order history, that reorder runs from the customer's own overview, with the matching drawing alongside it.

Steenbakkerij Vande Moortel works with facing bricks and clay pavers chosen per project. The customer portal doesn't replace the project. It makes sure orders and follow-up with the same customers run without starting from zero every time.

7. An error in a custom order costs more than an error in a standard order

A wrongly ordered standard item goes back into stock. A wrongly produced custom part goes to scrap, or the company pays for a second production run. The margin on that order is gone by then.

According to APQC benchmarks, manual order entry carries an error rate of 1 to 3 percent, and a single manual order takes roughly twelve minutes to process. With standard articles the damage stays limited. With custom work, it's a production order.

Specifications passed along by phone and typed over by hand are one of the steady sources of that kind of error. An online form with validation rules blocks impossible combinations before they reach production. It also records exactly what the customer asked for. That helps when a dispute arises later over what was ordered.

8. Your customer compares you online, even without ever ordering online from you

Buyers and technicians now search first and call afterward. Research by 6sense among 934 buyers put that moment at roughly 70 percent of the buying journey. Only then do buyers first reach out directly to a supplier. Anyone without findable product data up to that point drops out before the conversation starts.

That now applies to AI assistants as well. In Gartner's survey of 646 B2B buyers from August and September 2025, 45 percent used AI during a recent purchase. Without structured product information on a public page, a supplier doesn't appear in that answer.

For a custom manufacturer, the webshop then works mainly as the place where you show what you can build.

When online ordering really doesn't pay off

With genuine project work, a handful of large orders a year, each with its own engineering process and a price that comes out of negotiation, online ordering makes little sense. That's not a borderline case and it's more honest to say so.

Even then, two things still stand. The product data and documentation need to sit somewhere structured. And customers still need visibility on their orders, invoices and drawings. What drops away is the order button.

Test it against your own numbers

Before you start looking at platforms, this is the most useful exercise. Five questions, answerable with figures from your own ERP and your own inbox:

• What share of last year's order lines went to items already delivered to that same customer before?
• How many of the incoming calls and emails are about delivery status, invoices or documents rather than the products themselves?
• How much time passes between a request arriving and a quote going out, and where does that time go?
• How often does the sales support team have to call back because the request came in incomplete?
• What happens when a customer asks in three years for the drawing of a part delivered today?

If you don't know the answer to three or more of these, you don't yet know which part of your work already runs as standard. That's usually sorted out in a single conversation, with or without Fonda in the room.

Frequently asked questions

Does a B2B webshop make sense if our products are made to order?

Yes, provided the webshop does more than take payment. For custom products, a quote request with a completed configuration works, while spare parts, accessories and standard components can be ordered directly. On top of that, order tracking, invoices and technical documentation run identically for every product.

Can a PIM handle products that differ per customer?

A PIM manages products through attributes such as dimension, material, standard and connection. As long as custom work amounts to configuration within fixed limits, customers can filter on those attributes and see which versions exist or can be made, instead of an unfiltered item list. In the technical sector that structure is often already laid down in the ETIM classification, a sector agreement between manufacturers and the rest of the supply chain used in nineteen countries.

What's the difference between engineer-to-order and configure-to-order?

With engineer-to-order, every order starts with a new design. With configure-to-order, the customer chooses within predetermined parameters and rules. Most of what gets called custom in practice falls into the second category and can therefore be shown online.

Can we go online without customers being able to order right away?

You can. Fonda's Essentials package puts products, specifications and documentation online with a quote request, without an ordering function. Pricing stays with the sales support team.

What does a webshop deliver for a company that works only on quotation?

Requests arrive complete, with the right specifications, so the quote goes out faster. On top of that, customers can consult their own quotes, orders, invoices and technical documents. That saves follow-up questions to the sales support team.

How does a customer reorder a product that was made to order?

After the first delivery the article exists with its own number, drawing and price history. Through the order history in the customer portal, a new order runs without the specifications having to be passed along again.

Figures and sources

The figures in this article come from international research, not Belgian sector data. They indicate an order of magnitude, not a benchmark for your own company. Where you have your own numbers, those carry more weight.

• ETIM as a sector agreement between manufacturers and the supply chain: Koninklijke Hibin, federation of Dutch building materials distributors, and 2BA / Stichting Ketenstandaard Bouw en Techniek for governance and the nineteen participating countries.
• The need to classify technical product specifications: Techlink, Belgian federation of installation companies.
• Aftermarket and parts margins: McKinsey, Industrial aftermarket services (2017, analysis across 30 industries).
• Findability, customer-specific pricing and product display: Sana Commerce, B2B Buyer Report 2025 (750 buyers across six countries, September 2024, fieldwork by SAPIO Research). Research by a competitor: Sana Commerce sells B2B e-commerce software itself and has an interest in buyers wanting to order online.
• Processing time and error rate for manual order entry: APQC benchmarks, cited in Conexiom. Research by a vendor: Conexiom sells order automation.
• Point of first contact in the buying journey: 6sense (934 buyers, 2023).
• AI use during a recent purchase: Gartner Sales Survey (646 B2B buyers, August and September 2025).