B2B Portal personalisation for brands: how to create a stronger wholesale experience

When we spoke with brand founders at our B2B Next event, we presented them with a simple but increasingly important question:

What matters more today: brand story or price?

The answer was remarkably consistent. Across nearly every conversation, brands across various industries from Fashion to Home & Living to Beverages pointed to brand story as the stronger driver of long-term success. One fast-growing brand even described it as “100%” the deciding factor in today’s wholesale landscape.

Price still matters. Retailers need products that fit their budgets, margins, and customers. But when competing products are increasingly easy to compare, price alone rarely gives a brand a lasting advantage: instead, a distinctive brand story can. In this article, we dive into three easy ways that brands can distinguish themselves in a crowded market without relying on discounting or lower prices.

Three ways brands can personalize and brand their wholesale experience

If a brand is premium, playful, minimalist, technical, or bold, its digital wholesale environment should feel recognizably connected to that identity. Brands can personalise their wholesale shopping experience at different levels, from simple visual branding to custom pages and external tools via their own B2B website.

1. Standard branding

Start by making the purchasing portal feel recognisably yours. Add your logo, header images, lifestyle photography, mood shots and an About us page that introduces your brand story to retailers and highlights what makes your brand unique.

From a strategic standpoint, showing products without prices allows prospective retailers to discover your brand while keeping commercial information private. Showing prices can create a more open experience and make it easier for new retailers to explore the offer.

2. Custom HTML pages

Custom HTML is a way to visually communicate your brand story by using the front-facing design of your website to communicate your values (e.g. a green color palette can show eco-friendly values while sans-serif fonts typically indicate modernity). With our B2B Portal, brands can use custom HTML on website pages such as About us, privacy policy, showroom information and campaign pages.

Custom HTML makes it possible to add:

• Images and videos

• Embedded content and iframes

• Custom styling

• Interactive tools

For example, a brand could enhance their purchasing experience by creating a showroom page with an event agenda, collection preview and embedded booking tool. Retailers could view available time slots and schedule an appointment directly from the B2B Portal. This is another way that brands add value for their retailer customers without cutting into their margins.

3. Google Tag Manager

For more advanced personalisation, brands can use Google Tag Manager to add extra features to their wholesale purchasing environment. For example, you can add the following functionalities that help you as a brand provide a better shopping experience than your competitors:

• Analytics and tracking

• Chat and customer support

• Marketing automation

• Popups and personalised messages

Modeus, for example, uses Google Tag Manager to display popups inside their B2B Portal. These could be used to announce a new collection, promote a showroom appointment, communicate an order deadline or highlight important delivery information. Used selectively, popups help brands share relevant information while retailers are already browsing or ordering. This is another way to keep your customers engaged with your brand.

Story is the advantage you can't be undercut on

The founders at B2B Next kept returning to the same point: when products are easy to compare side by side, price is the one thing a competitor can always match. A wholesale experience that genuinely reflects your brand is not.

The three approaches here build on one another. Standard branding makes the portal recognisably yours with minimal effort. Custom HTML turns pages like your About us or showroom into a real expression of what your brand stands for. And Google Tag Manager adds a functional layer of analytics, support, and well-timed messaging that makes the experience more useful for the retailers ordering from you.

None of it relies on discounting. Each one gives retailers a reason to choose your brand that has nothing to do with being the cheapest option on the shelf. And unlike a lower price, that reason is something the brand next to you can't simply copy.