Different extensions for b2b and b2c checkout

[jogyth]

A little new to Magento - and I'm pondering how to solve my checkout process. 80% of my customers are Gouverment and they need to be invoiced. I don't mind forcing these customers to log in before they buy. The rest of my customers (and some growth is likely here) needs a classic B2C checkout with an extension provided by "some payment solution company". 

So that's all good - but where and when do the user make the choice of what type of customer they are? 

I don't really need an extension to handle the B2B Order process - but do I need an extension for the selection process? Some extension that hit when you press "Proceed to checkout"?

I'm sure lots of you have a similar setup. What's the best way to rig for this?

Thanks for helping out!

[Robert Rand · Accepted solution]

With Magento, you can create different Customer Groups. You can, for instance, create a group for your Government buyers, and associate them to this group. You can learn more about this at: https://docs.magento.com/m2/ce/user_guide/customers/customer-groups.html

You can enable a basic payment method like Check/Money Order, or Purchase Order (which you can rename to say Invoicing if you'd like). You can read about this at https://docs.magento.com/m2/ce/user_guide/payment/payment-methods.html

You can then use a Magento Extension to restrict which users get access to a particular payment option. You can see examples in the Magento Marketplace at: https://marketplace.magento.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=payment%20restriction&ext_platform=Magento%2...

Then, you'd just have to add your Government customers to the Government customer group, so that they'd get access to the restricted payment method.

You could add a banner, menu link, or other design/navigation to lead shoppers to a page to Request Government Account, where you could set up a contact form for them to fill out with the information that you need in order to confirm that they are indeed government buyers, and need you to either create a new account for them (associated to the Government customer group), or if they already created an account, move them over to the Government group. There is an extension in the Magento Marketplace that will help with this process, although I've never used it before: https://marketplace.magento.com/addify-userroleregistration.html?edition[]=open%20source%20(ce)

Best of luck!

[jogyth]

Thanks a bunch for such a well structured and crystal clear answer. Rigging this will be a breeze :-D

[Robert Rand]

My pleasure!