PFSweb Inc., a provider of technology and services ranging from online digital strategy consulting, marketing and e-commerce site development, booked about $20 million in new business in the first quarter. And a good part of that was in new clients of its business-to-business e-commerce technology and services.

“We have seen an uptick particularly in B2B projects,” CEO Michael Willoughby said on a conference call with stock analysts Wednesday, according to a transcript provided by Seeking Alpha. He said the first quarter’s bookings included “several new B2B-driven engagements, which we believe, although continuing to strengthen, is still largely an untapped market for our company.”

Many of PFSweb’s new B2B clients, he added, are manufacturers that are using e-commerce websites for the first time to replace manual “cost-intensive ways of processing orders” with e-commerce transactions. “The pattern that we continue to see is manufacturers that are supporting small to medium-sized customers … by deploying an e-commerce site that can effectively support that same customer based much more efficiently and inexpensively, and actually in the end provide a much better customer experience.”

He added that B2B projects, because of the customization they often require, tend to be much larger than typical business-to-consumer e-commerce site development projects. B2B sites, for example, typically provide custom pricing for thousands of customers and complex products that can be comprised of large numbers of components. A B2B site must be configured in a way to accurately display pricing for each customer account and provide product configurators and site search tools designed to let buyers choose among countless product configurations.

“One of the interesting things about B2B platform development,” he said, “is those projects tend to be larger and take longer primarily because you are implementing a higher level of custom functionality for the manufacturer compared to what you would typically see in a B2C website.”

As a result, Willoughby said, some B2B projects amount to “$2.5 million or $3 million or higher. It really does reflect the amount of custom development that’s being done to automate what in some cases are, you know, very custom business processes that the manufacturer may be supporting.”

PFSweb, which was founded in the 1990s as a provider of logistics, fulfillment and customer care services, has expanded in recent years into e-commerce website development and related services. It defines itself as a “platform-agnostic global commerce service provider” that can work with any e-commerce technology. Among its two main practice areas are developing and service e-commerce sites built on IBM Corp.’s WebSphere Commerce technology platform and SAP SE’s SAP Hybris platform.

PFSweb didn’t name any of its new B2B clients. But Willoughby said new business booked in the first quarter included:

• a $600,000 contract with a nonprofit healthcare supply company for a project that included implementation of the Salesforce.com Commerce Cloud e-commerce platform; and
• a $500,000 contract with an electrical and industrial communications equipment manufacturer to develop an e-commerce site on the SAP Hybris platform.

Clients listed on PFSweb’s website include Advance Auto Parts, a retail chain that sells to businesses and consumers; and a unit of printing equipment manufacturer Ricoh USA Inc.

For the first quarter ended March 31, PFSweb reported:

• Revenue of $78.8 million, up 4.9% from $75.1 million a year earlier;
• Gross profit of $18.274 million, up 3.0% from $17.748 million;
• A net loss of $4.856 million, compared with a year-earlier net loss of $752,000. Contributing to the company’s widened net loss was a 22.6% increase in costs related to the technology services it provides to clients.

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