E-commerce expert Bharat Sharma is the founder and CEO of Apex B2B, an AI-driven SaaS B2B e-commerce platform for mid-market merchants, such as wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers.
With over 20 years of experience in enterprise technology and commerce, Sharma founded Monsoon Consulting before evolving its proven delivery frameworks into Apex B2B.
Sharma summarises the aim of the platform as providing an affordable, easy to adopt, and powerful solution to manage the full complexity of B2B commerce while empowering businesses to scale.
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He tells EPI that B2B online commerce is “broken” due to poor data, inefficient processes, and an inability to meet B2C-like convenience standards. Noticing these patterns across multiple projects, he was inspired to create the purpose-built platform that addresses these pain points at scale.
Electronic Payments International Q&A with Bharat Sharma, founder and CEO of Apex B2B
EPI: You have the ambition for Apex to become the default platform for B2B mid-market merchants. What is the Apex B2B value proposition? Are you competing on price, speed to market, service?
Bharat Sharma, founder and CEO of Apex B2B:
Mid-market B2B merchants sit at the centre of a persistent infrastructure gap. Enterprise platforms are powerful but complex, costly, and slow to deploy. Entry-level tools are accessible but structurally misaligned with wholesale trade. Businesses operating between €10m and €300m in revenue are often too sophisticated for one and too resource-conscious for the other.
Apex B2B was built specifically for that middle ground.
Our value proposition is anchored in five principles: rapid time-to-value, scalable cloud architecture, digital-first trade experience, AI-driven operational intelligence, and long-term partnership.
We integrate directly with ERP systems, automate contract pricing and credit workflows, and enable structured self-service aligned with modern B2B buying behaviour. The outcome is measurable operational improvement: reduced cost-to-serve, improved margin visibility, and scalable growth without enterprise-level burden.
We are not competing primarily on price. We compete on strategic impact: speed-to-value, scalable infrastructure, and measurable operational improvement. For mid-market B2B merchants, the winning platform is not the cheapest or the most feature-heavy. It is the one that modernises infrastructure without disruption and enables sustainable growth in an increasingly digital and AI-driven trade environment.
EPI: Are you more likely to be competing with niche players or are you also competing with the likes of Shopify, SAP?
Sharma:
We see competition across three distinct layers of the market: First, B2C-first platforms such as Shopify. Their limitation is structural because they are designed for storefront conversion, not for the operational realities of B2B trade, such as contract pricing, credit terms, multi-user account hierarchies, approval workflows, and negotiated agreements. While they offer accessibility, they often lack the depth, flexibility, and scalability required by growing mid-market wholesalers.
Second are enterprise platforms such as SAP. These systems are undeniably powerful, but they are typically complex, resource-intensive, and cost-prohibitive for mid-market merchants. Lengthy implementation cycles, heavy customisation, and high total cost of ownership make them disproportionate to the needs of businesses in the €10m to €300m range. For many, the investment required simply does not align with operational realities.
Third, niche B2B vendors. Some address specific functionality gaps, but many lack modern cloud-native architecture, embedded AI capability, or true integration-first design. In some cases, they function primarily as a front-end ordering layer sitting on top of an ERP system rather than transforming the full trade workflow. Others restrict merchants within proprietary ecosystems that limit long-term flexibility.
Our differentiation lies in being purpose-built for the mid-market. We are integration-first by design, cloud-native, and embed automation and payments directly into the trade lifecycle. This enables mid-sized wholesalers to modernise quickly, adopt eCommerce without disruption, and scale confidently as their business grows in size and complexity.
EPI: What sort of KPIs should merchants be considering when it comes to determining which platform to adopt?
Sharma:
B2B success goes far beyond online order volume. For wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers, commerce performance impacts sales, operations, finance, and customer experience simultaneously. This means that the right platform should reduce friction across the entire trade lifecycle, increase automation, improve cash-flow visibility, and enhance sales productivity, not simply increase online order volume. In B2B commerce, success is measured by how efficiently and intelligently trade flows through the business.
When selecting a platform, merchants should evaluate measurable impact across five core dimensions.
Platform Adoption: If orders continue to arrive via email and spreadsheets, automation and efficiency gains never materialise. With a powerful platform, businesses are enabled to operate smoothly and have a complete view of transactions and engagement. The focus should be on:
- Percentage of total orders placed digitally
- Revenue processed through eCommerce vs offline channels
- Self-service order ratio and active account engagement
Sales Productivity: A strong platform should increase revenue capacity per rep by reducing administrative workload and shifting focus toward account growth.
- Revenue per account
- Repeat order frequency
- Upsell and cross-sell rates
- Revenue and order volume per sales agent
Operational Efficiency
- Order automation rate
- Manual intervention reduction
- Order processing time
- Cost-to-serve per customer
Finance & Payments
- Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)
- Invoice-to-payment cycle time
- Payment reconciliation accuracy
Customer Experience
- Self-service utilisation
- Retention rates
- Reduction in support queries
EPI: Why should B2B commerce players adopt a platform that is specifically designed for them? Why is it that existing platforms, that are normally built for B2C, do not work for B2B?
Sharma:
B2B commerce is structurally different from B2C, and the technology supporting it must reflect that reality.
In B2C, the focus is on storefront optimisation, fast checkout, and individual transactions. In B2B, transactions are high-volume, low-margin, and governed by negotiated contracts, credit terms, and long-term trading relationships.
A single B2B account may include multiple buyers, approval hierarchies, and account-level credit limits. Pricing is rarely static, and orders may involve partial shipments, backorders, invoice settlements, and complex reconciliation processes. These are not edge cases; they are everyday operational realities for wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers.
Platforms originally built for B2C are optimised for consumer simplicity. They struggle to handle contract pricing logic, multi-user account structures, ERP-dependent workflows, and credit-based payment models without significant customisation. Over time, this creates technical debt, operational friction, and rising costs.
Purpose-built B2B platforms are designed around workflow automation, integration-first architecture, and account-level intelligence. They connect ordering, pricing, credit, and payments into a structured trade lifecycle rather than treating commerce as a digital storefront.
For B2B merchants, the choice is not about adding an online channel. It is about modernising the infrastructure that powers how trade actually flows through the business.
EPI: Why do mid-market merchants (wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers with turnovers between €10m and €300m) need a platform specially for them? What are the challenges they face and the benefits of a tailored solution?
Sharma:
Mid-market wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers operate in a uniquely challenging position. They are large enough to face real operational complexity, such as contract pricing, multi-location inventory, credit management, ERP dependency, and growing digital expectations, but not large enough to absorb the cost and disruption of enterprise-scale transformation programmes.
At the same time, they are too sophisticated for entry-level platforms that lack depth in pricing logic, account structures, workflow automation, and integration.
This creates a structural gap.
Many mid-market merchants still rely heavily on manual processes: email orders, spreadsheet uploads, phone-based ordering, and fragmented payment workflows. Sales teams re-enter data into ERP systems. Finance teams manually reconcile invoices. Customer service teams handle routine queries that could be automated through structured self-service.
The result is rising cost-to-serve, limited visibility, and constrained scalability.
A platform built specifically for this segment addresses those challenges directly. It must integrate seamlessly with existing ERP systems, automate contract pricing and credit workflows, enable digital self-service, and embed payments into the trade lifecycle.
The benefit is not simply digitisation. It is measurable improvement: faster time-to-value, reduced operational friction, stronger cash-flow control, and the ability to scale without proportional increases in headcount.
For the mid-market, modern B2B infrastructure is no longer optional. It is foundational to sustainable growth.
EPI: Can you share any highlights of the past year or so, and what targets you have set for the short to medium term?
Sharma:
Over the past year, we executed a structured soft launch into the mid-market segment, validating the platform in live wholesale environments. Early adoption reinforced two priorities: rapid time-to-value and integrated payment capability.
We strengthened ERP integrations, expanded AI-driven automation across pricing and ordering workflows, and progressed Apex Pay as a Phase 2 embedded payments layer.
Looking ahead, our short- to medium-term focus is clear: scale responsibly within the mid-market, expand Apex Pay as a purpose-built B2B payments layer, and continue embedding AI across the full trade lifecycle. Our ambition is not rapid expansion at any cost, but sustainable growth built on measurable operational impact.
It is also important to note that Apex B2B is built on more than a decade of hands-on B2B commerce delivery experience. Through our founding agency business, Monsoon Consulting, the team has supported award-winning eCommerce implementations, including Food & Drink eCommerce Website of the Year in the UK in 2024 and recognition at the Hive UK eCommerce Awards in 2025. That delivery heritage has directly informed the architecture and practical design of Apex B2B.
EPI: B2B payments are structurally more complex than B2C transactions. What challenges do wholesalers face, and how does Apex Pay support your vision for embedded payments within modern B2B commerce?
Sharma:
B2B payments are fundamentally different from B2C transactions because wholesale operates on very different economics. It is typically a high-volume, low-margin environment where small inefficiencies in payment processing, reconciliation, or credit management can materially impact profitability.
Wholesale trade runs on negotiated contract pricing, structured credit terms, partial shipments, invoice settlements, and account-level payment arrangements. A single customer may have multiple authorised buyers, layered approval workflows, and varying payment conditions. Reconciliation is often manual and disconnected from the ordering process, creating friction and hidden costs.
Most payment gateways are built for consumer simplicity, such as instant card capture and immediate settlement. That model does not reflect the realities of B2B trade.
In wholesale, payments are not just transactions; they are part of a broader credit, working capital, and margin management system.
As we developed Apex B2B, it became clear that treating payments as a bolt-on integration would not address these structural inefficiencies. That insight led to the development of Apex Pay, as mentioned, our embedded payments layer designed specifically for contract-driven, credit-based trade environments.
Apex Pay forms part of our Phase 2 roadmap and will be introduced through a structured rollout. It is being built to integrate directly with ERP systems, account hierarchies, credit controls, and, where appropriate, direct banking infrastructure to reduce friction and improve cost efficiency. The objective is simple: protect and improve underlying margins by making the flow of cash as intelligent and automated as the flow of orders.
Our long-term vision is that embedded payments will become foundational to B2B infrastructure. In a low-margin sector, intelligent integration between commerce, credit, and cash flow is not optional, but rather a competitive advantage.
EPI: Which markets are a particular priority for the next 1-2 years?
Sharma:
Our starting focus is Ireland, the UK, and the US, markets with strong wholesale ecosystems and a high concentration of mid-market merchants operating between €10m and €300m in revenue.
Ireland and the UK are natural foundations for us. Both markets combine mature distribution networks, increasing digital expectations, and a clear infrastructure gap in the mid-market. Many businesses still rely heavily on manual processes layered over legacy ERP systems, creating strong demand for integration-first, cloud-native platforms.
The US represents a significant growth opportunity. The structural gap between entry-level eCommerce tools and enterprise platforms is even more pronounced there, particularly in distribution-led sectors where embedded payments and automation are becoming strategic priorities.
In stage two, we plan to extend into Canada and select EU markets that share similar wholesale dynamics and regulatory environments.
From a sector perspective, we are focused on verticals where trade complexity is high and structured workflows matter. These include Food & Beverage, Industrial Supplies, Building Materials, Electronics and Computer Hardware, Pharmacy and Life Sciences, Beauty, and Fashion and Jewellery. These sectors typically operate with contract pricing, credit-based trade, repeat ordering, and multi-tier distribution models. These are all areas where our pre-built workflows and integration-first design deliver immediate value.
Our expansion strategy is deliberate. We prioritise markets and sectors where wholesale trade is economically significant, and the mid-market remains underserved by existing commerce and payments solutions.
EPI: Earlier in your career, you moved from the UK to Ireland, why did you choose Ireland as your home? In terms of business, did you feel it was a better landscape than the UK?
Sharma:
My move from the UK to Ireland was both a personal and strategic decision.
Ireland offers a uniquely strong technology ecosystem, international connectivity, and a pro-innovation regulatory environment. It has become a hub for global technology companies while maintaining close commercial ties with both the UK and the European Union. From a business perspective, that positioning is highly attractive.
For a cloud-native B2B commerce and payments platform like Apex B2B, operating from Ireland provides access to EU markets while retaining strong links to the UK wholesale sector. It also offers a supportive startup and scaling environment, particularly in fintech and enterprise software.
That said, I do not view it as Ireland versus the UK. Both markets are strategically important to us. The UK has one of the most mature wholesale and distribution sectors in Europe, while Ireland provides a strong base for international expansion.
Ultimately, the decision was about building Apex B2B in an ecosystem that supports long-term innovation and global ambition.
EPI: Anything keep you awake at night?
Sharma:
What keeps me awake is not competition. It is complacency.
The mid-market wholesale sector is undergoing structural change. Buyer expectations are evolving rapidly, AI adoption is accelerating, and embedded payments are becoming integral to trade infrastructure. The risk for many businesses is not disruption from global giants but underestimating how quickly expectations are shifting.
Technology decisions made today will define operational efficiency, cash-flow visibility, and competitiveness for the next decade. If mid-market merchants continue layering digital tools on top of legacy systems without addressing core workflow complexity, they risk falling behind more agile competitors.
From our perspective, the responsibility is to build infrastructure that is robust enough for scale but simple enough for rapid adoption. The pace of innovation in AI and payments is increasing, and we must ensure that Apex B2B evolves just as quickly while remaining grounded in real operational value.
In short, what keeps me awake is ensuring that we move fast without losing focus, and that we help our customers modernise before the gap becomes irreversible.
Bharat Sharma, founder and CEO, Apex B2B
