How to Power B2B Growth in Education and EdTech Ecommerce Without Compromise

The online education and EdTech market is experiencing explosive growth, with global revenue projected to surpass $203 billion in 2025. In the US, the sector will expand nearly 10% annually through 2029, reaching more than $144 billion by the end of the decade. These figures underscore the scale of opportunity, and the urgency, for education providers to modernize how they sell and deliver learning experiences.

Leading brands like Aviation Supplies & Academics are already investing in digital infrastructure to meet growing demand, and they're choosing BigCommerce to help power their growth.

For education providers, this growth brings both opportunity and complexity. It’s not enough to simply sell courses or textbooks online. Success depends on the ability to manage memberships and subscriptions, integrate seamlessly with learning and administrative systems, support hybrid B2B/B2C models, and deliver flexible, self-service experiences across global markets.

BigCommerce helps education organizations rise to these challenges, giving them the tools to move faster, sell smarter, and scale stronger in today’s increasingly digital-first ecosystem.

Understanding the Education B2B buyer

The education and EdTech ecommerce market serves a wide variety of buyers, each with distinct needs and growing expectations for streamlined, digital-first purchasing. From institutions and professional training providers to associations and publishers, these groups look for platforms that can handle complexity without creating friction. BigCommerce B2B Edition is built with these audiences in mind, helping to reduce inefficiencies and support modern buying experiences.

Institutions and campuses.

Universities, colleges, and K–12 districts often manage purchasing across multiple departments and locations. They require tools that support multi-company hierarchies, approval workflows, and buyer-specific pricing, all while integrating seamlessly with enterprise systems like ERPs and learning management systems (LMS/SIS). 

Because most LMS platforms are built for learning delivery rather than transactions, they lack vital ecommerce functionality such as negotiated pricing or purchase order workflows. BigCommerce fills this gap with multi-user company accounts, approval workflows, and customer groups, ensuring that institutions can streamline complex organizational purchasing while still tying back to their academic systems.

Professional training providers.

Organizations offering certifications, corporate training, or continuing education rely on recurring revenue from memberships and subscriptions. They need flexible billing options, self-service portals for learners and businesses, and the ability to quickly launch or adjust programs to meet market demand. 

BigCommerce supports these needs with advanced subscription integrations, flexible billing cadences (e.g., annual, pro-rated), and one-page checkout for mixed carts. With BigCommerce, training providers can scale recurring revenue streams while reducing reliance on IT for every program change.

Associations and membership-based organizations.

Groups like medical, financial, and trade associations depend on revenue from memberships, events, and certifications. Their buyers expect streamlined checkout experiences that can handle mixed carts, memberships, courses, textbooks, and event registrations, and demand robust compliance protections for sensitive data and intellectual property. 

AMS systems are effective for membership management but are limited in ecommerce capabilities. BigCommerce complements AMS platforms by providing configurable pricing, self-service portals, and enterprise-grade SOC 2 and PCI compliance to safeguard data while simplifying the purchasing experience.

Suppliers and distributors.

Suppliers of textbooks, lab kits, and educational tools often sell to both institutions and individuals, requiring support for hybrid B2B/B2C models. They need real-time inventory visibility, variant-rich catalog management, and advanced analytics to track purchasing trends across regions, subsidiaries, and customer groups. 

BigCommerce addresses these needs with real-time inventory sync, multi-storefront for regional expansion, and robust analytics connectors. This enables suppliers to manage complex, variant-rich catalogs while ensuring accuracy and visibility across every sales channel.

Common challenges education businesses face

Despite strong growth in the education sector, many organizations find themselves limited by outdated technology and operational complexity. These challenges slow innovation, increase costs, and create friction for both administrators and learners.

Legacy platforms and checkout friction.

Many education providers still run on outdated, custom, or fragmented platforms such as Netsuite-tied custom builds, WooCommerce, or Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Legacy AMS/LMS platforms, while effective for membership or course management, lack true ecommerce functionality and often deliver only basic cart and checkout features. These systems turn even the simplest updates into developer-led projects, which slows innovation and leaves institutions unable to respond quickly to changing demands. 

Checkout flows are typically slow and multi-step, creating frustration for buyers and limiting support for mixed carts that might include memberships, courses, events, and textbooks. Without modern self-service options, institutions and individuals alike face unnecessary friction throughout the purchasing process.

Integration and operational complexity.

Education and EdTech organizations also struggle with a patchwork of disconnected systems, from ERPs and CRMs to payment gateways and learning or membership tools such as LMS, SIS, or AMS platforms. 

Because these systems were not designed for ecommerce, integrations are fragile, manual data entry is common, and workflows like course enrollment or membership renewals often require workarounds. Without real-time visibility into inventory, enrollments, or subscription data, providers face major barriers to scaling their businesses, especially as they expand globally or attempt to manage multiple campuses, subsidiaries, or storefronts.

Agility, compliance, and cost pressure.

The education sector faces constant pressure to move faster while staying compliant and cost-conscious. Providers must quickly launch new programs, adapt to hybrid B2B/B2C business models, and meet strict regulatory requirements around SOC 2, PCI, and intellectual property protection for sensitive data. 

Many platforms also struggle with education-specific requirements such as supporting unique payment flows (ACH, PO, invoicing, terms) for institutions or handling segmented pricing across professional associations, multi-campus deals, and member vs. non-member groups. At the same time, legacy platforms often impose punitive transaction fees, bandwidth penalties, or rigid licensing structures that drive up costs. 

These obstacles make it difficult for education organizations to scale programs efficiently, expand into new regions, or roll out innovative revenue streams without running into barriers.

How BigCommerce tackles these obstacles

BigCommerce is designed to help education providers overcome the complexity of selling memberships, courses, events, and educational materials online. With an open architecture, built-in B2B functionality, and robust integration capabilities, the platform gives institutions, associations, and training providers the flexibility they need to grow without compromise.

Modern commerce without compromise.

BigCommerce streamlines purchasing with a one-page, high-converting checkout that supports mixed carts for memberships, courses, events, and textbooks. Unlike AMS or LMS platforms that offer only basic transactions, BigCommerce adds enterprise-grade capabilities such as negotiated pricing, purchase order workflows, and buyer-specific catalogs. This means professional training providers can manage recurring subscription sales, while associations can bundle event registrations with membership renewals, all in a single transaction. 

Buyers also benefit from self-service portals for account and subscription management, while sales reps can use mobile tools to process orders on campus or at trade shows without extra workarounds.

Seamless integration, real-time data, global scale.

BigCommerce connects directly with ERPs, CRMs, AMS, and LMS systems, ensuring data flows reliably across memberships, courses, and orders. This integration strength reduces manual data entry and makes it easier for education providers to sync enrollments, manage certification workflows, and keep inventory accurate for textbooks, lab kits, or digital content. 

Multi-storefront and multi-currency features give global providers the ability to serve multiple regions or campuses from a single backend, while analytics integrations like BigQuery and Tableau deliver real-time insights into buyer behavior, program performance, and financial reporting.

Agility, security, and cost control.

BigCommerce enables organizations to scale without penalty, thanks to an order-based pricing model that eliminates punitive transaction fees. For providers under pressure to launch quickly, MVP support and phased rollouts accelerate time to value while reducing risk. 

Compliance and security come built-in, with SOC 2 and PCI certification, IP protection for digital courseware and certifications, and flexible payment options (ACH, POs, invoicing, terms) tailored to institutional buyers. Compared with WooCommerce’s scalability issues, Magento’s high costs, or Shopify’s checkout limitations, BigCommerce gives education and EdTech providers the agility, security, and cost control they need to compete in a digital-first world.

Education brands that have seen success with BigCommerce

Aviation Supplies and Academics.

Aviation Supplies & Academics (ASA), founded in 1940, has grown into a global provider of aviation training materials and pilot supplies for both individual aviators and major distributors. As the business expanded, ASA’s legacy ecommerce platform couldn’t keep up, relying on paper-based workflows and limited integrations that slowed operations and created inefficiencies.

After evaluating Shopify and Magento, ASA chose BigCommerce for its native B2B functionality, seamless integration with Acumatica ERP, and ability to support both physical and digital product sales. The move enabled ASA to launch a self-service distributor portal, streamline order management, and gain real-time visibility across its catalog. Since switching, ASA has seen online orders climb 41%, average order values increase 37.5%, and shopping engagement improve by 85%.

“Everything's just easier now. When I really think about all of it, it's saved a lot of time. It's worth the investment. Having the B2B platform is crucial. BigCommerce makes it so easy for us to handle our biggest customers' sales,” said Brian Snider, Director of Marketing at ASA.

The final word

The education industry is undergoing a rapid digital transformation, with institutions, associations, and training providers under pressure to modernize, scale, and deliver seamless online experiences. Success depends on more than just selling courses or textbooks. It requires platforms that can handle complex memberships, integrate with existing systems, and adapt to the unique needs of hybrid B2B and B2C models.

As a leader in B2B ecommerce solutions for the educational and EdTech industry, BigCommerce provides the tools to move faster, sell smarter, and scale stronger in today’s digital-first ecosystem.

Ready to transform your ecommerce strategy? Explore BigCommerce B2B Edition and see what’s possible — book a demo today.