GS interviews Shiv Agarwal, CEO at VARStreet

As B2B commerce grows more complex, value-added resellers are under pressure to deliver buying and payment experiences that feel as seamless as consumer checkout—without sacrificing the controls enterprises require.

In this Q&A, Shiv Agarwal, CEO of VARStreet, a provider of business management software designed specifically for VARs, discusses how buyer expectations around invoicing, approvals and payment flexibility are reshaping reseller ecommerce. He also examines where legacy workflows continue to break down and why payments are becoming central to procurement success.

Agarwal additionally explores what ISOs and processors often misunderstand about the VAR ecosystem, the growing importance of orchestration and reconciliation, and how embedded payments and financing are evolving from back-end utilities into strategic tools for margin protection, speed and long-term customer relationships.

Green Sheet: How are B2B buyers' expectations around checkout, invoicing and payment terms evolving, and where do traditional reseller ecommerce and procurement workflows still fall short?

Shiv Agarwal:: B2B buyer expectations have moved fast, and most reseller workflows have not kept up. Today's buyers want what we call a "consumer-plus" experience. They expect the speed and simplicity of consumer checkout, but with enterprise-grade controls like multi-level approvals, PO integration, audit trails and contract-specific pricing.

We actually surveyed nearly 200 B2B buyers in 2025, and the message was clear. Buyers are willing to pay more for flexibility, and checkout friction is costing resellers real revenue. Around 71 percent told us they abandoned purchases because the payment process was messy or confusing.

What is changing most is how buyers think about payment terms and invoicing. They want transparent pricing upfront, real-time tax and shipping at checkout, and flexible payment options like ACH, virtual cards, and dynamic net terms that reflect the relationship, not rigid NET 30 or NET 60 structures.

Where traditional reseller ecommerce still falls short is that it treats checkout like a one-time event. Modern buyers treat it as the start of a financial workflow. They expect clean line-level invoices, automated three-way matching between PO, receipt and invoice, and smooth handling of partial shipments or backorders without endless email chains and manual reconciliation.

The takeaway is simple. Checkout is no longer just an ecommerce function. It is a procurement and finance experience. Resellers who modernize it will win both the order and the long-term customer relationship.

At VARStreet, we've focused on building a checkout experience that respects these procurement realities rather than ignoring them.

GS: In complex quoting and procurement workflows, where do payments most often become a bottleneck, and what does effective payment orchestration look like in B2B commerce?

SA: The bottleneck isn't usually the transaction itself; it's the dead air between a buyer's intent and the final settlement. We see this often in high-stakes sectors like healthcare IT.

Imagine an IT manager who needs a critical server deployment on-site by Monday, but the order is stuck in limbo because the payment system isn't "aware" of the specific budget codes or the multi-level approvals required to release it. It's a moment of pure frustration where technology should be helping but is instead standing in the way.

Effective payment orchestration in B2B is about making the payment context-aware. It's a software layer that understands the relationship, not just the math. It automatically routes transactions through the most efficient path, whether that's triggering an ACH pull the moment a CFO signs off or offering instant trade credit to secure distributor inventory before it expires.

Orchestration should turn a fragmented series of hurdles into a single, fluid motion that respects the human urgency behind every business order.

GS: ISOs, MLSs and payment processors often focus on retail and hospitality. What opportunities are they overlooking in the VAR and reseller ecosystem, and what should they understand before entering it?

SA: The retail and hospitality markets are built on high-frequency, low-value transactions. In contrast, the VAR ecosystem is a high-ticket, high-complexity world that processors often ignore because it doesn't fit the swipe-and-go mold. The overlooked opportunity here is interchange optimization and Level 3 processing.

VARs operate on thin margins where a standard 2.5 percent fee can swallow a massive portion of their net profit. Processors who want to win in this space must understand that they aren't just selling a gateway; they are selling margin protection.

They need to provide deep data integration that lowers fees for corporate cards and offer Trade Credit as a Service, allowing resellers to provide the net terms buyers demand without carrying the full financial risk on their own balance sheets.

GS: How do procurement realities—purchase orders, approvals and budget controls—change the role of payments compared with consumer or SMB ecommerce?

SA: In consumer ecommerce, a payment is an impulse; in B2B, it is a compliance event. Procurement realities transform the buy-now button into a governance gate. Unlike an SMB owner using a personal card, enterprise buyers are tethered to rigid internal controls. This shifts the role of payments from simply completing a sale to executing a contract.

The payment must be natively tied to the purchase order (PO), and respect budget splits, where one order might be funded by two different cost centers. If a payment system can't handle these procurement realities, it forces the buyer to fall back on manual spreadsheets, which kills the digital experience and weakens the partnership.

GS: Which payment capabilities have the greatest potential to add value for VARs today: embedded payments, financing, virtual cards, reconciliation tools or something else?

SA: The biggest value today is not coming from flashy payment tech. It's coming from tools that remove friction and cost from finance operations.

For VARs, the real silent hero is the combination of virtual cards and automated reconciliation. Reconciliation is where resellers bleed time and margin. Finance teams spend hours manually matching one payment to dozens of invoice line items, especially with partial shipments and split invoices.

When you automate reconciliation and enable true three-way matching (PO to receipt to invoice), it drives immediate business impact. It can reduce administrative overhead by up to 90 percent, cut errors and improve visibility into real profitability.

Virtual cards complement this perfectly. They give you the speed of card settlement but with the control of a PO. Payments can be issued instantly, securely, and pre-coded so they flow cleanly into the buyer's accounting workflow. There's also upside on the supplier side, where virtual cards can improve cash flow and unlock rebates.

Financing does matter, especially when it's embedded directly into quoting so customers can choose pay now, net terms, or financing in the same flow. That flexibility can lift close rates. But the takeaway is simple: the biggest wins are in workflow, not transactions. The VARs that modernize payment operations will protect margin, accelerate cash and scale without adding headcount.

GS: As reseller platforms become more automated and interconnected, how do you see the role of payments providers evolving, and where do partnerships make the most sense?

SA: We are moving away from a world where payments are an external add on experience. Payment providers are evolving from being simple vendors into embedded financial engines. In the very near future, you won't log in to a bank to pay a business invoice; the payment capability will be a native, intuitive feature of the procurement platform itself.

The most powerful partnerships today are between e-procurement leaders and fintech innovators who can provide real-time credit underwriting. By weaving these financial services directly into the quoting and checkout flow, we empower resellers to act as true consultants rather than debt collectors.

The payment provider's value is no longer just in moving money; it's in providing the liquidity and data transparency that turns a 22-day approval cycle into an instant yes. This isn't just about speed; it's about building a foundation of trust that allows VARs to scale and say yes to larger, more complex deals with confidence.

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