b2b ecommerce

Most suppliers negotiate prices with their largest customers so that each customer has its own price list. A sound B2B ecommerce system will allow you to have customized price lists based upon what you have negotiated with each customer. Automating this process saves you considerable money in potential labor costs while also providing an excellent customer experience.

As more businesses turn to online procurement, they will want to request and receive quotes via online portals. The capability to receive and efficiently respond to requests from customers seeking a new supplier or bids for new material or service will ensure you don’t miss out on business. Custom quoting tools can allow for receiving and responding to these requests promptly.

The software also can customize workflow based upon the merchant’s requirements. The customer can view a history of their quote. Once the quote is returned, the customer can easily convert it to a sales order, which once again gains efficiencies for the merchant. The sales representative also can suggest additional products to increase the AOV and make recommendations for out-of-stock products ahead of time.

B2B ecommerce software can increase sales and reduce costs through automation and personalization. Automation that can update and sync your order-taking software with billing and warehouse systems will help businesses avoid promising quick delivery on items out of stock; it will also alert companies quickly to shortages. B2B ecommerce software with automation features also will eliminate mistakes from manual rekeying.

Personalization means creating a unique experience for each customer every time. It is an essential tool for increasing customer engagement and satisfaction, as well as sales. Research shows that the conversion rate is 70 percent when online shoppers deal with a personalized recommendation. A sound B2B ecommerce system will keep accurate data and automatically suggest new services or products for the customer based on their previous purchasing profile. It also will keep a list of the products a customer typically orders to save time in re-ordering. For example, if a seller has 100,000 products, but the customer only orders 50, the software will list those 50.

Gartner cautions that B2B vendors who gain the most from the use of personalization don’t overdo the concept and offer personalization that the customer views as helpful. For example, B2B sellers should ensure the personalization offered is appropriate for the buyer’s role in the company. Personalization appropriate to an accounting manager would be different from that appropriate for a CEO.

B2B customers aren’t just moving to omnichannel; they are already there, says McKinsey. Eight in ten B2B leaders say that omnichannel commerce is at least as attractive as traditional methods. Customers also are willing to buy big-ticket items through digital channels; 20 percent of all buyers would spend $500,000 in a digital transaction, and 11 percent will spend $1 million or more in a digital transaction.

With omnichannel as the new norm, vendors want to be hybrid sellers, which means they interact with customers via phone, email, video, apps, and occasional in-person visits. Likewise, customers want and expect to be able to buy products and services on their laptops, tablets, or mobile phones on-demand and with ease. They also may buy through other channels such as Facebook and Instagram, marketplaces such as Amazon, and the data feed for Google shopping. Another popular option is buying a product online and picking it up in the retail store. Real-time data on inventory levels makes the selection of pickup instead of delivery a reality.

To capture the omnichannel growth, B2B sellers will need to overcome certain omnichannel challenges, McKinsey says. These are channel conflicts, and one channel merely cannibalizes sales from another. Managing multiple channels from one ecommerce platform is particularly important in overcoming these challenges.

The best B2B sellers have great flexibility in displaying and describing their products. Title, price, attributes, and images are essential, but you’ll also want to control other aspects of your product, providing detailed product information and lists of features. Adding product data can help for SEO and can allow customers to download PDF files with specs and detailed product attributes. The best B2B ecommerce software easily allows for repricing and has a powerful rule engine to create specific promotions on the right products for the right customers. Segmenting the customer to their buying preferences will increase their chances of ordering.

As more businesses purchase online, B2B buyers’ expectations are rising and becoming closer to those of B2C consumers. More customers are researching purchases online. Having the right content is critical to engaging new customers. B2B sellers also need opportunities to create content on their websites, such as blogs and video content, that help build trust in the brand and drive sales.

A good search function can make the difference between a great ecommerce site and a mediocre one, especially for a company that sells multiple products. Buyers want to find their product quickly. More than 60 percent of customers report they’ve left an ecommerce site because they couldn’t find their product quickly.

A B2B ecommerce platform with a powerful search engine with multiple layers is critical. Power search engine functionality also allows visitors to search for products in multiple ways. Sellers will want to customize and define all the ways buyers might search for particular products, allowing for multiple search terms for the same product.

A significant advantage of B2B ecommerce is the ability to reach new international markets without having to build brick-and-mortar stores and hire large staff in each market. To master the challenges of globalization, however, B2B ecommerce software must meet certain conditions. The software must contain:

• Language packages
• Interconnected international technology resources that can function as a unit
• Multilingual administration
• Pricing based on each country or region
• Freely configurable country or regional shops
• Multi-currency capability
• A configurable tax calculation

Multi-store management is the ability to launch and manage multiple stores from the same B2B ecommerce platform. Launching multiple stores allows a seller to enter new regional or niche markets while continuing to engage former ones. For example, a manufacturer already active in the automotive parts industry might launch another store for machinery parts. As another example, a business might have separate stores for each national market. Finally, a company that does both B2B and B2C or B2G sales can have separate stores for each sale type.

Multi-store markets also have considerable challenges, however. These include data management, different brand messaging, integration with other systems, and lack of resources. A solid B2B ecommerce platform will allow a company to meet the challenges, either through built-in functionality or customization.

B2B ecommerce software must integrate seamlessly with other relevant software the business owns, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting, and warehouse management systems. Without seamless integration, inventory information will not sync in real-time. Companies will need to assign staff to rekey data or download data from one system to another to track inventory. Customers will not receive appropriate information about whether an item is in stock and when delivery will occur, resulting in disappointments and unhappy customers. With proper integration, the order system always knows whether an item is available in the warehouse and can even send a message to have the item pulled from the shelves and packaged for transport to the customer.

Although integration with current systems is integral to successful B2B e-commerce, many SaaS platforms lack the flexibility required for customization. However, using an open-source platform allows the B2B ecommerce platform to be customized as necessary to handle complex and critically essential integrations. An open API structure also provides for guaranteed integration.

B2B customers require a variety of payment options and methods. Many will want to issue electronic purchase orders for later billing or to add an item to an already existing account. Others will use credit cards or ACH payment options. Wire transfer is a popular payment choice for international purchasers, particularly for large items. Digital payment platforms, such as Google or PayPal, are sometimes preferred, especially for small businesses. Different platforms and payment options are relevant for different international markets, as well.

To succeed, ecommerce vendors need to be able to accept various payment methods and options with ease. B2B ecommerce software should allow for all these payment methods and for further customization based upon customer preferences.

The right B2B ecommerce platform helps the salespeople by allowing them to create orders on behalf of the buyers. It also allows them to modify and troubleshoot existing orders. It can enable them to make appropriate product recommendations based on the customer’s purchase history and provide individualized incentives to increase the order value. Salespeople also can view what is in their customers’ carts. Good B2B ecommerce software also will allow display customization so that special or promotional merchandise can be displayed favorably.

While all these features are essential, B2B sellers must play a long-term game to succeed. The field sales staff is still crucial, and to retain them long-term, you must continue to ensure sales team success. Sales staff will still be critical even as businesses buy more digitally because of their relationships with clients.

A good B2B ecommerce platform works with your sales team rather than against it. This is a simple premise in theory, but it can be tricky to establish. For example, you want to use all the software’s technology to boost sales, but you also want to provide incentives to keep your sales staff happy. One key is to pay incentives whenever a sales rep influences an online sale. To do this, you’ll need B2B software that you can customize to your own sales process to accurately provide these incentives.

B2B ecommerce software also helps sales reps to develop long-term relations. Sales reps can customize the system to send personalized follow-up emails automatically after each sale. Round-the-clock customer service via chatbots, chats, and other technology also improves relationships. B2B ecommerce software that interacts with the company’s CRM system can enable reps to easily invite customers to webinars to other events based on their buying interests and make creating and maintaining a loyalty program easier.

Data drives business decisions. The better the data, the better decisions a business can make. Real-time data and alerts can allow sales, customer service, or warehouse teams to act quickly to ensure an excellent customer experience. It can enable teams to collaborate efficiently.

Good data can also help the company understand its performance at a quick glance and easily make period-to-period comparisons. It also can help companies make appropriate long and short-term decisions about product offerings and promotions.

Finally, the best B2B ecommerce platforms allow for customizing reports to show the metrics you need and modify them as conditions change. They can indicate which potential customers downloaded reports or other information from the website or clicked through an ad. They also can aid in developing an ideal customer profile and in increasing conversion rates.