Things have changed during the last couple of years. The e-commerce market is no longer dominated by the B2C model as more and more businesses seek B2B e-commerce solutions to fulfill their needs.
As technology develops at an alarming rate, it’s only natural for company owners to seek solutions adequate to the times we’re living in. A professional B2B e-commerce system is the gateway to a successful e-business, giving you a powerful platform to manage all business processes from. E-business solutions in B2B e-commerce are a way to solve many sales problems.
But what exactly are the key functions of B2B e-commerce systems, and how can they help e-businesses grow?
Let’s shed some light on the topic – here’s a selection of some of the most important B2B e-commerce system features that will directly benefit your company and improve customer experience!
Learning the ropes – the importance of a user-friendly tutorial
While B2C solutions are often simple and don’t require more than a few minutes of trial and error to figure out, B2B e-commerce solutions are often more complex and offer a much wider range of options. Business clients who come to your page for the first time might feel confused – unless you provide them with a proper tutorial that will guide them through.
Professional e-business solutions for B2B companies offer an option to include a client tutorial that will show your customers how to navigate your website. Many businesses are still just making the switch to e-commerce and might need some assistance – which is exactly what brings us to the next point:
E-business solutions for B2B – individual approach / a private client assistant
In contrast to B2C, B2B e-commerce relies on an individual approach to every client, catering to their needs and building trust. Many clients don’t want to be greeted with a soulless automated system that’s designed for general use. Business clients often prefer a tailored experience, as well as a real person to speak with.
Using a B2B e-commerce system, you can set up your clients with a sales representative who will appear as a part of the interface.The client can interact with his assistant using the live chat feature or by phone. This serves to improve the overall customer experience and help your clients receive the exact service they’re looking for from your company.
Company accounts for B2B clients and customer segmentation
While in B2C all customers are usually treated the same way, in B2B the client variety renders such an approach invalid. When dealing in wholesale, you’ll discover groups of customers that want different needs satisfied, and proper segmentation of these groups will allow you to easily handle all the variables, like pricing and order requirements.
B2B clients can also benefit from company accounts – such accounts feature an appointed Company Administrator, who can set up a proper company structure with Roles and Permissions to manage the account. You can appoint an individual sales representative to each company account, making managing clients much easier.
Make it easy on your clients. Use an advanced search engine
If you want your clients to buy your products, they need to be able to find them. An advanced search engine guarantees that your B2B clients will find exactly what they’re looking for, whether they’re searching by name or by product code. The products should also display when searching by a fragment of the product code, making it easier for customers to find products they can’t remember the names or codes of.
It’s also worth noticing that search engines in B2B systems can allow clients to add products directly to the cart from the results list, without having to load a separate product page.
E-business solutions for B2B: set up individual price lists for each client
Unlike B2C, not every order will feature the same base price of a product – based on a range of variables, including volume, location, client-specific discounts, and so on. A B2B e-commerce system can be used to create multiple price lists that can calculate the final price using dynamic variables.
Adapting your pricing to the individual needs of your customers will vastly improve their experience when making business with you. Your clients can also create their own shopping lists to make repeat orders a breeze.
E-business solutions for B2B: Collect valuable data with on-demand reporting tools
If you want to stay ahead of your competition, you need to properly analyze available data to draw out business solutions that will put you in the lead. A professional B2B e-business system gives you expansive reporting tools that will make it easy to track purchasing trends of your customers. You can customize the reports to track the most important KPIs in real time and give you exactly the data you’ll need to improve your business strategy. These tools also come in handy when planning a marketing campaign and obtaining valuable insights into customer behavior.
There and more are the many benefits that B2B e-commerce systems could bring to your company. We at Lingaro Group Digital Commerce practice should know — we've been preparing and deploying complex B2B systems for over 10 years.
Lingaro Group’s digital commerce practice works with enterprises and global brands in designing, developing, and deploying e-commerce systems and digital marketplaces enabled by data and analytics. Our end-to-end solutions cover the entire journey in digital commerce from strategic consulting, e-commerce strategy, IT architecture design, UI/UX prototyping and e-commerce development to D2C, B2C, and B2B platforms.
In short, we know how to set up a successful e-business, and we will be happy to share our expertise with you.
