Why launch your B2B eCommerce website with essential features?

Find out the top 4 reasons why it becomes necessary for your B2B eCommerce website to be launched with the essential features.

The B2B eCommerce website features have always created debates on their reach, TCO and ROI. There are many opinions in the market regarding B2B eCommerce such as,

• B2B eCommerce website should not look like the one it is for B2C customers
• B2B eCommerce website should have B2C like experience
• B2B eCommerce website has special enterprise-scale features for wholesale and trading
• B2B works better on a mobile/tab instead of having a website
• B2B inquiries flow on portals like alibaba.com; one should not have their own website

This creates hassles for the eCommerce development companies to understand what business owners need as essential features. Some of the platforms like Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce have created their own variants for B2B eCommerce.

And there are business owners who believe that it is not a good idea to have the basic eCommerce features on your website. It has to enterprise-class and connected to ERP or PIM.

These differences are coming out due to size, scale, and type of B2B business they have.

Here are the 4 Reasons to Have Essential B2B eCommerce Website Features

1. To behave like a brand and fulfill buyers’ expectations

While building an eCommerce website for B2B customers, you cannot think of creativity and advanced features until you have set up a plan for an online sales channel and connecting it to offline buyers.

Why? Because when it comes to buying online, the B2B customers come with a set of expectations and features which give them ease of operations. If those expectations are not fulfilled, you won’t have conversions from the website.

2. To improve your customers’ buying experience, speed, and reduce the cost

One of the top reasons you should have basic eCommerce features in your B2B website is to improve the buying experience of your B2B customers. Give them easy to order at any time, from anywhere, repeat the past orders, reduce the cost, and so on.

B2B customers have too much on their plate apart from just making their stock purchases, preparing MIS, and negotiation with your sales representative. If the inventory details are available with the delivery schedule, they can give bulk orders, split deliveries, getting tired prices based on quantity, negotiate or ask for a quote online, see their credit limit, pay, and many more…

Also, the essential B2B eCommerce website features such as the advanced search for finding for their required products with specifications, past orders lists, application of appropriate filters, and more helps your customers to buy in the same B2B process.

The only difference is the way they place the order.

Here is an example of one of the leading B2B eCommerce websites, Chevron Lubricants:

The B2B eCommerce website of Chevron Lubricants has an appropriate menu which has filters and also has the search button that helps the B2B customers find their required products.

3. To start having conversions

One of the top ways to measure B2B eCommerce success is the number of conversions or number of inquiries. And, we just discussed above, that improved customer experience is sure to inspire your B2B eCommerce customers to place orders online.

That’s the reason why we say,

Make it easy for customers to browse among your catalogs and give online orders. Don’t look at them as a cost or replacement of your sales team. It is for the automation of the sales channel, ease of operation, being on the top of MIS, and generate more business.

Here is an example of a B2B eCommerce website that has a B2C-like UI/UX, Blake Envelopes:

4. To outperform competition

One of the significant reasons to have your B2B eCommerce website is to outperform your competition.

You need to come up with a website that has the basic/advanced eCommerce store features. With this, you can reach to the geography where your sales reps are not available.

As a business owner, you can either reduce the cost or increase the sales to grow further. B2B eCommerce channel gives you both advantages :)

So, get the basics right!

Don’t make the mistake of compromising on having the basic B2B eCommerce website features as it can impact your overall online business growth.

What could be the other reasons first to have the basic eCommerce website features? Share with us in the comment section below.