Improve your Business with B2B eCommerce Platform
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced B2B businesses to take their operations online. No wonder, B2B eCommerce has shown exponential growth in the past couple of hours. More and more B2B buyers are now taking the online route to make purchases. They prefer ordering online without interacting with the sales reps. According to Forrester, a market research company, almost 75% of B2B buyers say that they find it easier to purchase products from a website than buying from a sales representative.
A B2B eCommerce platform is used by eCommerce sellers who wish to do business with other companies. It is designed to meet the specific needs of business customers. It is personalized and supports frictionless purchasing for B2B buyers. It has all the unique features needed to create a healthy relationship and encourage greater sales with business customers.
What Makes B2B eCommerce different from B2C?
B2B customers expect a hassle-free way to order products, similar to B2C. They want a smooth shopping experience across all devices including tablets and smartphones. However, there is a huge difference between B2B and B2C eCommerce.
For instance, as a B2B eCommerce store owner, you need to display customer-specific catalogs and pricing as per the contract agreement on your store. Features like minimum order quantity, easy reordering, PunchOut, etc are critical in the B2B environment.
eCommerce Platform for your Large Enterprise B2B Organization
The best eCommerce platform will enable you to create multiple B2B online stores without any hassles. Ability to quickly set up one or more B2B stores is the characteristic feature of this platform.
A B2B eCommerce platform combines different software modules like sales, order management, and marketing into one integrated solution. It can also integrate with third-party services like shipping companies, payment gateways, etc. This helps you to automate your business processes, eliminating manual data re-entry from one system to another.
Features Available in a B2B eCommerce Solution
Restricted Access
Want to create an online catalog only for a particular segment of customers? Want to assign payment and shipping options to a subset of customers? Well, you can easily achieve it using this platform. Only show relevant products, instead of showing the entire catalog. It gives you the flexibility to have an open or protected environment.
Price Agreements
Do you have contract pricing? Don’t want to show product prices to everyone? Not an issue! You can segment customers by their region, country, buying behavior, frequency of ordering, and even in terms of pricing. You have the flexibility to implement different pricing models and assign different price lists to your customers.
Multiple Storefronts
With every B2B customer having unique requirements, you can create multiple storefronts for your eCommerce business and they can be easily managed from one backoffice. You can have multiple brands with each brand targeted at a different set of audience.
Upselling and Cross-selling
Most B2B eCommerce platforms come with built-in artificial capabilities which can help you to identify relevant upselling and cross-selling opportunities and increase sales.
Freight Calculations
The system will correctly apply freight charges and sales taxes depending upon the region your customer has placed the order. All calculations are automated and no manual intervention is needed.
Offer Different Payment Methods
With B2B eCommerce platform, you can provide different payment methods to your large customers. This includes credit card, Company PO, Company Check, Personal Check, Net 15, Net 30, etc. The ability to accept payments in multiple currencies is also available.
Dashboard
Keep a track of your business performance with an easy-to-use dashboard. It will provide daily updates about the progress of your business. This will enable you to make well-informed decisions and design strategies so that you achieve your business goals.
Wrapping Up
In this day and age, B2B consumers prefer to make purchases online. So to boost your B2B operations and succeed you need to use an appropriate eCommerce platform. It saves time, makes it easy to manage B2B transactions, and allows you to sell more products.
