Six Critical Mistakes to Avoid as a Wholesaler While Selling Online

Due to explosive e-commerce growth in the past year, many businesses including wholesalers, distributors, and retailers are scrambling to open e-commerce businesses. Because of this, the digital space has become extremely competitive.

Problems start taking place when business owners neglect essential things in their e-commerce business. These small mistakes can quickly snowball and lead to financial loss.

Therefore, in the long term, it’s better to learn from others’ mistakes, as it will save you time, money, and effort, especially when you are running an e-commerce store.

As Warren Buffet once said, “It’s good to learn from your mistakes. It’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes “.

Whether you are a small business or a large business, there is little to no room for mistakes when you can easily avoid them by taking the necessary precautions.

Although this is by no means an exhausting list, we have covered some common mistakes most wholesalers make with e-commerce.

So, let’s get started.

1. Choosing the wrong platform

There is a saying “No one shoe fits all” and this stands true for e-commerce.

E-commerce platforms vary widely in features, and there is no one-size-fits-all. Thinking that all platforms are the same, is the most common mistake business owners make.

Choosing the wrong platform for your e-commerce business should be a sin. Period. The wrong platform can cost your business thousands in lost sales.

As a wholesaler, your business model will differ from that of B2C brands.

You see, B2C brands serve all their customers equally. They have the same prices for all their customers, but you can’t.

Your customers will also expect you to provide discounts on bulk shopping and so on.

Moreover, the prices you will show to the customers will differ according to geography and numbers of orders, etc.

Hence, you need a platform that will accommodate all these features.

How to avoid this mistake?

If you are confused about which platform to choose for your B2B wholesale business. Here are some questions to ask yourself.

1. Does the platform let customers search the products by SKU, names, colors, etc.?
2. What’s your budget to invest?
3. Does it let you customize product prices based on customer segmentation?
4. Can provide private access for some businesses?
5. Is there a live chat option?
6. Can the platform provide proper discounts on bulk purchases?

These are just some of the important questions you must ask before committing to an e-commerce platform.

2. Not providing ‘enough’ product or service info

Buying decisions are influenced by more than just a product.

Your buyers may have various questions in mind while buying. Some of the most common questions are:

1. What are shipping rates?
2. How long does delivery take?
3. Are there return options in case of defects?
4. What is the refund policy?
5. How to contact in case of queries?

Not having this information available immediately can cause friction during the buying process.

As a wholesaler, your customers will mostly purchase products in bulk. That means shipping is costly as compared to B2C.

Hence, in such cases, the buyer needs to have estimated shipping costs and delivery time to make sure the cost fits their budget.

How to avoid this mistake?

Make sure you provide all the necessary information related to the product and service in the product description.

3. No Reordering functionality

Have you ever gone to reorder from your site only for it to ask you to fill in the details again?

That’s a frustrating experience for every customer.

People are spoiled. Any extra steps while shopping online can make them pull back, causing businesses to lose sales.

As a wholesaler, you cannot afford to make this mistake. Rather than wasting your customer’s time in filling in details again, offering a quick one-click reorder function can save your customer from frustration.

Moreover, you can also display the last purchase, the most recent orders, and transaction history on their ‘account’ page to help reorder the products easily.

How to avoid this mistake?

Make sure the customer can reorder the previously purchased products with a single click.

4. Inflexible payment options

With a brick-and-mortar business, customers develop trust in business over time. However, with e-commerce, you will find that many customers hesitate to make digital payments. There is a good reason behind that. Cybercrime has increased dramatically and cybersecurity is the customer’s main concern. Most people won’t go ahead with payments if they have doubts.

On the other hand, B2B payments are tricky. Unlike B2C where you expect payment upfront, B2B purchases are always invoiced. Meaning, businesses are not required to pay upfront for the merchandise they order. Thus, you may not have cash in your hand immediately after sending the order.

Typically, you will invoice the customer. The invoice mentions when the payment is due(typically within 30 days), how much is owed etc. And if the invoices go unnoticed, it falls on the seller(you) to pursue the customer to complete the payment.

As a wholesaler, most of the products you will sell will have a high transaction value. Thus, most customers won’t be comfortable with digital wallets like Gpay or Paytm for high-cost transactions. Therefore, for such customers, you can offer payment options like cheque, credit or debit cards, direct bank transfer, draft, etc.

How to avoid this mistake?

Make sure the payment options you are providing are trusted by your customers. Also, try providing multiple options so that customers can choose the preferred one.

5. Not taking advantage of mobile e-commerce

According to Statista, 72.9% of ecommerce transactions will take place in 2021.

The above numbers prove that people are moving towards the smartphone economy.

Hence, if you are not using mobile commerce, you are losing more than 70% of sales!

Moreover, according to Google, 42% of B2B customers consider browsing on mobile before making a purchase decision.

Thus, mobile e-commerce has a great opportunity to grow your business dramatically.

Mobile e-commerce has become a necessity for online businesses to be successful.

6. Inflexible product catalogs

Oftentimes, B2B businesses do not give much thought to product catalogs. However, they are a crucial part of online business.

Many e-commerce service providers don’t provide product catalog flexibility. Due to this, you might face restrictions in properly defining your products.

Suppose, you are a t-shirt business. You want to create the product listing for a cotton t-shirt that has 40 colors. Now, if you don’t have a flexible catalog, you will have to create 40 different product listings for the same product. This is not only time-consuming but also confusing for your users.

How to avoid this mistake?

For instance, if you have a product with five variants. Now, instead of creating a new listing of each variant, you can create a single product listing with subcategories. This will ensure that customers can see different variants of the same products from a single listing.

Finding an e-commerce platform with such flexibility is difficult. But don’t worry, we’ve got you. Risor has the most flexible product catalog feature that lets you create product listings with features such as subcategories, variants, etc.

Wrapping Up:

Did you notice one common thing in all the mistakes? The one common theme in the above-mentioned mistakes is creating problems for buyers while purchasing online.

Simply put, if you make it harder for customers to buy, they will move on to another site.

Hence, it is necessary to put your customer first. Remove as many barriers as possible from shipping, taxes, ordering, etc.

Moreover, ensure that your customer’s information is safe and secure. If your customers can’t trust you with their information, you will face immense problems while selling.

Unfortunately, finding a platform that does it all is difficult, but not impossible. That’s where Risor saves the day.

Risor is a 100% secured B2B selling app that is specifically created for b2b businesses.

Risor has all the features from live chat, reseller management, discounts, social sharing, and catalog management, etc.

The best news is Risor is 100% free to use. You can get started with Risor in three easy steps. Explore Risor today.