Top Six Uniqueness of B2B E-Commerce
Image credit: Andrea Piacquadio
Top Six Uniqueness of B2B E-Commerce
As the digital landscape and hybrid work continue to evolve, manufacturing and distribution companies are adopting B2B E-Commerce to streamline their operations and expand their customer base. According to the study by PwC, two-thirds of US manufacturers (66%) agree that implementing digital marketing and sales over the next two years is a “high” or “very high” priority.
B2B E-Commerce platforms have the potential to transform the way businesses operate, offering a range of advantages. These include safeguarding sales during future crises similar to the covid-19 pandemic, expanding the customer base by tapping into new segments and gathering valuable data on their preferences and requirements.
Image credit: PwC
In the B2B E-Commerce model, businesses sell their products or services to other businesses. The focus is on building long-term relationships and facilitating bulk orders. Transactions on B2B E-Commerce often involve complex procurement processes, negotiations, and personalised terms. Let’s dive into top 6 uniqueness of B2B E-Commerce business as compared to B2C E-Commerce.
1. Account Management
In B2B E-Commerce the customer is not individual consumer but a legal entity or a company. Some companies may have subsidiary that is buying from the same supplier as well. These customers will have multiple users or buyers who would be accessing the system to perform different tasks and duties during the procurement process. In addition, they would also have multiple addresses for the purpose of sending the invoices to, and shipping the products to. Furthermore, sales reps would also be assigned to individual account to facilitate the transactions and nurture relationships between the organisations.
2. Personalisation
Personalisation in the business-to-business environment is different from that of the business-to-consumer scenarios. Every account or customer in a business-to-business transaction has unique requirements and procurement processes. These customers usually sign-in to the B2B E-Commerce portal to perform their tasks and duties. This gives an opportunity for businesses to recognise and know their customers up-front. Most of the time these customers will be assigned personalised catalogues, pricing and other terms. Furthermore, businesses can leverage the power of AI (artificial intelligence) technology to further personalise the experience for these buyers based on their purchase history and behaviours by recommending related products, new product introduction, frequently bought together, and many other scenarios.
3. Intelligent Search
In the previous article, “Boost your B2B E-Commerce conversions with Intelligent Site Search”, we shared the benefits of having a great intelligent site search for B2B E-Commerce businesses. To summarise it, B2B buyers don’t shop online for pleasure or entertainment. They shop online as they are required to perform their duties at work of procuring products for their business. An intelligent site search helps buyers to quickly find the products they are looking for. In addition, buyers can refine their search results through various filters with faceted navigation. Faceted navigation empowers buyers to customise their search journey, leading to higher satisfaction and increasing chances of finding the right products.
4. Account Specific Payment
A new customer can buy the products online for the first time, pay with a credit card and check-out as a guest. To build long term business relationships and enjoy account-specific payment terms, these customers have to register themselves as trading partners. Once approved, they can seamlessly check-out and have all their details pre-filled to accelerate check-out time. Moreover, they would have account specific payment terms such as Net15, Net30, and can check-out by using Purchase Order Number (PO). They would also be allocated with store credit limit in order to facilitate faster procurement and financing options. These flexible payment options contribute to a seamless buying experience and help build trust between B2B sellers and buyers.
5. Configure Price Quote
Business customers often place large, and bulk orders. They may have special requests to customise the standard products to certain specifications and pack them in a certain way. In order to meet with these requirements, sellers may require to go through approval process, and calculate special price as per the requirements. B2B E-Commerce platform can help facilitate these processes by offering features such as bulk order upload, quick order forms, and shopping list. Moreover, it can facilitate approval workflow, and request for quotes (RFQs) to help businesses streamline their purchasing operations, reduce manual and paperwork, and improve overall efficiency.
6. Customer Self-Service
In business-to-business transactions, sales reps spend huge amount of time answering customer queries related to order status, change requests, price/quotes, and other administrative requests. This makes sales reps unproductive and unable to achieve their quotas. B2B E-Commerce can help both sales reps and buyers become more effective and efficient at their jobs. We articulated the benefits of B2B E-Commerce for sales reps and buyers in these articles: “Busting top 3 myths about B2B E-Commerce for Sales Teams” and “Why Buyers love B2B E-Commerce; Brands need to know it”.
Information and simple tasks like these can easily be made available to buyers with features of a Self-Service portal on B2B E-Commerce. Buyers can easily look-up the order status, track shipment, get delivery confirmation, and perform administrative tasks whenever they want, 24/7.
Moreover, by leveraging AI (artificial intelligence) technology, businesses can offer chatbot with an option to route to live agent to assist buyers for complex queries helping resolve queries, address concerns, and enhance the overall buyer experience.
Building long-term customer relationships is a cornerstone of B2B E-Commerce. It helps foster loyalty by providing personalised experiences, superior customer-service, and reliable products. By nurturing these relationships, businesses can secure repeat orders, referrals, and valuable partnerships.
In conclusion, B2B E-Commerce presents unique functionalities and advantages when compared to B2C E-Commerce. From streamlined customer self-service and account specific payments to personalisation and intelligent site search and configure price quote to account management, B2B E-Commerce caters to the specific needs of businesses. By leveraging these functionalities, businesses can enhance efficiency, foster long-term partnerships, and achieve sustainable growth.
If you need any help with starting your B2B E-Commerce business, please do reach out to us. Our team of experts are ready to help. Schedule a call with us now!