B2B ecommerce has outpaced all growth forecasts and holds the key to stupendous growth for wholesalers taking the online route. If you have been thinking that it is B2C ecommerce that dominates the digital business space, here is a reality check for you!
Business to business online commerce has grown at 200% faster rate than B2C ecommerce!
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Why Going Online Is Absolutely Necessary for Wholesale Businesses
Taking your wholesale business online not only gives you better brand visibility but also saves hugely on your operational costs. ALso, the customers are gravitating more and more towards buying online with 52% of B2B clients planning to make half of their purchases online in the coming 3 years.
Advantages Of B2B Ecommerce;
- Improves business opportunities by making your business discoverable in online searches
- Brings new customers by opening up unreachable markets through online selling
- Improves sales volume with better reach, engaging website and better product display
- Shortens business processes as clients can access the store and send queries 24x7 from anywhere
- Reduces operational expenses by offering an online and automated selling process
- Strengthens customer relationships thanks to improved customer satisfaction
- Gives better business insights with detailed analytics, history and customer social footprints
- Gives your business better brand visibility in domestic as well as international markets
But can I be totally honest with you?
If you have the presumption that all these benefits will start flowing in as soon as you roll out your B2B ecommerce site, you are sadly mistaken. There are many steps in between deciding to take your wholesale business online and its eventual success.
Agree don’t you?
Wouldn’t it be great if you knew the exact steps to success? But where to find that magic recipe for a thriving business?
Alas! There is no written rule for success.
But, there certainly exists a guide that can ensure that helps you avoid the pitfalls that can doom your business. Your online journey can be much smoother and eventually successful if you take care not to repeat these mistakes in your business.
Wondering what these cardinal sins for your business could be?
B2B Ecommerce Mistakes That Can Ruin You Business And How To Avoid Them
1. Poor Website
Your website is the face of your business and leaves an indelible first impression on your buyers. If you are among those who think that a wholesale ecommerce site need not be as jazzy as the B2C site you are making a huge mistake.
The UI/UX of a business to business site is as important as any B2C site. The modern buyers are accustomed to the ease of use and painless, quick shopping on B2c online stores and expect the same from a B2B ecommerce platform. Did you know that:
- 76% of the B2B buyers rate site design to be the most important factor in their purchase decision
- 20% of B2B buyers look forward to the same buying experience they get on B2C online stores
With about 70% business to business users initiating a product search on their mobile phones, you need to be really careful about the design, layout and speed of your site on multiple devices, primarily the mobile. Also, to engage the visitors the site should have an aesthetic and mobile-optimized design.
You should also offer easy navigation and hierarchical product categories so your customers do not face any difficulty in searching their desired products or services on your B2B ecommerce site. The SEO elements like the meta title and description on your pages should be well in place so your site ranks high on SERPs. These measures will improve the accessibility of your website and ensure you get a higher traffic volume.
To ensure that you do not miss on any of these points, StoreHippo brings for you a comprehensive set of B2B features. It incorporates exclusive features like a multi-seller marketplace, multi-store, multilingual site, pricing overrides, bulk order processing, custom pricing and much more to make your B2B ecommerce processes faster and smarter. This goes a long way in offering a memorable buying experience to your clients who become your brand ambassadors by spreading word about you.
2. Insufficient Product Details
Do you know that 74% of B2B buyers find it easier to buy online from a website? Add to this the fact that 93% of business to business buyers research, finalise products and then buy online. The writing on the wall clearly says that taking all your products and services online is the shortcut to get better sales.
We also know that online buyers get distracted very easily and might abandon their cart if they do not find relevant product details on your site. If your site fails to capitalize on good product images and description you are going to lose the battle even before it begins.
To engage and convert better on your B2B ecommerce platform, be sure to add customer-friendly product images, descriptions, product details and any other relevant information regarding your wholesale business.
Providing detailed product information not only engages your customers but also saves valuable time on support queries. Adding FAQ on your product pages along with other details can even improve your conversion rate. Other important details to consider are product variants(colour, size etc), weight (if applicable), model number, ISBN (books) or any similar details that help your customers in making instant and informed purchase decisions.
StoreHippo B2B ecommerce solutions take care of all these factors and allow you to present a 360- degree view of your products and services. With features like product variant, FAQ for each product, adding custom fields for product description or customer query etc. These features fast-track your conversion cycle and help in keeping the clients loyal to your brand.
3. No Custom Pricing
It is well accepted and common knowledge that no two customers are the same in a business to business environment. Hence it is imperative to have B2B ecommerce solutions that offer the provision for offering differential pricing to each of its customers based on the ticket size, customer loyalty or even the product or service in demand.
Did you know that 50% of B2B buyers listed personalization as a key factor while searching for online suppliers. Also, with personalised deals buyers are ready to spend up to 48% more than planned.
If your business does not offer this provision it is bound to lose its customers eventually who would negotiate better prices based on their relationships with other brands. Hence you should search a top ecommerce platform that allows you to customize your pricing based on the customer’s unique relationship with your brand.
Features like login based pricing override or organizing customers in groups so that you can offer them IP based prices offer an easy mechanism to implement different prices for different customer segments.
StoreHippo has many features that enable you to offer custom pricing on your B2B ecommerce platform. Features like pricing override, login-based pricing, wholesale and retail pricing and pricing comparison helps not only in offering custom pricing but also allows the client to make an informed decision.
4. Lack of Payment Options
Business to business deals are a lot more complex than a simple B2C purchase. Also, the customers are spread more widely across diverse geographical and political regions making it necessary to have an extensive range of payment options suitable for different user groups.
In a B2B ecommerce environment simply offering a few payment gateways do not work. Such a setup needs a host of national and international payment channels along with, adaptive payments, automatic reconciliations, location-based gateways, support for loyalty based wallets, multi-currency payment options and customized checkout options for frictionless checkouts.
The whole purpose of offering these many choices to customers is to allow them to use the most viable payment channel as per their requirements. When they are saved from the hassle of paying additional taxes or conversion rate charges due to the flexible payment options offered on your site they remain loyal and keep placing repeat orders.
StoreHippo offers all the above-mentioned payment options through its B2B ecommerce solutions. Using these you can meet the expectations of your clients and offer them a seamless shopping experience and hassle-free checkout. Offering new, agile and flexible payment options to your customers can ensure better customer satisfaction, ease of payment and hence retention.
5. Not Incorporating B2C Features
B2C ecommerce has changed the way we used to perceive businesses. With exposure to various B2C features that make shopping easier and fun, B2B customers are also conditioned to expect similar features and ease of use. Up to 80% users of a business to business site compare their experiences with a B2C site and accordingly rate a new B2B site.
For a successful B2B ecommerce business you need to have a host of features that have made online shopping more of a daily hobby for the buyers. Features like a seamless mobile-ready site, easy search and navigation, hierarchical categories, simple sales process, personalized deals using real-time offers and a streamlined delivery channel not only keeps your wholesale buyers happy but also keeps them loyal to your brand.
These features make a site stickier and help the clients search for products or services on their mobile devices from anywhere anytime. Naturally then, these features help in boosting conversions and shorten the sales cycle.
StoreHippo offers a host of B2C capabilities including a beautiful device optimised site design, push notifications for personalized deals, a powerful discount engine, faceted search, multi-tier categories etc. to offer the most simple yet engaging buying experience to your buyers. All stores powered by StoreHippo are PWA, which means, they look, feel and function like mobile apps when opened in a browser. This feature makes your B2B ecommerce platform a favourite of customers while offering better discoverability to offer SEO benefits to your brand.
6. Lack of Third Party Integrations
Online B2B sales are growing every year. A business that is growing and changing rapidly needs a flexible B2B ecommerce platform that is ready to adapt to the new requirements of the business. Also, it should be designed in a way that it easily allows for third-party integrations that are an integral part of your day to day business.
Third party integrations like live chat support, mailing software, ticketing software, various payment and shipping channels, social media integrations, custom ERP, CRMs and other APIs needed for smooth functioning of a business to business venture should be easy to integrate and use.
A rigid ecommerce platform that requires too much effort to integrate various third-party services can limit the functionalities of your business. Also, it can make the overall business processes complex and more time and resource consuming.
StoreHippo B2B ecommerce solutions allow easy third-party integrations that are needed for any business. All the above mentioned third party services and components can be easily integrated with your B2B website powered by StoreHippo.
7. Lack of Support
Business to business clients are accustomed to having a single point of contact that works as their personal manager with your brand. B2B deals have a lot of to and fro negotiations. Hence, it is essential that any gaps in communication are minimized/ eliminated by keeping the dialogues focussed through a proper channel.
Also, as many teams are involved in making the final B2B ecommerce purchase decision, there should be a support person or manager. The support manager should have a clear understanding about the whole process and all your prices,products, deals etc. should be at his disposal.
This will not only help him in answering the queries of a prospective client but will also help him/her in offering a customized deal which can instantly close the deal. To enable your support manager your B2B ecommerce solutions’ should offer a comprehensive dashboard which is feature-rich, easy to use and allows the sales manager to make changes and customize deals for your clients.
Along with this, your B2B website should be equipped to offer strong support through various channels like live chat support, email engagements, call support etc. In lack of these features and tools it might become difficult to retain customers who might look for a point of contact 24x7 as your site is accessible round the clock.
StoreHippo B2B ecommerce platform allows you to integrate all these support channels with your website so you can give multi-channel support to your clients. The admin panel is so designed that you can assign granular roles to your teams and also monitor their activities and changes using audit log. Along with these your support managers can easily check all customer details and history and personalize deals to offer the best quotes to your clients.
Conclusion
Business-to-business ecommerce is a huge opportunity and it can prime a wholesale business for stupendous growth and new opportunities. However, as a business owner, you need to be careful about the above-mentioned mistakes and ensure that you choose a comprehensive and flexible B2B ecommerce platform that allows you to incorporate various changes easily.
StoreHippo mobile-ready B2B ecommerce solutions are designed to help you overcome all the challenges of taking your wholesale business online. With StoreHippo you can build cutting edge business to business websites and create an omnichannel presence for your business.
Have queries about building your B2B website? Book a free demo and the StoreHippo team will get back to you with a solution.
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