10 winning strategies to boost sales on B2B Distributor Ecommerce Marketplace

Your B2B marketplace (with your distributors as sellers) is officially up, running and thriving.

Going digital was BOLD!

 Leveraging the distributor ecommerce model has modernized your business and is paying rich dividends.

What next?

Well, it is time to make your brand shine amidst competition.

And yes, making wholesale buying easy and creating price competition is basic. To cut through the competition you need to strategise beyond that.

How?

Empower your ecommerce savvy sellers to seize every opportunity that your B2B ecommerce for distributors marketplace offers! 

And these opportunities are hidden in plain sight.

Wonder where?

In the latest B2B ecommerce trends and buyer behavior patterns.

Ecommerce For Distributors: Wholesale Ecommerce Market Trends and Buying Patterns 

The pandemic-led disruptions prompted remarkable market shifts and permanently altered buyer behavior. As enterprise brands adapted to the new realities, customer behavior became the driving force for re-evaluating and organizing the modus operandi of wholesale B2B marketplace websites.

Sample some trends that have been driving innovation in the B2B ecommerce ecosystem:

• $20.4 trillion is the forecasted global B2B eCommerce market value by 2027
• 7.2X faster growth of B2B marketplaces as compared to overall B2B eCommerce 
• 250% increase in mobile channel B2B orders from 2020 to 2024
• 94% of wholesale buyers source products/services on B2B marketplaces
• 74% of B2B buyers prefer online buying over buying offline 
• 72% B2B buyers expect personalized experiences across all channels
• 90% of B2B buyers would switch to a competitor B2B marketplace website if their supplier/manufacturer’s website fails to keep up with their needs
• 89% B2B buyers say consistent experience across channels is essential to their loyalty
• 70% customers expect their B2B marketplace to offer self-service

Source: Forbes, McKinsey & Company, Digital Commerce 360, Gartner, LinkedIn 

We see the pattern now. B2B buyers are all in for shopping online and their preferred shopping hubs are self-service marketplaces powered by distributor ecommerce ecosystems. And yes, buyers love to interact across channels, mobile being the most favored one. 

Based on these findings and insights from StoreHippo industry experts, we present a detailed winning strategy to grow your B2B marketplace website for distributors.

But before that let us first understand a distributor ecommerce set-up.

What is a distributor-based B2B Marketplace

A distributor-based B2B marketplace is a marketplace set up where an enterprise brand’s products and services are sold to other businesses like retailers, wholesalers, and other manufacturers using a network of distributors (of the parent brand). These distributors are usually located at different places in a given geographical area. 

In a B2B ecommerce for distributors set up, orders are placed through the brand’s marketplace website wholesale distributors fulfill these orders. The distributor marketplace set up can be further streamlined by setting up a chain of branded sub-stores for different locations, product lines or even individual distributors. All these substores can be centrally controlled and managed from a common central admin and yet give the distributors full freedom to run the business.

Example of a B2B Ecommerce For Distributors

Let us further understand the distributor marketplace set up with an automobile industry example.

Suppose the company Speedstar manufactures cars like sedans, SUVs, convertibles, and auto parts in India.

Speedstar builds a B2B marketplace website where its ecommerce wholesale distributors can showcase and sell cars and auto parts to B2B buyers like dealerships, rental companies, Government bodies, corporates, hospitality businesses etc.

Speedstar implements a chain of branded sub-stores within its marketplace platform to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. For instance, there could be sub-stores for different states and UTs of India, each showcasing local distributors.

These branded distributor ecommerce sub-stores will be interconnected and centrally controlled from a common administrative dashboard managed by admin teams and chief stakeholders at  Speedstar. This centralized management approach allows Speedstar to maintain consistency in branding, product offerings, and pricing across all sub-stores while still granting autonomy to individual distributors to manage their respective territories or product lines effectively.

With ecommerce wholesale distributors set up on its branded marketplace Speedstar cars can have better visibility and an easy ordering process while the dealers' offline set-up enables the brand to have a strong market presence without actually investing in multi-location store setups.

Setting up multi-location vendor stores goes a long way in streamlining operations and paves the way for faster and hassle-free hyperlocal fulfillment.

10 Proven Strategies to Get More Orders on B2B Distributor Ecommerce Marketplace 

Building a marketplace certainly offers operational efficiency and standardized the overall processes for enterprise business. 

Here is a list of 10 tried and tested strategies to grow your business and help your distributors sell more.

Build Multi-Channel Presence With A Focus on Mobile

This one is given. If you want your business to shine, you have to be present on all the channels your buyers visit. And yes, among the channels, mobile had to be the one that drives your sales.

Wonder why. Let's check some B2B buying trends.

• 70% of B2B search queries begin on a mobile device
• 78% of brands think B2B mobile apps are the future
• 20% faster purchases through B2B mobile apps marketing channels
• 40% of revenue in large B2B organizations are driven by mobile channels 
• 94% of B2B businesses say the omnichannel sales model is as or more effective than pre-pandemic traditional models 

Source: McKinsey, Bugsnag, Boston Consulting Group

Well, the figures narrate the story. 

Having a multi-channel presence for your distributor ecommerce marketplace is a must to thrive in the post-pandemic B2B world. Also giving your buyers the flexibility to buy from anywhere, anytime using handy mobile devices goes a long way in boosting customer engagement and eventually conversions when you build solutions to leverage B2B ecommerce for distributors.

Along with offering mobile solutions to your customers, your brand should also have buy buttons on other touchpoints like social channels and any other touchpoint specific to your business vertical.

StoreHippo is built on decoupled headless architecture and offers an API-first approach. With StoreHippo you can easily build new frontends using the same backend logic and APIs. Also, StoreHippo offers a built-in mobile apps builder that can be used to build Android and iOS mobile apps.

All B2B marketplaces powered by StoreHippo are PWAs which means they look, feel and work like mobile apps when opened in a browser. StoreHippo also offers a mobile admin app for your admin teams, ecommerce wholesale suppliers and distributors. 

With StoreHippo’s M-commerce solutions for enterprise marketplaces, you can build a multi-channel presence, engage your buyers better and make channel-buyer-market-specific strategies to boost sales.

Optimize And Enhance Product Listings

B2B buying experiences are increasingly becoming like B2C. Enterprise buyers can no longer be engaged and retained by boring, glued-together experiences. B2B buyers now focus on immersive B2C-like experiences where they can research and understand the desired product or service easily even on ecommerce wholesale distributors based marketplaces.

While you have a rich catalog and a wide network of ecommerce wholesale suppliers it is essential to ensure that your product listings are detailed, accurate, and optimized with relevant keywords. High-quality images, videos, detailed descriptions, key features highlighted and adding FAQ can significantly enhance product visibility and attract more customers.

Additionally, add user reviews and ratings, voice search-based keyword query strings, product-relevant URLs, advanced and granular search filters etc. to improve visibility and searchability. Use descriptive titles, high-quality images, detailed product descriptions, and relevant keywords to attract the attention of B2B buyers browsing the platform.

StoreHippo enterprise marketplace solutions come with built-in customizable design themes and drag-and-drop tools that help in building immersive experiences for buyers on B2B marketplaces. 

Built-in SEO features and search filters help with product visibility and discoverability and offer easy navigation which eventually leads to faster negotiations and conversions. 360-degree product views and provision for adding product videos further help in explaining product features and USPs easily. Provision for adding user-based reviews and ratings further helps with organic ranking and product discoverability on the Distributor-based B2B marketplace.

Tiered  Pricing Strategies

B2B prices are personalized based on several factors like order volume, order frequency, client-dealer relationships, buyer location and more. Implementing tiered pricing strategies can significantly boost sales on distributor ecommerce marketplaces.

When your enterprise brand displays tiered pricing you can do away with a few rounds of negotiations and close sales faster.  Also, strategically devising and displaying tiered pricing can significantly boost ticket sizes. 

Further offering clients personalized discounts on tiered multi-pricing structures or incentives based on order quantity or customer loyalty can seal a deal faster. Having tiered pricing options on your B2B ecommerce wholesale distributors marketplace you can further nudge buyers towards incentivised bulk purchases, encourage larger order sizes, and foster long-term relationships with buyers. 

Tiered prices are a sure-shot way of not only increasing sales volume but also enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty which eventually drives growth and boosts revenue on the B2B marketplace platform.

StoreHippo offers multiple ways to implement tiered pricing. While brands can directly display multi-pricing based on volume they can also implement differential pricing through personalized discounts and coupons. Ecommerce for distributors can be further simplified by offering distributor or product-line-based discounts. Enterprise marketplaces can also implement login-based multi-pricing where different regular or premium members are shown different pricing on the distributor ecommerce marketplace.

Advanced Search Filters and Product Discovery

An enterprise marketplace usually has thousands if not millions of products. It certainly isn’t a good idea to let your clients roam clueless in the big bazaar searching for their desired products, sellers etc. 

A well-built ecommerce wholesale suppliers’ marketplace should always make it easy for its clients to search and buy products. Building multi-tier hierarchical categories, making best selling products easy to discover by strategic placement on the home page, advanced sorting options, and filters based on price, color etc. go a long way in simplifying product discoverability and hence reduce search time and shorten overall sales cycle.

Additionally, integrating with tools that show personalized product bundles, related products, trending items etc. can further boost Distributor B2B marketplace sales. This also helps in cross-selling and upselling products sold by various ecommerce wholesale distributors on the marketplace.

StoreHippo not only offers hierarchical product category options but also has built-in search and advanced filter options to make buying easy on B2B Marketplace websites. Brands can also use product bundling, upselling, cross-selling and other built-in features to boost orders.

With easy-API-based integrations, enterprise distributor marketplace websites can also integrate with best-of-breed marketing tools to send real-time notifications and nudge buyers towards exploring more products which eventually can lead to boosted ticket size and upselling. 

The built-in wishlist feature also helps brand owners get better insights into customer behavior and preferences and enables them to sell better.

Implement Self-Serviced Buying

B2B used to be driven by salespersons who helped clients with multiple rounds of negotiations. However, trends clearly show modern buyers prefer unassisted self-service options and want to connect with sales reps only in the later stages when they are about to close the deal.

Implementing an independent, self-explanatory, transparent self-service system that offers different forms to gather buyer requirements on a distributor-based B2B marketplace goes a long way in enhancing buyer engagement and eventually conversions on an ecommerce wholesale distributors enterprise marketplace. 

Along with this enabling real-time stock visibility, user account for tracking orders, wishlist etc, access to relevant help documents, product guides, etc help in the buyer journey. Also adding RFQ, MOQ, pricing comparison etc. helps buyers make informed decisions, further speeding up the ordering process and eventually boosting sales. 

This kind of transparent and self-service-based B2B ecommerce for distributors fosters trust and confidence in the marketplace platform, leading to increased loyalty and repeat business from buyers.

A self-service B2B ecommerce set-up also reduces the burden on support and sales teams and helps them engage in more effective and strategic tasks that further contribute to business growth. 

StoreHippo comes with built-in RFQ, MOQ and form builder features that help automate the order process on B2B marketplaces. StoreHippo also offers an admin dashboard for buyers wherein they can keep track of all their orders and access their wishlisted products, track orders and review old orders.

StoreHippo enables you to add multiple features that not only enhance the overall shopping experience but also make it easier for ecommerce wholesale suppliers to streamline operations, and ultimately drive better sales on your distributor-based B2B marketplace.

Build Distributor and Location-based Sub-Stores

Targeted marketing is an often-used strategy to amplify sales. One of the most popular B2B approaches to implement targeted marketing effectively is to build dealer or location-based B2B marketplace sub-stores. This tried-and-tested approach enables your enterprise brand to tailor offerings to the needs and preferences of specific customer segments and eventually yields higher ROI.

Building product lines or distributor-based sub-stores enhances the accessibility and relevance of products to buyers in specific regions or product verticals. Dedicated sub-stores for individual distributors or geographical locations enable your brand to curate catalogs based on local demand trends, regional or cultural preferences and industry needs. This micro detailing enables your distributors to enhance the relevance and appeal of their offerings, leading to higher conversion rates and sales through the B2B marketplace’s location-based sub-stores.

Also, sub-stores enable your distributors to leverage their expertise in local markets and customer behavior to build long standing relationships with local buyers that further drive sales and buyer satisfaction. It can also help your distributors in building partnerships with other local businesses which can become your ancillary service providers thus giving an even more customer-centric appeal to your ecommerce wholesale suppliers and distributors.

Building sub-stores for your white label marketplace also standardized your distributors' processes and helps in maintaining brand consistency which eventually leads to better sales. Having central control of all your distributors' sales, orders, inventory etc. enables you to make strategic business moves for better sales.

StoreHippo not only enables brands to build white label B2B marketplace but it also has a built-in multi store feature to build multiple sub-stores managed by a common central admin. Brands can build and customize the look and feel as well as the inventory, payment options, shipping solutions and more on each sub store. 

Your ecommerce wholesale suppliers can each have their store designed to local preferences and add different discounts, seasonal themes, differential pricing etc as per their local market conditions. You can also have sub stores in different languages to connect better with native language speakers. 

StoreHippo also offers built-in support to build different mobile apps for each substore.

Create Personalized Landing Pages and Deals

No customer can resist the lure of promotions and personalized deals. And B2B buyers are no different. 

Sample some stats:

• 1.4x revenue growth in B2B sales can be achieved with personalization 
• 20% increase in user engagement with personalized B2B marketing
• 75% of B2B buyers prefer personalized recommendations from vendors 
• 59% of B2B decision-makers believe vendors must personalize their buyer’s journey

Source: Gartner, Gitnux

While B2B deals always have an element of personalization, now buyers expect B2B marketplace negotiations to be more personalized, making it easier for buyers to find relevant products and information and connect with the best-fit distributor quickly.

Offering personalized promotional landing pages and deals on your distributor ecommerce marketplace leads to higher engagement and increased satisfaction, ultimately translating into more sales.

Personalized landing pages and deals have a higher probability of increasing conversion rates as they resonate with specific buyer needs and put out catalogs in a more organized and easy-to-search manner. Top it up with relevant deals tailored to your buyers’  needs and you have a recipe for success. 

Creating personalized landing pages and deals helps you leverage the maximum potential of ecommerce for distributors and create a niche for your enterprise brand.

StoreHippo comes with a built-in discount engine that enables B2B brands to offer a variety of discounts and coupons at the product level, cart level or any other parameter. With built-in design tools and easy-to-build dynamic marketing pages, B2B brands can quickly build and launch different promotional landing pages for their deals and offers. StoreHippo also supports multilingual themes to help you personalize your promotional pages in multiple languages which further boosts engagement and conversions for ecommerce wholesale suppliers’ location-specific sub-stores.

Payment Flexibility

One sure-shot way to scale your B2B marketplace is to offer flexible payment options to your buyers. In the competitive B2B world, giving your buyers the choice of easy and flexible payment options is like offering on-the-spot financing which promotes high-volume orders.

Reports suggest that 82% of B2B buyers are more likely to buy from a brand offering flexible payment terms and multiple payment options. In the offline B2B world, payment cycles usually vary between 30-90 days. With bulk orders and large payment amounts, flexible payments are an absolute must-have feature. Offering flexibility to pay strengthens buyer-seller relationships and trust and eventually leads to better sales.

By reducing financial constraints for your buyers and ensuring a long-term relationship backed by the guarantee of your enterprise marketplace, you can help your ecommerce wholesale suppliers to get bigger orders from clients across diverse markets.

Having multiple payment options also differentiates your business from competitors and gives your brand word-of-mouth publicity. Streamlined payments with a focus on multiple digital payment options and provision for store credit simplifies ecommerce for distributors. On one hand such a set up ensures your distributors get partial payments instantly, on the other hand, buyers can use the extended payment period to make payments as and when the funds are available. 

StoreHippo comes with a broad spectrum of payment solutions which includes digital payment options like net banking, credit and debit card-based online payments, UPI, payment wallets and also the provision for COD.

With StoreHippo you get 60+ pre-integrated domestic and international payment gateways to enable frictionless checkouts on your B2B marketplace. 

StoreHippo also offers complete wallet management solutions using which you can add store wallet and use it for storing cashbacks, loyalty rewards, refund points, cash back etc. You can also manage full or partial refunds seamlessly using these store wallets.

Play on Branding, Monitor Performance and Improvise

Though offering personalised buying options, self-service features, and seamless payments are crucial for B2B marketplace success, building a robust brand presence and adapting processes to evolving buyer demands and market dynamics are equally essential. 

A consistent brand image not only enhances customer experience but also fosters trust and loyalty, positioning your distributor-based wholesale marketplace for sustained growth in the competitive and dynamic B2B environment.

While it is important to invest in multi-channel branding initiatives to differentiate your B2B marketplace’s offerings and build brand recognition, it is equally important to keep adding new features and tweaking your buyer journeys to make them resemble the ease and convenience of B2C buying. 

Develop compelling personalized content, engage with customers on social media and other channels, and participate in offline and online industry events to establish your brand as a trusted authority in your niche.

Also, your distributor e-commerce marketplace website should have access to handy analytics, key performance metrics, best selling products, star-performing distributors and customer feedback to understand how your brand is performing and what are the areas to improve. By giving you a clear report of the overall performance of your business this initiative helps you improvise your business strategy and align it for better sales.

StoreHippo comes with comprehensive whitelabel multi vendor marketplace solutions for enterprise brands enabling them to customize and rebrand the marketplace software for better market presence. Built-on next gen technology and MACH architecture StoreHippo gives you the creative freedom and agility to implement new changes on your distributor ecommerce marketplace to stay aligned with changing market dynamics.

StoreHippo also offers a built-in blog engine for creating extensive content for strong branding. Using the easy customization features of StoreHippo you can also create help center content for your buyers and ecommerce wholesale suppliers.

StoreHippo also comes with a built-in reporting engine that gives you a complete overview of your business, best selling products etc. You can also use the API-based integrations to seamlessly integrate with Google Analytics or other similar solutions to understand buyer behavior better within your B2B ecommerce for distributors set up. You can also integrate your preferred ERP, accounting, marketing and logistics solutions to streamline your overall operations.

Stellar Communications and Support

All things said and done, the success of your enterprise marketplace heavily depends on the way you project your brand and how your sellers and salespersons communicate with your buyers.

Sample some data to validate the fact.

• 78% of B2B customers are more likely to purchase from a B2B company offering excellent customer service
• 84% of B2B customers who experience good customer service from a brand recommend it to others 
• 89% of B2B buyers will switch vendors after just one negative experience

Source: McKinsey & Company, The Harris Poll

Providing wow customer service is not a choice, it's the only way to make your B2B ecommerce for distributors a market leader.

Also, with the rise in preference for self-service, you need to have a 24x7 assistance system in place to cater to queries raised by buyers on your distributor ecommerce marketplace. This ensures prompt resolution of buyer queries which oftentimes leads to shorter sales cycles and faster ordering. Also, having a way to get instant problem resolution fosters trust and loyalty while driving sales. 

While you can automate certain queries with live chat or chatbots, some queries might require the direct involvement of sellers. So always put a chat system in place where the buyers can connect with sellers to get their queries answered. Also, incorporate multi-channel customer support on your ecommerce wholesale suppliers marketplace to build a customer-centric brand which eventually leads to heightened customer loyalty and sales.

StoreHippo enables you to integrate with the best email helpdesk software, chatbots, voice calling and live chat software to offer multi-channel support. StoreHippo also has a built-in 3-way chat system where buyers-seller-admin can chat to answer client queries raised on the B2B marketplace.

Conclusion

Building and running a successful B2B ecommerce for distributors set up takes a lot of effort and strategic planning. Designing a user-friendly B2B marketplace platform to enable your distributors to sell efficiently and independently needs thorough planning, an advanced enterprise marketplace solution and data-driven strategies that attract, engage, convert and retain your customers.

Additionally, your brand needs to create an environment where your ecommerce wholesale suppliers can easily form strong relationships with customers, get handy tools to implement effective marketing strategies and get periodic updates and upgrades that keep them abreast of industry trends.  

To achieve all of the above your distributor ecommerce marketplace needs a powerful and comprehensive B2B marketplace solution like StoreHippo. With a host of built-in B2B features, support for enterprise B2B marketplace websites and apps, seamless integrations, multi store feature, support for diverse business models (D2C, B2C, B2B2C, hyperlocal and hybrid ecommerce) and 300+ enterprise-grade features StoreHippo offers a 360-degree solution to build, run and grow your distributor ecommerce business.

Ready to explore how StoreHippo empowers your B2B marketplace with distributor ecommerce set up to grow to new heights of success? Check out how StoreHippo can transform your business. Sign up for a free demo right away!