The sales ecosystem has spilled over to craft a new model - B2B2C ecommerce.
Ecommerce is expanding to new markets and sectors creating widespread disruption. And business-to-business-to-consumer setup is the engine behind the crazy growth of many enterprises.
With different channels merging, and newer solutions coming up, it has been tough for enterprise brands to keep up with the fast-paced changes in the ecommerce landscape.
To avoid stagnation and missed opportunities in a rapidly changing market enterprise brands can pivot to the B2B2C ecommerce model and draft a success saga aligned with the times and trends.
Wondering how? Well, it's simple.
You need an enterprise ecommerce platform with the right features and tools to help you ace the game.
Let us first sample a few insights on B2B2C solutions:
- 25.49% of enterprise brands have already shifted to a B2B2C model
- 39.22% of manufacturers are currently making efforts to adopt the B2B2C model
- 42.3% of brands’ second main sales channel was B2B2C
Source: Copperberg
The above data clearly spills the facts for us, there is no doubt that the B2B2C ecommerce business model is key to staying updated with the changing buyer needs.
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How to grow your business with B2B2C solutions
As you combine the expertise of B2B and B2C to create an enterprise brand, you can offer your customers a highly personalized and engaging user experience. Wondering what makes us say so?
Here is a list of benefits of building a B2B2C enterprise ecommerce platform for your business:
- Unlock new revenue opportunities with both B2B and B2C sales channels
- Widen your audience base by partnering with new retailer/distributor networks
- Boost sales by leveraging the existing dealer network to quickly reach retail buyers
- Expand brand exposure and recognition by garnering better customer support
- Easily cross-sell and upsell by creating a fluid sales channel that intersects both B2B and B2C sellers
- Reduce CapEx and other overhead costs by leveraging the infrastructure provided by the parent company
The winning strategy for all businesses - going B2B2C. However, the complex business solution also comes with its own set of challenges that can be easily avoided. The answer to your how lies in powering your business with the right ecommerce platform that offers unique features and solutions for your B2B2C ecommerce business.
7 Non-negotiable features in your B2B2C enterprise ecommerce platform
Enterprise businesses need robust and unique solutions to carve a niche for themselves. And when it comes to building a B2B2C platform, you need to facilitate your brand with the right technology. Let us look at the must-have features in your B2B2C ecommerce platform.
Features to handle both B2B and B2C business
It goes without saying that your B2B2C business needs features to handle complex requirements. As the B2B model is combined with the B2C working, the needs are still diverse, just combined. Integrating the functionalities of both B2B and B2C requires strategic planning and careful execution. Lack of synchronization between inventory management, pricing, and order processing for both wholesale and retail customers can take a toll on your business. An ecommerce solution that can handle the needs of both B2B and B2C businesses is, therefore, the first and foremost need to build a successful B2B2C enterprise ecommerce platform.
To put a stop to all your worries, enter StoreHippo. Designed on the MACH (Microsoft, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture, StoreHippo gives inherent flexibility and scalability to build tailor-made solutions for the unique needs of your business. You can also tweak the platform inside out and create new entities without having to disrupt the entire ecosystem. StoreHippo comes with built-in support for both B2B and B2C business models to help you carry out your business seamlessly.
The end-to-end vendor management solution from StoreHippo creates a separate vendor dashboard on your B2B2C marketplace for each seller that enables the vendors/partner businesses to manage their businesses seamlessly. The dashboard gives complete solutions to manage products, inventory, orders, and shipping.
Future-ready tech
As the market dynamics shift day to day, you need to be prepared for what might happen in the ecommerce landscape in the coming years. You might want to scale your business vertically or horizontally, but without a future-ready tech solution, you limit your growth. A futuristic ecommerce solution helps you expand your product/service line, add more sellers, grow your customer base, etc. It is a good idea to invest in a solution that can support you with various models like multi seller, multi store etc.
StoreHippo enterprise ecommerce platform offers a secure and scalable cloud infrastructure that can help you grow your business on multiple fronts. Built on the decoupled headless architecture StoreHippo gives your business better creative control and flexibility to create out-of-box solutions across multiple touchpoints. Microservices enhance resilience by making it easy to isolate faults and make room for better software management. API-based architecture makes it easy to build innovative solutions by integrating the best-in-breed software and tools.
Ace your B2B2C business by scaling to any number of users, platforms, pages, products, etc. StoreHippo offers peak load tolerance even when your traffic soars high. The plug-and-play solution from StoreHippo does not require you to pay extra for additional apps or extensions to experiment with various hybrid business models. StoreHippo comes with 300+ built-in features enabling you to quickly launch, pivot, and scale your business using one single platform.
Segmentation and personalization
As 60% of the customers are willing to repeat their choice of brand if the brand offers a personalized shopping experience, personalization is the main ingredient in your recipe to customers’ hearts. However, offering personalization at multiple levels in a B2B2C marketplace can be challenging. Catering to the needs of different audience segments to keep them hinged to your brand is not easy. Wondering what you can do about it? What about segmenting your audiences into groups and offering multi-level personalization on your platform?
StoreHippo ecommerce solution is built on a decoupled headless architecture that helps you implement multi-level personalizations. You can segment the buyers and create multiple sub-stores to cater to unique needs like location-based, product-based or audience-based stores with StoreHippo multi-store ecommerce solutions. You can offer multi-level personalized discounts to your customers with StoreHippo’s powerful discount engine. StoreHippo also enables you to seamlessly customize your B2B2C ecommerce business’s shipping solutions, logistics partners, digital payments etc.
Omnichannel ecommerce
Make sure you are able to chart an omnichannel ecommerce strategy for your business. Why? Well, the buyers even on B2B2C platforms prefer to connect on at least 4-5 different channels, mobile being the top most preferred channel, before making a purchase decision. Yes, with 80% of the orders coming through smartphones, making your brand’s presence felt on various channels has become a must. Also, did you know that mobile shopping often leads to bigger ticket sizes? It's time to look for features that make it easy to create a seamless buying journey on every platform for your B2B2C ecommerce business.
StoreHippo offers a ready-to-use omnichannel ecommerce solution that helps you create a seamless user experience on multiple channels. With 300+ API points, you can quickly create multiple touchpoints using the same backend logic and APIs. Built on mobile-first technology, StoreHippo offers multiple mobile-ready solutions. You can build your Android or iOS B2B2C mobile app directly from your admin dashboard at zero additional costs. You can build multiple apps for different sub-stores, and also get apps for admins, vendors, delivery boys, etc. to handle business on the go. The B2B2C ecommerce online stores you build with StoreHippo are PWA stores that look, feel, and work like mobile apps even on entry-level devices.
Seamless integrations
Managing a B2B2C business can be tough because of the lack of the right software and tools. To seamlessly carry your business and manage multi-level business operations, you need features that allow you to integrate with third-party software in just a few steps. With a large-volume enterprise business to run, you can not keep worrying about integrations as well. When you implement the B2B2C set up both the B2B and B2C businesses might require additional software to work in tandem.
StoreHippo enterprise ecommerce platform offers 150+ pre-integrated solutions to help you seamlessly integrate with your preferred software and service providers in just a few easy steps. The 300+ API points enable you to integrate with the best-in-class solutions to manage your business operations without any hindrance. You can seamlessly integrate with your choice of software like ERP, CRM, accounting, marketing, logistics, or payments solutions using StoreHippo solutions.
Frictionless payments and streamlined deliveries
Two most important things for your customers - safe and secure payments and quick deliveries.
Be it a B2B buyer, a B2C buyer, or a B2B2C ecommerce buyer, they all look for the same thing. As you offer a safe, secure,and frictionless payment process, you build your customers' trust. And as you streamline quick deliveries, you gain your buyer's loyalty. Isn't it a win-win situation? You can also personalize your payment options for different devices or locations l and shipping solutions for offering added convenience to your customers.
StoreHippo ecommerce solutions come with 60+ pre-integrated domestic and international payment gateways for you to choose from. You can integrate multiple payment options like UPI, digital wallets, net banking, store credits, etc. for your customers to opt for their preferred payment option. You can also offer personalized payment gateways on your enterprise ecommerce platform based on your customer's location. StoreHippo supports payment in multiple currencies to enable you to take your business beyond borders.
StoreHippo also comes with 30+ pre-integrated shipping solutions to help you offer a seamless delivery solution to your customers. You can also optimize the charges by offering multiple shipping solutions on your B2B2C ecommerce platform from StoreHippo or by integrating a local delivery partner of your choice. With the inbuilt delivery boy solution from StoreHippo, you can manage your own fleet of delivery boys seamlessly and ensure faster deliveries on your B2B2C marketplace.
Marketing and analytics
The marketing approach for a B2B2C business can be complex. You need feature-rich marketing tools that allow you to implement different marketing strategies and cater to multiple audience segments. To target the B2C buyers, you need more real-time interactions, continuous offers, quick deliveries, etc. which in turn keep the flow of customers coming in. The B2B buyers, however, are more inclined towards personalized deals and offers. With the right set of tools like analytics, you can quickly access rich customer data and implement marketing approaches based on the needs of your buyers.
StoreHippo enterprise ecommerce platform comes with a host of marketing tools that help you analyze your customer segmentation, make data-centric marketing strategies, and implement them seamlessly. You can send personalized notifications to your customers, recover abandoned carts, offer customized discounts, coupons, etc. The StoreHippo platform is an SEO-friendly ecommerce platform that helps you rank higher on SERPS. You can also create a brand image for your B2B2C ecommerce business with the in-built blog engine from StoreHippo. With the reporting and analytical tools from StoreHippo, you can understand your buyer personas and choose the most befitting marketing approach for your B2B2C ecommerce brand.
Conclusion
One of the most versatile business models, B2B2C has become the way forward for many enterprise brands. To hack the growth and ace the B2B2C ecommerce game, you need access to battle-tested features and tools. A robust, future-ready ecommerce platform that offers a multitude of features for the smooth functioning of business operations, is exactly what you need for your enterprise business needs. We have listed here a few non-negotiable features that you should look for in your enterprise ecommerce platform.
StoreHippo is a 360-degree B2B2C ecommerce platform that offers enterprise-grade features to align the needs of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer business models. StoreHippo has in-built B2B and B2C solutions that offer flexibility and opportunity to take your business on an upward growth trajectory.
Are you all set to combine the B2B and B2C models of businesses to carve a niche for your business with StoreHippo? Explore the 300+ built-in features by starting your 14-day free trial now.
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