B2B ecommerce is growing at a 200% faster rate than B2C ecommerce and it shows no sign of slowing down. With this tremendous success and growth rate, most of the wholesalers are taking the ecommerce route to expand their business.
But is going online enough?
No, just creating an online store is not enough, you need a B2B ecommerce software that supports all your business needs.
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What is B2B ecommerce software?
B2B landscape is shifting quickly from the brick and mortar to e commerce bandwagon but wholesale business management and B2B marketing comes with its own set of challenges. This is where the role of B2B ecommerce software comes into the play.
A B2B ecommerce platform with right features and functionalities eases the process of selling, marketing and distributing products and services between businesses using an online portal. The platform offers a complete set up to start your online B2B store, run wholesale business online, market and manage it well. This solution is much bigger in scale as compared to B2C platforms and also offers unique B2B features to handle the unique workflows of large-scale businesses.
Must-have features of a powerful B2B ecommerce platform
The tremendous growth of the B2B industry has made the wholesale businesses very keen to explore the online world. With the reshaping industry and changing customer expectations, going online can promote better business exposure to new customer segments, rapid growth, offer huge savings in operating costs, and much more.
Now, when you know the importance of B2B ecommerce software for your wholesale business. It is the time to understand the key B2B features you need to manage the show for wholesale businesses.
The top 5 features you should check before choosing your B2B ecommerce software
1. Account personalization
In this era of personalization, B2B customers also expect high-level user experience just like B2C. Over 73% of B2B executives said that the expectations of customers for personalized experiences are much higher than they were before a few years (Source: Accenture). So, it is vital to make the user experience engaging, interactive, and highly personalized. If you are wondering what to personalize and how?
Account personalization is the key here. It is basically the process of personalizing the content according to preferences and characteristics of specific buyers. It drives excellent sales and also helps you to learn better about your target B2B markets. StoreHippo B2B ecommerce software allows you to implement a host of personalized offers for your customers. Let’s understand how the platform drives personalization.
Email personalization
Send personalized content to grab their attention right away. It is done using the previous search history, customer name, account history from CRM
Website personalization
Create custom web experience for every visitor with the website personalization features of B2B ecommerce software
Nurture program
Strengthen your customer relationships and nurture the leads for better business outcomes. With StoreHippo, you can send data enriched emails to the B2B customers who have researched a product and then left the site
2. Simple payment process
This is the era of abundant information where buyers can easily search what they need, compare prices, find easy online buying options, and much more. But often, they feel confused with the wide range of choices.
B2B transactions are equally overwhelming as it comprises several people, filling out various paper forms, and frequently contacting them via emails, phone calls and in-person meetings. Now, it is the responsibility of B2B ecommerce businesses to make the purchase process simple while speeding up their buying decisions.
An enterprise platform with the right set of B2B features can do the job here. The B2B platform offers seamless payment options to customers. It helps them reduce abandoned carts and increase the number of returning customers. StoreHippo offers multiple payment gateways such as PayU, cc Avenue, Paytm etc. for your B2B business to simplify online payments.
3. Facilitated customer interactions
Another important milestone to improve the B2B buying journey is the customer interactions. The engaged customers are more likely to be loyal to your brand in the long term. But it requires a high-level digital capability to manage interactions at multiple customer touchpoints.
Insight enriched relationship
It is important to know your customers inside out, key factors that drive their buying decisions, purpose of their purchase, and more. StoreHippo B2B ecommerce software allows you to use the deep customer insights to guide B2B interactions with them at every stage, be it marketing, product design, etc.
Once the customer stays on the website, make it easier for them to communicate. This can be done by automating the entire purchase process from ordering to fulfilment to customer service to operational requirements.
Omnichannel integration
Support the customer’s choice of preferred communication channel whether it is phone, online chat, or email. The right set of B2B features offered by StoreHippo ensures that consistent user experience is offered across all channels. It also backs your website with live chat service and push notifications to enhance customer engagement.
4. Simplify ordering process
Ordering process is the lifeline of B2B companies. If you cannot simplify the ordering process for your customers, there is no sense of making efforts in other business functions. As a B2B business owner, your aim should be to empower your customers to perform self-service actions such as order products, arrange shipping, and check out their orders without any complications.
But you need specific B2B features in the ecommerce platform to simplify the ordering process with automated marketing, easy online payments, robust search capabilities, and more. Like, StoreHippo offers these integrations along with bulk order processing features where you have the ease to process hundreds of orders in one go.
5. Capture the future with mobile commerce
Over 70% of B2B queries are made on smartphones. Clearly, mobile commerce is not only limited to B2C now. If your enterprise is not ready for mobile devices and apps, you are about to lose a huge number of potential buyers.
StoreHippo B2B ecommerce software is built on mobile-first technology and performs seamlessly on all mobile devices. The online stores powered by StoreHippo are PWA, which means, when you open the site in any browser on any device, it looks, feels and functions like a native mobile app. You can also build mobile apps for your wholesale business without any additional cost or efforts. Start empowering the mobile buying experience of your B2B buyers to achieve higher checkout conversion and more sales.
Why is StoreHippo the most powerful B2B ecommerce software for your business?
If we look around, there are limited business websites that offer features to deepen customer relationships, drive sales, simplify online transactions. But the companies that are improving the digital shopping experience are reaping big returns. Amazon Business is one of the best examples here. Amazon Business has pushed its way into the B2B space in a similar strategy they have employed for B2C: create a scalable platform for buyers and sellers to sell/buy, learn, compare, and grow.
If you are also looking to achieve big-time success, you will need a powerful ecommerce platform with the right set of B2B features for your wholesale business. StoreHippo has you covered for all your enterprise business needs. The enterprise-grade features offered by StoreHippo deliver the best-in-class results for your B2B ecommerce business. The gamut of rich tools offered by StoreHippo includes marketing, advanced search, customizable themes, analytics, and much more. The ecommerce platform does not only offer the latest features but also help you with a wide variety of tools to help you implement all the features mentioned above.
Ready to grow and take your wholesale business to new peaks of success. Don’t wait anymore, explore the B2B features by starting your free online trial store today.
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