Why Build A B2B Online Shop
Before we answer the most often asked question, how to set up a B2B online store, we need to understand why the wholesale and enterprise businesses have suddenly decided to take the ecommerce route. To begin with, let us consider some facts and figures.
Studies suggest that 74% of buyers research more than half of their B2B purchases online. Also, more than 50% of B2B buyers plan to make half of their purchases on online wholesale stores in the coming 3 years.
It is more than evident that the B2C experiences have conditioned the modern B2B buyers to seek the same ease of shopping when they are dealing with manufacturers, distributors, brand owners and retailers. So, it is imperative for the traditional brick and mortar wholesale businesses to start planning for their B2B ecommerce website development.
How To Set Up A B2B Online Store In 10 Simple Steps
B2B ecommerce website development can be a challenge and take months or years if you get stuck with an inexperienced development company. To speed up and simplify the process of going online, StoreHippo offers fully hosted and managed, turnkey B2B solutions for wholesale and enterprise businesses.
Here is the step by step guide to help you create a B2B online store for your enterprise-grade business. Let us get started:
Step 1: Define your business goals and what you wish to achieve by going online
Step 2: List down how your online store will help your clients, manufacturers, distributors, vendors and your various teams
Step 3: Chalk out your workflows, process automation and probable use cases for handling clients
Step 4: How to set up a B2B online store easily depends on your choice of B2B ecommerce solution. Opt for StoreHippo B2B ecommerce platform to build your website in less than a month.
Step 5: Choose a theme from the themes library to offer B2C like buying experience to your clients. Extensively customize the theme or the backend entities to cater to your unique requirements.
Step 6: Integrate custom software or choose from pre-integrated solution for payment gateways, shipping partners, CRM, ERP etc. Automate order and product management to make processes more efficient.
Step 7: Add custom forms, Request a quote, product enquiry etc to speed up the ordering process. Set up pricing overrides, build your product catalogues to display products.
Step 8: Get your mobile apps for Android and iOS right from your admin panel. If you are wondering how to set up a B2B online store for entry-level phones, you are covered as all stores build on StoreHippo are PWA. These stores look, feel and work like hybrid mobile apps on all devices.
Step 9: Use the SEO friendly features of the platform to optimize your website and start getting more organic traffic.
Step 10: Start using inbuilt marketing tools to promote your site. Go live after testing your site thoroughly.
That is it, you now have a fully functional business to business online store to conquer new markets. Start promoting it among your existing buyers and you are set to win the ecommerce battle.
How To Set Up A B2B Online Store To Beat Your Competition
StoreHippo best B2B ecommerce platform not only helps you in creating your online store in the fastest possible way but also helps you take a lead. The next-generation technology and 300+ inbuilt tools allow you to take advantage of the ecommerce boom and reach new markets.
Following is the 5-point list to help you grow your business and be a market leader. Here is what you need to do:
Optimize For M-commerce
More than 70% of B2B product searches begin online. Mobile is where your customers are. StoreHippo is built on mobile-first approach and helps you leverage the technology to engage and convert your customers on mobile devices. Build your mobile apps and reach a wider audience base. With PWA stores you are covered even on slow internet connections and entry-level smartphones.
Personalize User Experience
Even if you have solved the biggest question of how to set up a B2B online store, you need to refine user experience to grow your business. StoreHippo offers extensive customization to help you create login based landing pages, IP based pricing overrides and device-based themes to give a memorable and personalised user experience to build customer trust and loyalty.
Personalize Your Marketing
With StoreHippo you can take personalization many notches higher and offer special deals and discounts to each of your customers. Personalize your pricing based on their order history and retarget them with real-time notifications and other inbuilt marketing tools.
Build Brand Value With Content
B2B works a lot differently than B2C and to build your brand value you will have to offer customer-centric content to your clients. StoreHippo offers a powerful blog engine, ability to build dynamic pages, public case studies, video testimonials, product reviews and rating etc. to help you build rich content.
Help Your Distributors and Suppliers
StoreHippo not only takes care of your concern about how to set up a B2B online store but also helps you manage your distributors, suppliers and various teams easily. You can opt for the advanced ecommerce solutions like multi-vendor ecommerce, multi-store website etc. and implement granular user roles to manage your daily business and various stakeholders. This goes a long way in creating organizational efficiency and better operations.
Why StoreHippo Is The Best Platform To Create A B2B Ecommerce Website
So, now we know that taking an enterprise business online and staying ahead of the competition is really easy when you choose StoreHippo, the best B2B ecommerce platform.
Our inherently scalable ecommerce platform offers the ideal solution for wholesale businesses aspiring to register fast growth. The inherent flexibility of the platform makes it easily customizable inside out and adapt to various use cases.
So, you got a detailed answer to your query on how to set up a B2B online store. Didn’t you? Now take the next step and build your B2B ecommerce website to rule the market. Before you go check our guide on how to create a B2B Ecommerce website and explore StoreHippo platform by starting your 14-day free trial now.
