Why B2B Ecommerce Website Development is essential for large businesses
With 93% of business to business buyers preferring online purchase over buying from a salesperson, opting for B2B ecommerce website development is more of a necessity rather than an option for large businesses.
Going online not only opens up a new sales channel for enterprise businesses but it also makes it possible to reach new markets. And that too at relatively much less cost and effort. B2B ecommerce solutions help in building a customer-friendly portal that can be further optimized to grow organic traffic.
By crafting a memorable user experience through customized landing pages, case-studies, personalized content, pricing overrides, product reviews etc. wholesale businesses can easily influence the purchase decisions of their buyers.
Also, B2B ecommerce website development helps to make the sales cycle quicker by incorporating various forms that shorten the query process.
The challenges of B2B Ecommerce Website Development
The decision to start a B2B online shop can give a boost to your business. However, this can be possible only if you go with the right solution provider and build a portal that minimizes your business complexities by automating the processes.
The complexities of the B2B model need a well-thought and customized solution that can handle the processes seamlessly. Some of the issues that most solution providers fail to handle well are:
Finding the right technology
B2B ecommerce website development has to be done with a future-ready technology that can easily change according to the growing demands of the market. It should offer a scalable solution given the large volume of orders in wholesale businesses. Also, an outdated technology that doesn’t offer mobile-ready solutions can be a deterrent as we know that customers prefer searching and buying products on the go.
Implementing customer specific pricing
B2B client relationships are cultivated and nurtured over time. Also, each client has different requirements and hence they need to be given a unique deal and pricing. The inability to implement customer-specific pricing solutions can be a major barrier in your growth. Look out for B2B ecommerce website development that helps you to implement customer-specific pricing.
Adding multiple product lines or brands on single portal
Enterprise businesses usually deal in a large number of product lines, brands, distributors, manufacturers, vendors etc. To bring them all together and yet manage them individually without any flow-breaks can be really challenging.
Difficulty implementing B2B and B2C models together
Wholesale and large businesses are no longer only about dull sites with lots of forms. The B2B model now incorporates many elements of B2C like beautiful site design, personalization, advanced search and browsing etc. Also, while the focus is on B2B ecommerce website development, businesses might want to channelise their sales through B2C in future. If this aspect is not implemented right from the start, adding it later can be a momentous task.
Time-consuming customizations
Business to business model has its unique requirements, flows and hence customizations. Also, based on the client and market requirements these changes need to be implemented really quickly. Getting stuck with time-consuming changes and customizations can cost you business opportunities and sales.
Inability to have rapid and seamless integrations
B2B ecommerce website development needs to work on a framework that facilitates rapid and seamless integrations related to ERP, CRM, logistics, payment gateways and any other software that makes the processes faster and seamless. In the absence of such integrations, you would be stuck with a rigid portal that needs lots of manual work.
Lack of go global solutions
The ultimate aim of an enterprise business is to reach new markets and establish their brand as a leader. To do this your portal should have features and tools that support your venture into global markets. If your B2B ecommerce website development lacks these features you will have to migrate or rebuild your portal.
It is important to consider these barriers right at the beginning and try to find a solution for them. Going with a customizable B2B ecommerce platform can solve many of these troubling issues.
How StoreHippo offers easy solution to the challenges B2B Ecommerce Website Development
StoreHippo B2B ecommerce platform has inbuilt solutions to handle all these challenges for wholesale businesses. The comprehensive feature-rich solution has helped many enterprise-grade businesses build their online store and grow their business.
This is how we handle the challenges of B2B ecommerce website development:
Future-ready technology
Built on the most advanced MEAN stack(MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS and Node. js) StoreHippo offers a turnkey solution for wholesale and enterprise businesses. Built on leading cloud infrastructure our stores are inherently secure and scalable.
Mobile commerce edge
Built grounds up on the mobile-first approach it gives your business a competitive edge. Additionally, our stores are PWA which means they look and work like native apps on all devices. You can also build your mobile apps at no additional cost right from your dashboard.
Pricing overrides
StoreHippo has inherent features to handle the personalized pricing for customers. You can implement IP based pricing, login based pricing, wholesale and retail pricing or set up any other rules during your B2B ecommerce website development with us.
Multi-vendor solutions
To grow your business you can switch to the multi-vendor marketplace model with our inbuilt marketplace solutions. You can onboard distributors, retailers, vendors etc. to sell a variety of products and services easily.
Multiple sub-stores
Managing multiple product-lines on a single portal can become much easier by having multiple micro-sites for each product. These sub-stores can be managed with a single central admin using our inbuilt multi-store solutions.
Designed for B2B and B2C models
While StoreHippo offers comprehensive solutions for B2B ecommerce website development we also have extensive features to handle the B2C requirements. This helps wholesale businesses to diversify as per their requirements.
Extensive customizations
Our platform can be tweaked inside out to adapt to the unique requirements of any business. You can create your own entities or tweak the existing ones to cater to your requirements.
Seamless integrations
Be it your custom ERP, CRM, payment gateways, notifications, logistics solutions or accounting solutions, you can integrate it all. Also, you get a host of pre-integrated payment and logistics solutions for your enterprise business.
Go gobal solutions
We offer a gamut of go-global features which eliminate the need of adding these at a later stage of B2B ecommerce website development. At any point in time, you can choose to convert your site into a multilingual portal accepting multi-currency payments, generating multi-currency invoices, taxes etc.
With StoreHippo you can create a portal that is unique and ready to reach new markets.
B2B Ecommerce Website Development Solution features to future-proof the brand
The ecommerce industry has shown massive growth and shift in recent years, making it important for enterprises to future-proof their business. There has been a paradigm shift in the customer behaviour, buying journey, etc, making it essential to focus on cutting-edge B2B ecommerce website development. If you are wondering how to go about it, let us present to you 5 top features that can help you future-proof your business:
1. Flexible ordering
The order fulfilment cycle of a B2B online shop involves a lot of business functions. It is important to create a unified order management system and have all the order and pricing customization management features in one unified B2B ecommerce solution. With StoreHippo, you can offer segmentation or location-based pricing and manage the complex ordering process of wholesale business. It offers specific features like advanced search, custom enquiry form, multiple secure payment channels, reordering, multi-currency payment options, and more.
2. Personalized buyer journeys
It’s true that every customer expects personalized products and services, product recommendations, custom offers and discounts, etc. Many B2B ecommerce solution providers struggle to offer personalized buyer journeys. With StoreHippo, enterprises can offer personalized buyer journeys via multiple channels like offering customized pricing based on IP address, login, order volume etc.
3. Quick deliveries
Fast deliveries are certainly one factor that can not be missed while future-proofing the business. Customers love fast delivery and with a reliable B2B ecommerce website development solution, you can enhance your supply chain network. StoreHippo enables you to choose from over 30+ shipping providers and several aggregators or you can integrate your custom global shipping provider easily. With the in-built delivery boy management system, you can manage your own fleet of carriers and delivery boys for hyperlocal deliveries.
4. Optimize marketing strategy
Optimizing your marketing efforts can be the best way to ensure engagement with the customers. Wholesale businesses need resources, technology and tools to plan and execute a marketing strategy. The B2B ecommerce solutions that offer features like custom-made deals, price overrides, personalized user experience, device-based themes, discounted shipping etc can prove to be a win-all formula. StoreHippo comes with an inbuilt and powerful discount engine and additional features of multi-channel selling. Given the multiple channel choices, customers today expect a seamless omnichannel experience even in the B2B ecommerce landscape.
5. Support for different business models
It is no surprise that an enterprise brand might want to scale up to a different business model in the future. To be able to offer smooth transitions, the B2B ecommerce platform needs to be able to eventually diversify to hybrid models as the business grows. StoreHippo offers a fully hosted and managed enterprise ecommerce solution with built-in solutions to create B2B, B2C, D2C, B2B2C, Quick commerce or other disruptive hybrid business models.
You can future-proof the B2B enterprise business and have a winning edge over your competition with the amazing features from StoreHippo.
How to start your B2B Ecommerce Website Development with StoreHippo
StoreHippo turnkey B2B ecommerce platform offers 300+ inbuilt features and tools to help you build, run and grow your business. All you need to do is, choose your plan and pay for the subscription to get your portal developed and live in no time.
Still thinking? Start your B2B ecommerce website Before you go, check our extensive features and explore StoreHippo platform by starting your 14-day free trial.