According to Business Wire Inc., the global B2B market is estimated to reach $20.9 trillion by 2027. That is a staggering number and a great opportunity for organizations who are adapting their businesses to serve customers online. Change is occurring across all industries in the B2B space.
How can organizations ensure they are creating an online presence that is effective and impactful for their customers? Utilizing an implementation partner like Xngage can help ease your journey into B2B e-commerce and ensure you create an effective digital strategy, packed with all the tools needed to make your business successful over this transformation.
Good strategy leverages insights. Data from Marketing professionals shows that 94% of buyers conduct some form of online research before purchasing a business product or contacting your sales force. This clearly suggests, that organizations can benefit from content-rich websites, which provide users with detailed high-quality content and product information. B2B websites should help buyers navigate regulatory requirements, so it is important to have complete product information (including safety sheets, spec sheets, manuals and other content) visible and easily accessible on your website. Multiple product images and 360 views have become must-haves, while increasingly 3D and interactive models are starting to emerge. Visual purchasing via exploded-parts diagrams can also be extremely beneficial for your customers when looking for specific replacement parts in a larger equipment unit. High-quality attributes data allowing customers to quickly find the products they are looking for by searching, faceting, and filtering is absolutely foundational for any B2B commerce solution. In addition, B2B sites benefit from having a direct interaction point with customer service allowing customers to get in touch with sales reps and customer service personnel at any point in the product exploration journey. This can be achieved by integrating live chat tools including video chat and co-browsing capabilities.
On the other hand, B2B commerce sites benefit from rich self-service capabilities behind the login. Many customers may not actually be researching products and instead know precisely what they are looking to procure. And they intend to do so in the most efficient and effective way without spending more time than necessary. This is where sophisticated B2B websites differentiate. At Xngage, our experienced User Research team understands the purchasing processes of your customers and works with you to streamline these processes for speed and automation. While in B2C, personal buyers seek to satisfy a need or emotion by purchasing products, in B2B organizational buyers must accomplish their job in procuring goods and managing inventory.
Picking the right e-commerce platform is crucial if you are a B2B business because unless the platform natively understands how to handle B2B complexities you will end up customizing a B2C solution rather than focusing on building value for the business and your customers. Having a scalable B2B-centric platform that can integrate and function with systems of record such as the ERP, PIM, and CRMs is crucial in giving your customers a smooth end-to-end experience. Customers want to see that inventory is up-to-date, available in their local markets, or readily available for pickup at a certain location. Products must have accurate and customer-specific pricing information, and delivery times need to be understood at an item level. Is your business going global? Plan on supporting different languages, multiple currencies, and shipping and fulfillment on a large logistics scale. With distinct B2B platforms to choose from, an experienced partner like Xngage can help guide your decision.
