5 Amazing Hacks for B2B e-Commerce

Hacks for B2B e-Commerce

This article will explain B2B e-Commerce and gives you 5 amazing hacks for B2B e-Commerce..

What is B2B e-Commerce?

B2B e-Commerce is short for business to business electronic commerce, it is the selling of products and services through the internet to other businesses to improve efficiency between companies by eliminating the amount of work that people need to do to complete business.

In some ways B2B web stores are similar to B2C, they have products, navigation, search and order placement. However, in other areas B2B requires much more in depth features such as a complex ordering system, large collections of attributes, or elaborate back-end system. Arguably the most important distinction between the two areas is that in B2B, people visit your website because it is their job, and not because they are shopping for something for themselves. This means that they will probably invest less effort to find exactly what they need, and if the interface is not optimal they will simply move onto your competitors. Although this may seem like a bad thing, if you make their job easier on your site, they will be coming back. So what are 5 amazing hacks for B2B e-Commerce?

Hacks for B2B e-Commerce

• • Hacks for B2B e-Commerce One: B2B customers want to be efficient. They won’t waste effort on looking through websites with sub-par searching features or a confusing layout. Thus, the easier you make their job, the more likely that they will return to you, and not your competitors. Usability of your store design is very important here and you may want to stay with proven layout and navigation instead of letting your design team to go wild with crazy concepts. Your store can follow corporate color scheme and guidelines but navigation, search, mini shopping cart and other sections have to be in “usual” places and function as expected. Your visitors here to work, not to play around.
    

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  • Hacks for B2B e-Commerce Two: Make finding products as easy as possible. Over 75% of customers say the most important aspect of a website is that “the website makes it easy for me to find what I want”. This means they need features such as advanced search, navigation, filtering and other tools that will speed up and simplify the process of finding their required products. If you are running X-cart based store, consider setting up CloudSearch module and Refined Filters module. For Magento, use a Sphinx based search extension or one of cloud search services and built-in filtering functionality. It’s take time to setup initially but your customers will thank you for it with more orders.
    

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  • Hacks for B2B e-Commerce Three: Provide Business specific features. Because businesses frequently reorder the same items, and make large orders, they may require order history, inventory availability, and freight options. They also need access to online quotes for large volumes, in place of calling a sales representative to get quotes.
    We have several B2B oriented modules for X-Cart and Magento like “Email shopping cart”, “Print PDF quote”, “Submit a quote”, “Re-order” button and many more. Offer “Phone”, “Check” and “PO” payment options to give your customers a chance to place an order without paying for it right away so you can arrange payment later (you will get all contact information in the order details). If you do not offer such payment options, you maybe missing large orders.
    

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  • Hacks for B2B e-Commerce Four: Social features. The new B2B buyer is educated, social and doesn’t require face to face contact.  Studies show that over 75% of B2B buyers are influenced by other people’s experiences, making social aspects such as ratings and reviews important in helping buyers. These features add value to your website by providing the customer with insight about the products. For X-cart, consider “Advanced Customer Reviews module” or integration with review service like Yotpo.com. For Magento, “Review Booster” is a popular review extension as well as integration with services like Yotpo. Make sure to setup an automatic review request in follow up emails in several days after each order placed – this is the best way to keep constant inflow of quality reviews.
    

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  • Hacks for B2B e-Commerce Five: Deliver rich content. Content lets the buyer know exactly what they are getting; products should have as much info as possible to make it easier for the buyer to see what they need. This content should also be normalized as much as possible to allow for comparisons. For example products can have fields such as: SKU numbers, manufacturer name, geographic origin, specifications, dependencies, unit of measure, price, and so forth. It should also include short and long descriptions, user manuals, installation manuals, material safety data sheets and hazardous material information. Multiple images of a product are mandatory; videos, 360º views and even 3D renders are becoming more common. Check the information tabs on product page of one of our clients : www.solidapollo.com. More information you give to your visitors – more likely you convert them into loyal buyers.
    

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Your e-commerce store will not be perfect from the first day you go live (if you expect as much, you will never open); instead it is a constantly evolving virtual presence which is feeding by feedback from your customers, your staff and industry innovations. Like with anything in life, your online store is dying or evolving – there is no middle static stage –  use the Hacks for B2B e-Commerce, choose which stage you want your store to be and talk to us.