Good IT companies that care about the quality of their implementations usually firmly convince their clients to join SCRUM methodology with Time & Materials settlement model. I will not write about the advantages of this approach, as already wrote about it at length.

However, the common problem is lack of understanding and acceptance of such settlement by the Board, Home Office or the project sponsor. What can you do in such a situation?
Below we present some solutions.

Pre-implementation analysis before estimation

Preceding the work with a thorough pre-implementation analysis lets you prepare a detailed implementation backlog and thoroughly estimate the amount of work and thus the cost and schedule. Dividing the project into analysis stage (here sometimes companies agree to a fixed price) and implementation stage often gives the feeling of better mutual understanding. A detailed backlog presented to the board can be a convincing argument for the acceptance of implementation estimate. Sometimes companies fear that valuation after the analysis stage will change so much that they won’t be able to realize implementation. You can prevent that by including business arrangement – e.g. if the estimate increases by more than 100%, the company won’t pay full cost of the analysis.

Fixed Budget

In this approach, work is still accounted for the worked time but the list of features may change and the team manages work to launch the application in a fixed budget. It may decrease or increase the number of functions, but for the Board so low-level arrangements are usually no longer a problem. Of course, provided that the application meets business objectives.

MOSCOW

This above approach included in the formal method of estimation. Functions are divided into Must, Should, Could and Won’t. The amount of work devoted to Must functions can’t exceed 60% of the total work. IT company commits to bringing Must, Should and Could functions only if time allows it. Thus, implementation of critical business processes it is assured.

Team budgeting

A slightly different approach to the same problem is budgeting not the project cost but the cost of the team that creates and manages the project. This approach often works in corporations. The role of a manager is to convince the Board to create an eCommerce team and its partial outsourcing. Sometimes it completely changes the perspective and allows for working freely in SCRUM. Reference visits may be a strong argument for this approach. I don’t know any company implementing eCommerce on a large scale that doesn’t budget IT work like that. Meeting with the Board of such a company can quickly convince your Board. Remember – CEOs want to talk to other CEOs.

Using know-how of your IT department

Your IT department often works in a way described above. They can attest to the benefits of such approach. Another idea is using IT department’s help in carrying out internal estimation of the project. This estimation will usually be higher than the external estimation and you can use it as a worst-case cost scenario. This cost can be treated internally as your budget for the project and presented to the Board.

Test sprints

The Board may also be convinced by the precision of estimation and keeping to it. Thus, you can start the project from the stage on which the company makes the first few sprints and compares estimation with reality. That’s how we begin our cooperation with many clients after taking over development and maintenance of their software. Such test sprints may include particularly risky elements of the project – e.g. integration.

Read also: Time&Materials? Definitely!

Developing a B2B eCommerce differs from B2C – it is obvious. It’s not about the numbers itself – the crucial difference here is the customer. Business and individual customers purchase for different reasons and expect other experiences during their online shopping.

One of the main differences is that business customers’ purchasing decisions are cold, hard and logical, taken without emotions that usually affect B2C buyers. As a result, the B2B eCommerce should be focused on solving B2B clients’ needs and delivering solutions that solve their problems – without redundant bells and whistles.

Having this in mind and basing on our experience, we created a list of tips, that you should remember when developing a B2B eCommerce.

Features suitable for B2B needs

There’s one basic issue that differentiates B2B from B2C selling – the clients’ needs and requirements. Consequently, there’s a lot of necessary features that should be implemented while creating a B2B online shop. Among them you’ll find subaccounts with roles/permissions dedicated for employees, configurable dashboard – these modules help you to organize the processes and the responsibilities in the team. On the other hand, you need to meet the customers expectations with personalized product prices and the cart total visible after logging in, multiple charts that enable grouping the products or one cart divided for multiple shipping. Also – the range of other functionalities that are related to B2B payments – for example, trade credits. Of course, this list is much longer and you should start with Business Model Canvas to list all the processes in your company.

Structure changes in sales department

The decision to go online will affect your company processes. One of the most important changes is the role of sales reps. According to Forrester Research Study nearly 75% of B2B buyers claim buying from an e-commerce site is more convenient that buying from a sales rep. It isn’t surprising – using the online shop you can do the shopping anytime you want, you can check your prices and invoices even in the middle of the night.

Think a while about your sales reps payment model. If the salary is closely related to the incomes and the number of transactions (it probably is), they may be quite reluctant to the idea of online selling. Your sales reps should shift their focus point of gravity from selling toward advising and building relation and through this supporting the online sales. This may require some changes in salaries process as well as rebuilding your internal structure.

Complete product descriptions

When you sell online, clients can’t touch your product. This means that if they can’t find all the information they need to make a purchase decision they will leave your shop. However, good products descriptions are also crucial for B2C eCommerce, they are even more important when you want to sell in bulk. It will reduce the number of clients’ calls, unnecessary email communication and finally – returns and complaints.

High-resolution pictures and complete description are a must these days. Depending on the type of products, it might require additional sketches or specification. Consider using non-standard methods like videos and interactives. The main rule of key content requirements is that the information need to answer users’ questions, be direct, and help with product comparison.

Technology that fits your business

Choosing the right technology for your business you might face a lot of difficult choices. The most important thing what you should remember is the scalability. B2B is the hottest eCommerce area right now. Nearly 30% of today’s B2B buyers make at least half of their purchases online and this will nearly double to 56% by 2017. Even if your business is not big, considering the fast development in the future you should choose the solution that can be easily adjusted to the growing customer expectations and market trends. The technology can’t limit the platform development and new implementations as well as business goals.

MVP version

This something you should remember about not only when creating a B2B eCommerce, but when developing any project. However, it’s even more important in B2B. Some business owners tend to create the complete, fully polished eShop with all the functionalities, even if they are not necessary. Creating an eShop of this scope requires a lot of time and a large investment. This makes the project lasts longer and delays the release.

Creating and releasing the MVP version first could be a good test for key hypotheses, gather user information, get your product to the market, and keep costs down.

Focusing on User Experience

Although purchasing decisions made by B2B buyers aren’t taken emotionally, the User Experience of B2B projects is anchored by B2C. Clients are used to some standards, that are common in B2C shops and their expectations grow when it comes to bulk selling. It is connected with the appropriate features what we already mentioned as well as design. To design a service that fully answers the customers needs, it’s good to start with appropriate research – from field research, through web analytics, competitors analysis to a contextual inquiry. Consider starting from prototypes – as changes here are easier and cheaper that in the digital version.

Read also: 5 B2B features you forget to implement and lose time (and money)

TL;DR: So, your company decided to outsource development process to an external software house and you’re responsible for its success, right? Below you find some advice from the trenches – do’s and don’ts. For those who work in SCRUM but not only. Let’s go!

First – be clear in requirements but leave some space in budget and schedule

Working remotely with your IT team requires precise communication and requirement gathering. Is Ok to use simple tools like paper wire frames or describing user stories in simple form in JIRA / Confluence (like “As I user I would like to be able to change order status and push it to ERP”).

Critical here is to write down Acceptance Criteria in each user story. That means – measurable criteria if the feature is to be accepted. Such as: “After switching the status to ‘paid’, the order should be visible in ERP in ‘incoming orders’ tab after no longer than 10 minutes with all the details I see in the web shop – like addresses and order lines”. Simple but powerful. You shouldn’t describe how (exactly) UI should look like, but of course you can give some advice here. You should invest some time in designing – or order UI design to have an exact view of the application. But this is usually the next step.

You have to resist the temptation of small improvements. What do I mean by that? Let me give you a short example: changing some details in graphics (based on wire frames) don’t expect developers to implement both features on wire frames and graphics. They will implement graphics because it’s the last accepted artifact. Be precise, be consistent – it saves your time and money.

Developers and people at your company are just people, so be aware that you have to be ready for two things:

• you have to consult all requirements with users at your company who are to use this feature and get their acceptance; commitment and engagement will be crucial later on when system is ready to deploy; you are the PO and you always have the last voice, but your role is to gather all points of view in one place and be the single point of contact to with the IT team; be in charge of how the system looks like; never avoid this responsibility or you are bound to fail
• no matter how precisely you describe requirements and consult them with your business stakeholders, there will always be changes. Some requirements can be misinterpreted by developers, some can be described more precise in your imagination than in writing :) don’t blame the team at first place, leave some space in budget for corrections and changes.

After all, you’ll be ready to decide whether to accept a feature (or not) after clicking through it. So…

… test often, test early

Yeah, this advice is kind of evergreen – but – I assure you that it’s easy to underestimate the time it needs to be done well.

You should test a system after each demo (let’s say in 2 week sprints?). I think you need to reserve half a day or more to do so. Test each ticket, acceptance scenarios, give feedback.

On this stage the system will contain lots of issues, it will look all wrong. But it should work in essence. Be eager to give quick feedback because it all shortens the final UATs (User Acceptance Tests) and confronts your imagination with the real application. Don’t assume it will work differently later on or so – check everything you require from the final solution and point out any issues to the team. They will do the work.

How many issues is it ok to have after a demo? It depends – 20/40/100? Really, it depends on a given sprint scope and how much time you invest in testing. More tests = more issues.

Divante isn’t now able to engage me in each project tests. But I’m trying to test every application we’re to publish. Another pair of eyeballs always looks at some new issues. 20-40 issues after such tests? Normal situation in a well-tested project.

So you’ll ask what are testers supposed to do? They cooperate with developers at this stage, testing the behavior of each requirement, retesting after changes and writing down testing scenarios for UATs. They are just people – they aren’t you or your stakeholders. They can misinterpret something, maybe miss something. Don’t expect an ideal system. You’re not buying a readymade product but a dedicated IT solution. There is always something to be changed.

If you’re not the only business stakeholder of the final user (a rare situation :)) you should also invite some other employees from your company to do the tests. But – not too early.

Maybe it’s good idea to invite one person from each team that is to use the application and let them confront their expectation? Doing so, you can improve UI or apply some critical business improvements that wouldn’t be discovered elsewhere – when there is time to do so.

Involving too many business users too early can damage the system image as “buggy”, “useless” and so on. So be careful. This can damage the whole system adoption when done wrong. Or if it haven’t been done at all.

Application is ready … when it’s ready.

Ok, it can sound a bit strange. what do I mean is when your project is ready for Acceptance Tests (UATs), it won’t necessarily mean it’s ready for deployment. It’s a rare situation and its strongly influenced by how much effort you had put in before this stage.

If you don’t want to fail your stakeholders’ expectations, you should plan at least 2 weeks full of tests and then 3-4 weeks of bug fixing and retests.

I assume of course you were involved in tests before and there no huge revolutions should be expected. You should involve business users on this stage as well.

Please expect 180/200 issues as an average result of UATs on medium eCommerce. It’s normal. The team should handle these numbers in 2-3 weeks, because most of the time the issues are easy to fix UI ones.

What’s important here: please remember to reserve your internal IT team for tests as well. Usually some sophisticated integrations like WMS, ERP need to be tested before UATs. It can take even more than two weeks. They have to be online with remote team, have required time reserved to test systems on both sides.

They should go through test scenarios (written before tests) and test end-to-end processes: like from making an order, to reserving WMS stocks and billing an invoice in ERP.

After internal tests and fixes you should plan some pre-launch / soft-launch stage. From my perspective, it was always a sign of business success when this kind of preparation was planned.

What I mean by the above: launch for a limited number of users, like selected companies or customers (or 10000 customers selected from 1 million). They will give you feedback; you can also get some incentives from them. Two – four weeks of soft launch is a good choice in most cases.

How to communicate and with whom?

More communication is always better than less, but be careful. From my experience, business holders should communicate with business holders, not directly with IT people most of the time, or have translators :) A business holder is Product Owner on your side and Project Manager on IT company’s side. Who can be the translator? An IT consultant from a third party or someone like that.

Why? On a daily basis there are sometimes stressful issues to be solved, like deadlines, scope bickering … Sure, SCRUM suggests that all the team should be involved in communication but please notice two things:

• you should communicate with the team if it’s about scope, features orfeedback,
• solve other issues with the PM, so that you don’t demotivate and distract the team. They are often strong in IT but not in interpersonal communication. They can be easily demotivated and overwhelmed.

SCRUM daily meetings are not to solve this kind of issues. They are to catch up with progress, listen more than speak. Remember this and don’t provide distraction and don’t waste motivation and time of developers!

Ok, this entry is getting top long. If you managed to find yourself here: congratulations and thank you :) Feel free to exchange your own experiences in comments or via pkarwatka@divante.pl

Companies that implement a dedicated eCommerce solution for the first time are often taken unawares in the last stage of work. In the following article I wanted to share some practical experience of test and launch phases with you.

These are the topics most often overlooked by both retailers and decision makers on the client side, thus causing so much controversy.

Client: Since you’ve finished developing, let’s launch!

In today’s most popular software development process (SCRUM), tests are carried out in each sprint. Thus, it may seem that once we’ve completed the whole list of features, the software can be launched. Unfortunately, only finishing the work on the software enables you to start comprehensive testing. Features, integrations, business processes, performance and security – all of these need to be tested.
NASA has estimated that will be 1 error in the average 500 lines of code. In large eCommerce systems, tests usually result in tens to hundreds of bugs and errors that must be taken into account. Comprehensive tests may last several weeks. Twice as much time is needed for fixes and re-testing. Only then the system is transferred to the client for acceptance tests. Usually there is one month between the completion of development work and transferring the system to client’s testing.

Client: Since you’ve tested the software so much, why do we still find errors?

Customers often expect that after the IT company tests they will get ready and error-free software. Unfortunately, practice shows that it rarely happens, which often raises controversy and misunderstanding. The IT company tests software in terms of its features, but it’s the client who best understands their business processes – that is why clients always find a lot of errors during acceptance testing. The second reason – some processes can be tested in full only after transferring the software to the client (e.g. when fully connected to client’s systems), so some errors may result from this factor.

In large IT systems, clients typically detect from tens to hundreds of errors at this stage. To report them, it’s necessary to use a system that will provide control over notifications and their subsequent processing (e.g. Redmine, Jira). Clients point out that at the stage of these tests is not worth involving too many employees. Showing your staff an imperfect product can only discourage from its use later.

Client: Why are there still errors if the system was already launched?

Typically after going live the system needs to warm up. This means that due to the mass use of the platform by users with different software, a lot of unexpected bugs may appear. In my experience, this period usually lasts 3 months from the launch, and it’s the IT company’s job to make sure that the period is as smooth as possible. First of all, give your customers the possibility to report bugs and train store service so that they can receive notifications and report them precisely. Then, the Product Owner selects bugs and prioritizes them. The team of developers implements the fixes, keeping cool and maintaining deployment procedures. Otherwise, everything is done chaotically and hasty fixes start generating new errors.

Client: The system is slow

Sometimes after the launch it turns out that the project is much more popular than expected and because of this the website is slower. For this reason, it’s good to launch the new eCommerce first for a selected group of customers and make measurements to determine what loads you should ultimately be prepared for. Then you can adjust hardware and software configurations.

Happy launching!

Read also: What your Software House will never tell you

The B2B eCommerce market is growing substantially, and may even reach $1.1 trillion in the next four years. Despite this, many companies may still be tempted to use a B2C platform to set up their store. After all, B2C eCommerce has been widespread for over a decade and is a much more visible presence than B2B. People everywhere are familiar with online retailers like Amazon, and thanks to eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento, companies and even individuals can easily and quickly build an online shop.

However, although they may have some similarities, B2B and B2C are actually quite different, especially when it comes to eCommerce. For this reason, B2B companies thinking about taking their business online should carefully consider which features they should borrow from B2C, as well as which they should not.

The Differences Between B2B and B2C eCommerce

The most basic distinction between B2B and B2C is to whom they are selling. While B2C consists of retailers selling directly to individual consumers, B2B may involve more complex relationships, like wholesalers and distributors, in addition to direct sales. Although the differences may seem unimportant, it carries significant consequences in terms of how each type of store is set up. Consider the following:

Customer Behavior

Whereas B2C stores usually have a large number of customers making small purchases, B2B stores often have fewer customers making larger purchases much more frequently. In fact, despite having fewer customers, online B2B sales are nearly double that of B2C. This means that it is extremely important for B2B stores to be familiar with their customers’ preferences, such as which products they most often order, where and how they want those products shipped, and how they like to pay.

It also means being aware of why they are making a purchase. In B2C, customers visit the store and make a purchase because they want to, while in B2B, they are often placing an order because it is part of their job. As such, B2B buyers prioritize the ability to find exactly what they want as quickly as possible, and do not want any of the frills and distractions common in online B2C stores.

Multiple Accounts

In B2C, one customer is associated with one account. However, B2B customer accounts not only involve multiple individuals, but must also accommodate the more complex, multi-step approval process that many companies use. For example, they may have a buyer who organizes an order, then a manager who looks it over, edits it, then makes their final approval. They may even have another manager or executive who looks it over once more, as well as someone actually in charge of making the purchase.

Payment

Paying for a product in a B2C store is straightforward: a customer adds an item to their cart, then uses a credit card or service such as PayPal to immediately pay for it. In contrast, B2B stores must process payments much differently. Because their customers are regularly placing large orders, they often expect much more flexible payment terms. For instance, they may want to pay quarterly or even annually, or want individual product prices to be based off of the volume or frequency of their orders.

Dangers of Using a B2C eCommerce Platform for B2B

Despite these fundamental differences, many B2B companies may still consider using a B2C platform for their online store. This has become especially common due to the influence of B2C eCommerce. Even in B2B channels, buyers now expect a B2C-like experience. This includes offering an improved customer experience, which may mean providing buyers with more product photos, customer reviews, and access to support, as well as making it possible to make purchases across different channels, such as mobile.

However, there are numerous dangers in trying to use a B2C platform for your B2B store:

Customization

Although many B2B buyers may now want a B2C-like experience, they also still expect the basic B2B store features discussed above. In order to do this with a B2C eCommerce platform, extensive customizations will be required. This is not always easy or even possible. Businesses that go this path should expect to invest a lot of time and money trying to convert the platform to the requirements needed for B2B.

Expense

The high cost of adapting a B2C platform for a B2B store do not end once it is set up. Heavy customizations rarely turn out as planned, meaning they will require continual maintenance just to keep working. This can get especially complicated for businesses that want to make changes to their store, such as expanding their product offerings or localizing their content. In some cases, this may require a full-time employee just to make sure everything works.

Upgrades and Compatibility

Related to the point above, both eCommerce platforms and the software that they integrate with (such as CRM and ERP systems) often require regular updates. For companies that have altered their eCommerce platform, this can quickly become burdensome, as their software will be more out of date with every new release. The result of this will either be more costly and time-consuming modifications or just an incompatible platform.

What to Look for in a B2B eCommerce Platform

Due to the challenges of adapting a B2C eCommerce platform for their complex needs, B2B businesses should instead consider using a platform designed specifically for them. What would such a platform look like? Businesses should look out for the following features:

B2B Functionality From the Ground Up

Most importantly, a B2B eCommerce platform needs to be built with the requirements of B2B wholesalers in mind. This means that it will come with customizable catalogs, flexible payment systems, support for multi-step ordering processes, the ability to make quick bulk selections and view inventory levels, and all the other features necessary to B2B. Any eCommerce platform that has not been created from the ground up for B2B will likely not be able to offer a comprehensive, out-of-the-box solution.

Seamless Integrations

In order to truly meet the complex needs of today’s B2B eCommerce, a quality platform should also be able to automatically integrate with a variety of other applications. These include CRM and ERP systems, Product Information Management tools, marketing applications, and more. This will allow businesses to keep track of customer behavior and gain insight into their store’s performance, as well as design marketing campaigns to increase sales.

Flexibility

B2B businesses come in a variety of types and sizes: A wholesaler that sells expensive medical equipment to health care organizations will have much different needs than one that sells sporting equipment to a handful of retailers. This is why it is essential for a B2B eCommerce platform to be flexible, scalable, and completely customizable. Regardless of the business’s function, the platform should be able to mold to their specific processes and requirements.

Delivers a B2C Experience

Finally, although they have their differences, a proper B2B eCommerce platform should still adopt many of B2C’s best practices. These include native CMS capabilities, catalogs rich with photos and other digital media, extensive product information pages, multi-channel support, and a user-friendly front-end design. However, none of this should come at the expense of B2B functionality.

Conclusion

Put simply, the requirements of B2B eCommerce make using a B2C platform too expensive and time-consuming to be a viable alternative. Instead, B2B businesses need to look for a solution that is built to accommodate their unique sales processes, operations, and various other needs. It should also be able to easily grow and adapt with their business, and work seamlessly with other applications. Although certain aspects of B2C eCommerce platforms can still be beneficial, they will never fully meet the complex needs of B2B.

About Oro Inc.

Oro, founded in 2012 by industry leaders in open-source business application development, is the company behind the suite of products including OroCRM, OroCommerce and OroPlatform. Prior to founding Oro, the founding and senior leadership team helped lead Magento’s success and have an extensive history in e-Commerce technology.

Oro’s founding team consists of Yoav Kutner, Co-Founder and former CTO of Magento, Jary Carter, former VP of Sales and Channel of Magento, and Dima Soroka, former Lead Architect for Magento. Roy Rubin, Co-Founder and former CEO of Magento, has also joined the Oro team as an advisor. Through many years of experience in commerce and CRM, Oro are committed to delivering innovative solutions that will further disrupt customer experience.

For further information, visit www.orocrm.com.

This article was inspired by Sam Hurley, one of the most recognizable digital influencers, who published How To Intercept, Adapt and Influence the Customer Journey on Medium. In this article, Hurley writes about customer journeys and highlights their meaning in the purchasing process.

We, as an eBusiness Software House, look at this problem a bit differently but nevertheless  found the article rich in golden thoughts that we can translate to our (mostly) more technical reality.

By the time they actually get that credit card out of their wallet, the journey is already over. Their (clients’) mind is 100% made up.

Their minds are made up, not only by the marketing efforts but also through the Customer Experience your brand offers. You can think about it in two ways – first, you need to think about the customer experience of every single channel – taking into consideration for example, an online shop, you need to take care of the user experience from start to finish. The second way is Customer Experience in general – here, one of the most important things to remember is the comprehensibility of all channels.

Let’s be clear that such a journey is not a direct route. It’s a meandering path that frequently doubles back and takes unexpected turns.

And you’ll never know what it will look like in the case of a particular customer. You won’t know but you can predict it. What’s more, you should make sure that there are no dead ends along the process. The way to purchase consists of many touch points and among them, there are those connected with technology – which is the most important point. Often, we deal well with marketing patches but we fail with the technology that should support them. Throughout the more than 8 years of working for many companies and industries, we have met this problem many times. That led us to conduct our authored research and workshop methods where we detect the most common Omnichannel Gaps.

Imagine that during marketing efforts you managed to interest your customer with your products. They knows about the new delivery from the social media channel and now they are actually ready to buy. What if they prefer to do it offline? Can they check the availability on the website, reserve the product through the online shop?

It’s easy to check if your omnichannel really works.The situation described above is only one of many possibilities. Another such example is described in this test: Do you want to know if your Omnichannel really works? Take a short test.

Consumers have never been savvier. They know they will find more information online than they’ve ever found in a physical store. As helpful as this may be for them, it is also a golden opportunity for you to control their journey.

We live in a strange world where a client with a smartphone can know more than a sales rep. Don’t think about it as a danger. It’s rather an opportunity for you to steer a customer’s journey. Based on our experience, it is visible, especially in B2B. What does it mean in practice? It’s not only about taking care of all the information about the products that are presented on your website. You should prepare all the mechanisms and features that help a customer to complete the purchase on their own. If this is done well, the they should obtain all information that they need as easily as possible and with as little effort as possible (live chat, infoline etc.). This is also a new task for your sales reps that can play a crucial role in the path of a purchase.

Read also: One simple thing you can do to strengthen your team.

As an eCommerce specialist, everyone in our company comes across many read-worthy articles every week. We decided to choose the most interesting and present them in this article. Enjoy!

1.‘Couch Commerce’ Becomes Reality With 40% Rise In Mobile App Sessions

With Thanksgiving weekend officially kicking the holiday season into gear, retailers better have optimized their mobile app if they are seeking to get the most out of their digital offerings, according to data from App Annie.

2.6 Ways You’re Wasting Time in Ecommerce

Time is money. This is a business cliché, but it’s especially true in ecommerce. Customers choose to shop online because of the convenience, an even bigger motivation for online shoppers than price. That means speed is built into the culture of ecommerce. If you want to appeal to customers and gain great feedback, you need to run a lean business that can fulfill orders and restock inventory at a brisk pace and save time in ecommerce.

2.The Evolution of E-Commerce, where to next?

Would you believe that it’s been barely over 20 years since Amazon sold their very first book? As one of the most well-known companies worldwide today, it’s incredible that they got their start a mere two decades ago.

But their growth is reflective of the industry as a whole. Over the course of 20 years, e-commerce evolved from a novel new idea to an industry that’s now a major part of the world’s economy. In fact, in 2015, Americans spent over $341 billion online.

4.More than digital plus traditional: A truly omnichannel customer experience

Adding digital channels requires major efforts, yet payoffs can disappoint. Integrating digital and traditional channels into a truly omnichannel offering is even harder—but multiplies the rewards.

5.What are the differences between B2C and B2B E-commerce?

When addressing the B2B projects, it’s very important to determine what are the main differences with B2C projects are? All those who are specialized in some way in managing projects B2C E-commerce need a change of mindset, in most cases what works in B2C doesn’t work in B2B.

6.With Internet Of Things And Big Data, 92% Of Everything We Do Will Be In The Cloud

You don’t need Sherlock Holmes to tell you that cloud computing is on the rise, and that cloud traffic keeps going up. However, it is enlightening to see the degree by which it is increasing, which is, in essence, about to quadruple in the next few years. By that time, 92% percent of workloads will be processed by cloud data centers; versus only eight percent being processed by traditional data centers.

7.Internet Traffic From Mobile Browsers Exceeds Desktop Traffic for the First Time

In the month of October 2016, for the first time in history, traffic from mobile internet browsers surpassed traffic from desktop browsers, according to web analytics company StatCounter.

For most product-related websites, an on-site search option has become a standard feature, regardless of whether they sell to ordinary shoppers or to business customers. However, for stores that want to turn their search option into an effective marketing tool, it is not enough to simply embed a search box somewhere on their site. Instead, they need to build a fine-tuned and optimized search function that can fetch the exact product a customer is looking for from the database.

This is especially true in the B2B market, where a plain search functionality is often not enough to meet customer expectations and demands. In fact, research related to B2B omnichannel commerce platforms has found that 60 percent of wholesale customers list enhanced search as a top feature they want their online vendors to provide. What’s more, other studies have found that over half of all revenue is generated by just 11 percent of sessions involving on-site search.

As such, B2B companies willing to invest in turning their on-site search into a potential merchandising tool stand to reap multiple benefits.

Why Optimized Search Is Essential in B2B eCommerce

An effective on-site search is even more vital for B2B organizations than for their B2C counterparts. This is because the products B2B companies sell typically have more complex and diverse attributes, variants, and combinations. B2B eCommerce sites also usually offer a much wider range of goods, which can make their sites content-heavy. In turn, B2B product catalogs tend to be large and data-rich, with lots of products, descriptions, and SKUs. Searching through all this data without a robust search engine that can return precise and relevant results can easily become a frustrating experience for potential customers.

Instead, business customers need to be able to quickly find relevant information  while using different search variations when looking for a product. Despite this fact, only 40 percent of websites currently provide faceted search (also known as guided navigation), while 70 percent require customers to search using only an exact keyword. Limited or poor on-site search capabilities such as these will not produce positive customer experience and may even rob you of your competitive edge. If they cannot obtain relevant product search results, B2B buyers are likely to switch to an online business supplier with better technology.  

When developing a B2B eCommerce store, it is important to ensure that it incorporates strong search capabilities, including the ability to  support most popular user search queries, so that your business buyers will always find exactly what they want.

Top Popular Search Queries a B2B Site Should Support

By exact keywords

Conducting a search using exact keywords is a standard and simple query type any B2B site should support. For instance,  a buyer may  search for a particular product using its exact title, model, or SKU number (e.g., “Tooluxe 31217L Mini Gravity Air Spray Gun”).

By issues to be solved by a product

Although B2B customers are often knowledgeable shoppers, they may not remember an exact item name or product model. This is why they should be able to search for other attributes, such as the issue a product resolves (e.g., “remove varnish stains,” “broken wooden frame,” and so on). This query type might be most relevant to businesses dealing with tools, household supplies, cleaning, or pharmaceutical products.   

By descriptors

Users may also want to search for items based on their descriptions, characteristics, or categories, especially for specialized products or those related to specific occasions or time periods (e.g., “short-sleeved uniform” or “snow tires”). To enable this type of search, companies should enhance product data by creating more nuanced item descriptions. In addition, they should tag products so that the search function returns appropriate results even when a request contains words not included in product descriptions or item titles.

By product traits

Business customers frequently search for specific goods using their features or qualitative characteristics, such as material or color (e.g., certain light bulb efficiency or car interior accessories of certain colors). This search option can be supported via built-in filters that allow users to sort out only products matching particular qualifiers.

Solutions for Improving Your Customers’ Site Search and Digital Buying Experience

Knowing your customers’ search behavior patterns and making sure your webstore search function can support them is only half the battle. Rather, a positive site search experience is just one component of the seamless digital buying experience your company should be trying to give its clients.

When assessing eCommerce platforms to grow your B2B company with, be sure to choose solutions that have been specifically designed for a challenging B2B environment, as they will be the only software programs capable of addressing the complexities of B2B transactions. Search is merely one capability among many other comprehensive B2B features.

Summing Up

If your business customers do not get any relevant search results when they use your webstore search function, it will inevitably ruin their customer experience. They might even take their business elsewhere. To give your clients a positive search experience and to increase customer loyalty and retention, look above standard plain search function and ensure your B2B site has a robust search engine that is responsive to different search queries.

However, keep in mind that the availability of optimized on-site search is not enough by itself to benefit your clients. As a business owner, you’re responsible for a rich data pool, enhanced site content, and extended product descriptions and tagging. In order to return meaningful search results, it is mandatory to build out these elements.

Our final tip for B2B company owners: When exploring the market for a viable eCommerce solution that can successfully scale your business, take a look at platforms with B2B nativity, since B2C-purposed systems simply can’t accommodate complex B2B processes. Fortunately for you, however, OroCommerce can.

There is a common wisdom that the ultimate differentiator and advantage in eCommerce is logistics. This is the Amazon approach of building eCommerce. I think that this is not the only way.

I think that the ultimate differentiator and advantage is an innovative and stable (both required) business model. At Divante, we work with many innovative eCommerce companies so I decided to write down some of the business models that helps our clients to build eCommerce rocketships! All these businesses are dealing with serious numbers (from dozens to hundreds of millions euro in annual turnover).

Marketplace for celebrities

One of our clients from the Nordic region offers a business opportunity for famous Youtubers to create their own fashion brands. This company offers design, products, logistics and eCommerce processes. What you need as a celebrity is to have an audience and they build a fashion brand for you. You then become the face of your own brand and they share the revenue with you. They are growing rapidly and at this moment, they have more than 2 million users every month. Celebrities generate massive traffic for them.

Furniture marketplace

Another client from the Benelux region built a platform that allows users to buy furniture. Doesn’t sound so sexy, right? But the magic happens when you add furniture to the cart. At this moment, the platform sends information to manufacturers across Europe and they bid for production in real time. They bid the price and time of delivery. The commission depends on these parameters and algorithms choose the best manufacturer in real time. This is all invisible to the end client but helps our client to keep high margins and short delivery times all at once.

Multichannel marketplace

This client is using marketplaces like Amazon, EBay, Bol, Rakuten only to create a massive presence in Europe. They are using different brands, photos, product descriptions etc. to optimize the offer for each market and each marketplace. They compete on price but also on design and many other factors. They use A/B testing to optimize product descriptions, photos, etc.

B2B Multi Level Marketing

This client from CEE is using a multi-level marketing mechanism to engage B2B sales managers to add new products to their offer. In B2B the relationship with the client is the most important factor so having this, you can sell much more that you usually offer. The idea is to give sales managers a broad choice of additional products and engage them in up-selling. The speciality of this company are commodity products that are very hard to sell individually (low margin, low roi) but very easy to sell as an up-sell.

As you can see there is still plenty of space for new players in eCommerce.

Creative business models compounded with an ability to scale-up across borders can produce really strong players.  

Read also: Who and how will succeed on Marketplaces?

Recently, our team has implemented distripark.com – an online shop from the chemical industry. During this project, we learned a lot about B2B implementations in Magento2. Below we have gathered the conclusions of the team.

Paweł, Leader of the backend team

Magento 2 is still a new product and is still buggy, at this stage. We can not wait for ready-made solutions from the M2 authors – the list of bug reports is very long, so it will take a long time. Usually, you have to take matters into your own hands.

In addition, distripark.com is a large B2B project, which means that it requires a large number of dedicated solutions. Many of them result directly from the specific nature of the business. That’s why the standard Magento is not enough here – you have to overwrite and expand the existing code in many places.

Agata, Backend team

With such complex projects, team communication is extremely important. It is crucial that all tasks are thoroughly discussed and written down. It is also important to estimate the time of each task appropriately – creating Magento 2 modules takes longer than on M1.

Maciej, Backend team

A B2B project requires more developer hours than B2C. Greater implementation also means more communication, which is extremely important. It is crucial to have a smooth flow of information about what has been implemented, and how – so that each team member has full knowledge of the project.

In addition, while creating M2 modules, you must be prepared to change the client’s decision on its operation – modules must be very flexible.

Marcin, Frontend team

Magento 2, as a new platform, with many changes to previous versions, has little current documentation. The bugs encountered may not yet have a solution from Magento, and you have to prepare the client for it, as well as the programmers.

As the previous speakers have emphasized, constant communication between team members is extremely important. Without this, errors in the assumptions of the code are born quickly.

You also need to set up a larger time buffer for tasks than for M1.

Wojtek, Testing team

A B2B project, compared to a regular B2C store, is certainly a bigger challenge because of its enhanced functionality.

It is good when the tester is more involved in the project at the very beginning when the analysis is still underway; it helps to better understand what the customers need, which then results in more accurate testing.

In such a large and complex project, automated testing is also very important.

Wojtek, Project Manager

The biggest challenge of this project was probably to create a platform dedicated to both B2B and B2C. In addition, the specificity of the chemical industry creates additional challenges for creating the necessary packing mechanisms for transport (safety).

In cases where we are working on a new technology – and this is the case with Magento 2 – we should always set up time buffers for implementation, especially in the initial stage of project implementation. The time for subsequent tasks was already easier to estimate due to the team’s mix and the optimal division of tasks.

For such large projects, all important functions / modules should be carefully analyzed and specified before development.

Read also: Open Source eCommerce Platforms 2017

This year we saw a growing interest in Magento from the biggest companies. This is for sure connected with Magento soaring into the Gartner Magic Quadrant .

Magento has also recently been named a Leader in Forrester Wave for B2B. This is very important because until this moment, Hybris was perceived as “the big boys’ toy for B2B” and now Magento is leading. Probably 50% of Hybris’ income is from B2B clients, using SAP. So Magento is really stealing the show right now.

Suddenly, the biggest companies have realized that Magento is the most popular eCommerce engine among the Internet Retailer TOP1000 and Internet Retailer B2B TOP 300 – there are 202 Magento based stores in IR1k and only 10 Hybris based stores.

When Decision Makers in large companies dig deeper it occurs that TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of Magento is much lower and the dynamism of the platform is much higher – especially when you realize that Hybris is part of SAP and Magento is backed by VC and is investing a huge amount of money to development, M&A and marketing. They must grow and will grow faster than anything else. I think that only Demandware with massive support from Salesforce can be a real competitor in the long run.

But getting back to my topic. Why do companies ask us about migration from Hybris to Magento, and how does it make sense?

Cost

Hybris license costs start at about 50k and implementation costs could easily start at 500k. Magento license costs start from 20k and typical implementation costs are probably about EUR 100k for an enterprise level client. So this is a strong argument for Magento migration.

Developer availability

There is very limited number of Hybris developers, especially when you think about independent companies or freelancers. There is no community like for Magento. Java developers are in general about 30% more expensive than PHP developers. This creates a huge problem when you try to hire a Hybris developer. Without the manpower it would be hard to develop as fast as you need.

Focus on large Enterprises – not yet

Magento still lacks the ability to play political games in large organizations. Sometimes I see that people in these organizations really need help to convince their bosses of Magento, and for sure, SAP is much better at building rapport with C-Level people. Magento is doing their homework here and some SI and Digital Agencies can help you here instead.

Complexity

Hybris, as a part of SAP, can offer more or less every function that Enterprise People can think of. With Magento you need more external solutions. Sometimes to migrate from Hybris to Magento you must also think about PIM, Order Management, Loyalty Solutions, etc. This is still a Hybris advantage but there are more and more solutions integrated with Magento or into Magento. For example, Magento added Order Management, Content Management, and Business Intelligence. There are also powerful PIMs that could be easily integrated – like an Akeneo or Pimcore. We have added a small piece of the puzzle here, building a standalone Loyalty Program – Open Loyalty.

Integrators and Digital Agencies are developing Hybris and Magento

We used to be a SAP Hybris Partner and many Magento Agencies are still Hybris and Magento partners at this same time (eg Arvato, Razorfish). Such agencies know both products really well and can reassure their clients that the Magento solutions they offer can match the functionalities provided by both Hybris, and the platform that clients are currently using.

So for sure there are many situations when it is a good idea to think about Magento as a more flexible, modern and lighter solution. For some other situations, it would be safer to stay with SAP Hybris, which is maybe not so dynamic but a very stable solution.

Read more: What did we learn by implementing a large B2B in Magento 2?

It seems that everyone knows how to implement B2B eCommerce systems. We have over 10  years of experience and projects for companies, such as TIM (one of the biggest electro-technical goods distributor in Europe), on this market and we have seen how popular advice and common assumptions have led many companies astray. Below we have compiled the most widespread myths, often repeated by IT companies – which are false (at least partially).

Collect the requirements of your business

Gathering business requirements from all departments of the company seems to be a great idea. Unfortunately, these people usually don’t know what their customers really need. Thus, they submit any information that comes to mind. About 40% of briefs that are conducted by Divante have contradictory, mutually exclusive requirements. Meanwhile, B2B customers already use online shopping and you can start from proposing them a system that will allow them to order in a familiar way. Start with the implementation of features known from B2C systems. Customers will voluntarily submit their requirements, which you can, in turn, implement into your system.

Gather customer needs

Asking customers is, of course, important, but their actions are much more important than their declarations. By asking, you won’t learn whether customers will actually use the system. If you start a project by asking customers about their opinion, you may get stuck on a never-ending design process. It will make the implementation longer and more complicated, increasing the risk of failure. The best solution is to run a ready-made, proven solution and listen carefully to the needs of customers. You can use tools such as online surveys, a/b tests, livechat, and/or user tests. All of them will show you how real customers uses the system and what their needs are. Think about the reversed order – first run, then examine, develop and optimize.

Outsource IT

Typical B2B companies are not IT companies. They believe that IT is not their core competence, so they decide to outsource it. However, in our experience, all the companies most successful in B2B eCommerce develop their IT skills.  Lack of IT competences disables your long-term planning, and prevents you from utilizing the full potential of technology and synergy. Outsourcing will allow you to create and run the application faster, but you need to develop your competence at the same time. Therefore, the choice of Open Source (as we have done with Magento) may be the best option. The first version of the application is built by an external contractor, bringing its know-how and transferring it to your organization. Unfortunately, it is impossible to realize such a model with SaaS software, thus, it’s not a good choice for companies seriously thinking about B2B eCommerce.

Find our more about how to build a profitable B2B eCommerce and read about the case of TIM.