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)