B2B, commonly referred to as Business-to-Business, refers to the attractions or interactions between businesses. This can include the exchange of goods or services, as well as information or resources. It is a growing industry, and it is expected that by the end of 2027, the B2B e-commerce industry will hit $20.9 trillion.
B2B relationships can exist at various levels of the supply chain, such as between manufacturers and wholesalers, wholesalers and retailers, or service providers and clients.
Benefits of B2B E-commerce Platforms
Ever since the pandemic hit the world in 2020, there has been a drastic shift toward digitization. Over these years, the importance of B2B e-commerce platforms has increased manifold. 70% of individuals have said that websites are a far more convenient mode of buying, rather than from a sales representative. As per a report by McKinsey, as much as 80% of B2B buyers have stated that they do not plan on going back to in-person sales.
Learn about some benefits of B2B e-commerce platform here:
- Scalability
A B2B e-commerce website helps you reach out to new customers in different geographical areas and markets. Furthermore, you also get the opportunity to explore new potential sales channels and venture into new market segments, thus increasing your visibility. By generating compelling content for your B2B clients, you get to deliver value and quickly adapt to the dynamic business market.
- Brand Awareness
B2B e-commerce websites also help to create a digital presence for your brand. They provide you with the ability to target specific customers. In this manner, you can focus all your marketing efforts on those audiences who are likely to be more interested in purchasing your product or service. This, in turn, enables you to maintain the optimum growth of your brand, both on a local and global level.
Furthermore, by incorporating SEO-friendly content into your B2B e-commerce website, you can also significantly increase your ranking in search engines. Thus, you will be able to reach out to your target audience much more efficiently and effectively.
- Reduce Costs
Lastly, another benefit of implementing a B2B e-commerce platform is that it helps to reduce unnecessary costs significantly. For example, by taking your whole business online, you do not have to spend resources on areas like customer service or order entry. All these processes can be automated quite easily. Thus, you not only get to boost efficiency but also are able to cut down on unnecessary costs.
Important Features of a Good B2B E-commerce Platform
Here are important features that you must consider while selecting a B2B e-commerce platform.
Customer experiences
B2B e-commerce platforms can provide customers with a more convenient and personalized buying experience, with features such as customized pricing, product recommendations, and easy reordering. All these will ultimately make room for a more personalized shopping experience for your customers and enhance their experience.
Powerful features and tools
B2B e-commerce platforms also provide various tools and features such as quick order functionality, real-time inventory levels, and flexible checkout. All these combined help to simplify complicated and time-consuming tasks seamlessly. For example, with real-time inventory updates, you can always track which items are not in stock. In this manner, you can avoid the risks of overselling stock or disappointing potential customers.
Support services and solutions
Customer support is a paramount ingredient of every successful business. B2B is no exception either.
The right B2B e-commerce platform will be able to support and provide necessary solutions to every demand of your customers, such as submitting orders, creating reorders, or tracking shipments, among others. Furthermore, it should also be able to customize and personalize to each customer, as and when required. All these will help you establish a strong relationship with your audience base.
Payment options and security measures
The right B2B e-commerce platform should have the ability to integrate multiple payment options, both offline and online, such as checks, credit cards, or purchase orders, for your clients. Furthermore, it should also be equipped with the necessary features to offer specific payment options to specific customers. Such include an intuitive B2B payment user interface, B2B reporting features, and B2B portals. This way, you can create an optimum purchase experience for your clients.
Furthermore, B2B transactions often deal with sensitive details such as financial data and customers’ personal information. To prevent them from landing in the wrong hands, many B2B e-commerce platforms must offer security features. These include encryption, data backup and recovery, and SSL certificates.
Customization capabilities
Lastly, the best B2B e-commerce platforms will enable you to alter the look and feel of your website according to your brand’s tone. You can also personalize your content and present it to your customers based on their demographic locations. All these will ultimately result in a much higher conversion rate and boost your overall growth.
Please note that this is not just limited to the content itself. You can also personalize your products and services to meet your customer’s demands much more efficiently. Such include, offering personalized shipping, packaging, or even pricing and product configurations. In this manner, your customer will feel valued and seen, which will ultimately evoke a positive brand image in their minds.
Factors to Consider When Choosing a B2B E-commerce Platform
Finding the right B2B e-commerce platform can be tedious because of such a plethora of options. It all comes down to a very few yet important factors. Wondering what those are? Let’s find out.
Scalability and flexibility
Select a platform that will scale alongside your business to realize these goals. This, in turn, ensures that your chosen platform can successfully keep up with the increasing demands of your business.
Additionally, you should also consider flexibility as another important parameter. Ideally, you must choose a platform to meet all your short-term and long-term goals. It should also be flexible enough to support any customization form as and when required for your business. After all, it is always economical to stay with one platform throughout the growth years of your business instead of looking for multiple options.
Cost efficiency
Secondly, cost is another important factor when choosing the best B2B e-commerce platforms. Setting up a budget plan beforehand is always advisable to maintain your resources systematically. You should also consider other crucial areas such as in-house IT team costs, development costs, and maintenance costs.
User-friendliness
The best B2B e-commerce platform must have intuitive UI/UX features that offer enough customization options. It should be easy to navigate and must be able to create a positive shopping experience for your customers. This, in turn, will result in an increase in sales and, ultimately, revenue.
Third-party integrations
Other than these above-mentioned features, integrations are also another crucial area to consider while choosing a B2B platform. It should be able to integrate with other systems to ensure a seamless workflow between your offline and online channels.
Mobile responsiveness
Your chosen system must be mobile-friendly to give your customers easy access to your site anywhere and anytime. This will result in an enhanced user experience, as they can place orders or access information, even when traveling. Thus, you get to boost your sales and increase your productivity in this manner.
Popular B2B E-commerce Platforms
There are numerous B2B e-commerce platforms available in the market, which are as follows:
Amazon Business
Amazon Business is one of the most popular choices of most business owners. From a huge customer base and web traffic to fast shipping, and great user experience, it does check all the boxes. Furthermore, it provides enough flexibility for sellers to provide a wide range of varied products and pricing to different buyers. Other than these, when it comes to customer support, Amazon Business also provides multiple payment options, account management, and multi-user support.
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is one of the best e-commerce B2B platforms. With as many as 1 million e-commerce websites, this platform provides some excellent features to all its users. Such include ERM and CRP integrations, personalization capabilities, and conversion optimization. Some leading brands worldwide, like Pepsi, Nestle, and Bombas, use this platform for business activities. What’s more? Shopify Plus caters to an international audience, supporting all currencies and languages.
BigCommerce Enterprise Edition
One of the main reasons behind the huge popularity of BigCommerce Enterprise is that it supports both small and large businesses. You can do everything from social media integrations to PCI DSS support and high-level checkouts on this platform.
It also offers other exclusive features for its users, such as B2B-specific payment options, audience segmentation, and quote builder options. All these have made BigComemrce Enterprise a powerful tool in the B2B e-commerce marketplace.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Launched in the year 2004, Salesforce Commerce Cloud has very quickly made its way to one of the best B2B e-commerce platforms. Powered by B2B and B2C functionalities, it provides an optimum shopping experience for all customers. You can do everything from creating individual product catalogs to enabling fast and secure order processing on this platform.
Furthermore, Salesforce is also built on a user-friendly format, which in turn, helps to simplify the entire buying process. Its innovative features allow every owner to generate a flexible business plan that can be constantly updated as and when required.
Magento Enterprise Edition
Magento is one of the most preferred B2B e-commerce marketplaces. One of the best features of this platform is its cost-effective nature. It is extremely easy to install and requires very low maintenance compared to other systems.
Furthermore, it is also loaded with robust features, ranging from omnichannel selling, reporting, and analytics, to custom pricing and backend system integration, among others.
IBM Order Management
IBM Order Management software, commonly referred to as IBM OMS, is infused with cross-channel order management capabilities that allow you to make suitable changes to order processes. Furthermore, it grants you a fully transparent view of all inventories across the supply chain process.
With the help of various exclusive features offered by this system, you can track every order status anytime. All these combined lead to enhanced productivity and a better customer experience.
Episerver
Episerve is the perfect solution to handle all kinds of complexities that might arise in the B2B buying process. It has a customer-first approach, offering personalized search, content, and check-out features.
Its multisite management capabilities allow you to create different websites from one platform. In this way, you can highlight various product lines and different brands for your customers.
Wix
Wix enables you to manage inventory in real-time, thus nullifying the need for manual labor. This, in turn, helps to save up a lot of time and resources during the procurement process.
It has features such as an intuitive website builder, built-in analytics, a drag-and-drop editor, and many more. With the help of the same, you can create accurate customer segments, manage your websites efficiently and customize your store accordingly.
Handshake
Lastly, launched in the year 2011, Handshake is another fantastic e-commerce platform that simplifies the buying and selling process with its intuitive features and tools. You can also scale your business by powering in-person and online trade. One of the best features of using this platform is that your customers can place their orders anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
Conclusion
The rise of B2B platforms has undoubtedly revolutionized the e-commerce industry. From enhanced customer experience to reduced labor costs, the benefits of the same are numerous. As a store owner, the ultimate responsibility of choosing the right platform falls on your shoulders.
You must first try to understand your customer’s needs, expectations, and future trajectory before you embark on the selection process journey. Also, do not forget to check out the customization and integration options available. It will help you to keep up with the dynamic market conditions and deliver on customer needs.
How do I choose a B2B e-commerce platform?
While selecting a B2B e-commerce platform, look for specific features such as user experience, design flexibility, customer service, and additional functionalities. Carefully evaluate whether they are in sync with your business needs. You can find the best B2B e-commerce platform for your business based on the gathered information.
What are the four types of business B2B?
Four types of businesses include manufacturers, retailers, service providers, and distributors.
Which is the current trend in B2B e-commerce?
One of the biggest trends in the B2B e-commerce domain is selling goods and services via social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram. It increases your brand visibility and boosts your sales when used effectively. Furthermore, researchers indicate that by the end of 2025, social commerce sales will likely tripled.
What is the future of B2B e-commerce?
With the drastic shift towards digitization, post-pandemic, many businesses have started leveraging the power of technology to increase their sales. Researchers argue that the only way forward for B2B is heavy reliance on APIs and greater dependency on e-commerce.
What is the future of B2B selling trends?
The future of B2B selling is characterized by big companies investing hefty amounts in digital technologies. As more and more business transactions are occurring online, it has led to a seamless sales process and an enhanced customer experience.
