B2B Ecommerce Website Development - How to Overcome Challenges

In 2019, only 13% of B2B sales were generated digitally. Then hits the pandemic and the graph of online sales rises beyond imagination. Businesspeople are leaning more towards leveraging the agility of ecommerce across all industry verticals. However, B2B sales seem to be more complex than B2C transactions. This is what leads us to curate this article. Here we will discuss some common challenges in B2B ecommerce domain and find relevant solutions to overcome these. Let’s proceed then.

B2B Ecommerce Website Development – Challenges & Solutions

1. Long Buying Circle

B2B purchasing workflow, unlike B2C one, consists of a selective range of people, minutely aware of the niche category. This means decision making is a crucial aspect in B2B industry. This is far beyond the one-click purchase button on any B2C ecommerce website.

This is where an efficient back-office management comes to the play. Your website should provide all the stakeholders who your business interacts with the right info they need to make the decision.

As you can understand, B2B ecommerce website development is not an easy process. You require powerful tools to streamline the site performance. For instance, a customer relationship management (CRM) software and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software are some handy tools to integrate all the data and self-service options so that the buyers can find the best possible information.

2. More Flexibility

Since B2B buyers are not impulsive and more matured, they expect more flexibility instead of fancy outlook. You may have noted the serious approach of B2B websites as opposed to the glamorous B2C sites.

Procurement or the activities involving the acquiring of services and products that support business operations must be extremely professional. It is controlled with properly outlined policies. Naturally, it includes contracts, requisition & purchase orders, invoices and more.

Digitalization can indeed advance the process. For instance eProcurement (digitalization of the procurement procedure) improves efficiency and enforces the best practices of consolidating data. eProcurement integrator further bridges between the buyer and seller platforms by facilitating the flow of data between eProcurement & ecommerce platforms. A robust ERP integration will provide you with a holistic view of your business and strengthen the overall operations.

Same flexibility is required in payment modes as well. Usually, B2B purchases are in bulk order or have a higher price tag than a B2C one. Therefore, you must integrate multiple payment methods in your e-store to enhance the buyers’ convenience.

3. Change in Buyers’ Expectations

With time, the approach of B2B ecommerce is changing. Typically, a B2C business had a glamorous social media presence while B2B businesses were marked by its grave outlook with little or no social media presence. However, the time is changing. B2B businesses must be humanized with a stunning social media presence to keep people engaged. Remember, the new-age business people are tech-savvy and prefer a lighter mood over a sombre one. Other than establishing a presence on LinkedIn, extend your span on Facebook and Instagram as well to reach a wider audience and meet the buyers’ expectations.

The same holds true for search engine presence as well. Earlier, due to the lack of competition in the B2B industry (either in general or on the web), people didn’t pay attention to improve search engine ranking as they used to rely on local customers or word-on-mouth promotions. Now, as most of the sellers and buyers are online, an improved search engine ranking can drive better brand visibility, awareness, traffic, and ultimately, conversions.

You may engage professional digital marketing services to improve your search engine ranking or develop a strong social media presence.

4. Shopping Experience

We have already established that modern buyers are moving away from ordering through a paper catalogue or in-person sales meetings. Just like B2C shoppers, they too, prefer easy website navigation, relevant search results, and suggested product content. Actually, when focusing on B2B audience, we forget that the buyers are the customers of a B2C industry as well. That’s why when it comes to ecommerce web development, your competition is not only with B2B domains but with B2C domains as well.

Level up people’s shopping experience by developing a dynamic website with an adaptive search feature. This feature adapts to the buyers’ behaviour in the due course of time. Powered by machine learning (ML), it can display products based on the buyers’ unique browsing and purchasing history and offers a personalized shopping experience. Combined with autocomplete, it can also complete the words in the search bar and offer suggested results.

Conclusion

Back in 2017, B2B companies were not blooming so much in the digital realm as B2C ones. But the slow movement gradually gained higher pace and today, it is running in parallel with modern buyers’ demands and evolving technologies. We hope these strategies will help you to go with the flow.

Got a thought? Feel free to share with us.