B2B business has experienced sea-changes in the last 5 years. The Global B2B e-commerce gross merchandise volume (GMV) rose from $5.83 trillion in 2013 to $7.66 trillion in 2017 (Source:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/705606/global-b2b-e-commerce-gmv/). An increasing number of wholesale and enterprise business that cater to other business are taking the online route and registering their online presence by opting for B2B e-commerce solutions.
Adding an extra sales channel is always beneficial for any business. If that sales channel takes your business online and offers your customers an easy to access seamless buying experience, that’s the best thing that can happen for your business growth.
This also means that you have to be extra cautious in choosing the base, the platform, on which you build your business. Also, you need to understand why you are choosing a readymade solution over the traditional way of making a website.
The Advantages Of Choosing a SaaS Based B2B eCommerce platform for Your Enterprise Business
Building your own online website means a significant investment. The process is time-consuming and also expensive. Also, you can never say that the development is complete. Instead, you have to keep a budget and resources ready to continuously upgrading and testing your website as per the latest requirements.
Alternatively, opting for a SaaS-based enterprise eCommerce platform gives you a fully developed, tested and complete solution. The added advantage is it is continuously updated and upgraded with new features and tools as per the market demands. This simply means that the new tools and features that your business needs to succeed will keep getting added without you having to bother about the development or upgrade.
Why Choosing a right B2B eCommerce platform is a crucial decision?
We already know that the savvy shoppers of our times have become very choosy and want to have hassle-free buying experience. When 90% of purchases are made only after thorough online research about the product, you definitely want to choose a platform that gives the best experience to your customers.
This makes it important that you have some stringent checks to measure your B2B eCommerce platform on a number of parameters and choose the right one for your business.
A right choice can take your business to new heights of success and if you choose the wrong one, you are literally adding to your woes and worries.
So without much ado let's look into the top 8 features that make up a modern SaaS e-commerce platform for your business to business online venture;
Flexibility
Enterprise business are very different than their B2C counterpart where the brands deal with a huge number of individual buyers. B2B e-commerce solutions have a more complex flow and the one-size-fits-all kind of software would not be a feasible solution.
Instead, you need a platform that is designed for your specific business and considers all the aspects that will make the buying and selling process easier. The platform be built grounds up using a modern technology that makes it easy to tweak the backend as well as frontend to suit the specification of a growing business in the dynamic market.
Even if the B2B eCommerce platform promises customizations to check if it offers the ease to customize without taking too many resources and time. Also, check whether it will be able to handle a variety of products and services using multiple vendors and storefronts. Another flexibility should be that it has the inherent ability to handle any number of customers and their large volume orders.
An added bonus to all these features will be if you get the option to white-label your site. This will give an identity to your brand and also help with marketing. If your B2B eCommerce platform offers all these, you have found a good base for your business.
Easy-Integrations
You definitely don’t want to restrict your activities to the features that you get when you start your online journey. As your business grows you will feel the need to integrate with third-party and tools for marketing, customer support, accounting, logistics and many other services.
This makes it imperative that the platform you choose not only offers a rich set of features and tools but also lets you integrate with other platforms that make your business further automated and seamless.
So, look for a B2B eCommerce platform that makes it easy for you to customize your marketing and communications and makes it easy to handle your day-to-day- business by allowing to integrate the best third-party software for various business activities.
Scalability
Business growth is the one single goal that is the driving force behind every venture. A growing business needs a scalable solution that can accommodate its growth. If you have to switch platforms every time your business achieves a milestone it will become too much of a hassle.
Also since wholesale means that you have to deal with bulk orders and flows your business would need a platform that is designed with scalability at its core.
While many B2B e-commerce solutions claim to be scalable you should run a check to make ensure they actually deliver what they promise. So check whether the platform is auto scalable, supports heavy traffic and scalability of products, services, pages, workflows etc. Also, make sure that it can handle your peak load without glitches.
Customer Friendly
The golden rule of business is, keep your customers happy and they, in turn, will keep you happy and growing. Offering your customers personalized communications and deals make them feel that they are being cared for. This is even more necessary in a business-to-business setup where the requirements from one customer to other vary immensely.
The B2B e-commerce solutions that you opt for should be equipped with features and tools that help you achieve this speciality. When you are sending notifications, discounts or deals, handling complaints or just reaching out to know feedback, you just can’t send bulk emails like a B2C environment.
Also, you should have the features that allows you to reward your loyal customers with special deals that are crafted just for their needs. Having a feature to easily display or hide different pricing from different customer groups can be an advantage that can make it easier for you to acquire new customers and retain the old on your B2B eCommerce platform.
You need a platform that enables you to reach out and communicate with each of your enterprise clients in a unique fashion. Stress-free and smooth client handling can do wonders to your business. It will not only save time but also improve your organizational efficiencies.
So, look for a B2B eCommerce platform that offers you multiple channels (email, SMS, Push) to send regular updates to your customers at every stage of evaluating a purchase, ordering it, and finally getting it delivered.
Different From Your Competition
You definitely have taken a leap by taking your wholesale business online. But is this enough to give you an edge over your competitors? No!
To stay ahead in the race you need to give something to your customers that establish you as the leader. To begin with, you should start with a technologically advanced site that can be used on multiple devices. Also, the experience across devices should be seamless.
Your B2B e-commerce solutions should offer you a portal that is fast and responsive. Also, the page load and page switch time should be less so the customers do not leave your site. Offering a beautiful storefront that matches their experience on B2C sites will be an added advantage as it makes your site stickier.
If you find a platform that offers all these, go for it.
Budget- Friendly
Every business has a budget and so does yours. The ground rule to succeed in the long run is to allocate resources in a way that you get maximum ROI from them. The same rule applies to the cost you are going to bear for your B2B eCommerce platform.
While evaluating your service provider do check that you are getting a balance between the services you get and the prices you pay. Also, check if the prices are transparent and there are no surprises as you go forward. Also, the features support scalability and you do not have to pay if you grow rapidly within a few months.
While choosing your SaaS-based B2B eCommerce platform check that you are not paying additionally for security tools. Also, switching between plans should be easy and seamless.
Ability to Expand Beyond Borders
want to reach out to new markets. For this, you need a platform that supports global features to attract and serve customers from a variety of geographies.
This means your platform should have features that make global business easy. Some of these features include a powerful tax engine, IP based pricing, multilingual and multi-currency functionalities, the ability to have different storefronts for different target audiences, integration with national and international payment gateways.
If the B2B eCommerce platform you are considering gives you all these, it can support your future business expansion and help you make your mark.
Conclusion
The growth of the business to business online ventures is fast outpacing the growth of its B2C counterpart. This is the time to make a headstart and gain an edge in the market by taking your wholesale venture online. If you have been long contemplating where and how to begin your online journey, this is the right time.
Hope the above guidelines on choosing the right
B2B eCommerce platform for your business helps you choose a solution that makes your business grow and creates rapid brand value for your products and services.
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