B2B Ecommerce

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B2B Ecommerce

B2B ecommerce is now a mainstream sales channel. And with B2B ecommerce expected to reach $2 trillion in sales this year, manufacturers and distributors are being forced to rethink how to conduct business with growing numbers of digital-first customers.

More than 80% of companies say they hold their ecommerce channel to the same or higher standard as other channels. They also say it offers the same or better levels of excellence in product and service availability, pricing, performance guarantees, shipping and delivery, and personalized recommendations.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

The majority of B2B cross-border ecommerce within Europe occurs within its geographical borders between countries, while only 30% of B2B cross-border ecommerce is happening outside of the European region.

On the other hand, B2B ecommerce sales through websites and online marketplaces are accelerating and growth is at an all-time high. Only 6% of B2B buyers do not currently use online marketplaces and 75% of B2B procurement spending is projected to happen via an online marketplace within the next five years.

Integration providers like nChannel focus on providing pre-built connectors to sync data and automate critical processes between ecommerce platforms and back-end systems like an ERP/Accounting, POS, or 3PL to increase operational efficiency and eliminate costly data processing errors.

Fifty-seven percent of B2B executives stated that ecommerce integration was another top technology need. They defined ecommerce integration as integrating backend technology for managing operations like inventory and customer orders with their ecommerce platform.

Yes, B2B ecommerce vendors create content. Ecommerce B2Bs often use content as part of their digital marketing strategy and create blog posts, video content, white papers, reports, and social media content to attract customers.

There are some barriers to ecommerce, including outdated legacy platforms and communication gaps in the supply chain. Utilising a modern B2B ecommerce solution can help a business resolve many of the ecommerce barriers including efficient workflows and creating a personalised customer experience.

The time it takes to create a B2B ecommerce store depends on many factors, including what B2B ecommerce platform you use, how well you know how to use the platform, and how big your ecommerce store will be. For some, building a B2B ecommerce store might take a few hours or a day, and for others, it could take weeks or months.

Have you been thinking about moving to a new ecommerce platform but aren't sure where to start? You're not alone. This straightforward guide discusses the steps, processes, and personnel involved in an ecommerce migration.

Take these paths and personas and craft unique sequences built out within a marketing automation footprint. Start with reviewing our ecommerce automation guide to get a deeper understanding of how to create a roadmap that associates to your business processes.

Tie in social media promotions to ecommerce promotions for an experience that is not disjointed and consider running prospecting ads within Facebook and Linked IN to get your prospects into marketing funnels which again can be constructed to highlight certain product categories that offer value to the prospect/visitor.

You can build an auto-replenish system into your eCommerce interface while training your salespeople how to onboard customers to this option. Notice below how Chewy in their ecommerce UX presentation shows the autoship offer dynamically tailored to their web users.

If you need help, the team at Trinity is here to offer their expertise to guide you in the right direction. Sign up for a 30-minute strategy session to speak to an ecommerce strategist about your B2B commerce opportunity.

KEY STAT: By 2024, over $2 trillion in B2B product sales will be taking place over ecommerce websites. However, this will still represent only a small portion of overall US B2B product sales and just over a fifth of B2B electronic sales.

The business of selling to other businesses is big business. In 2019, the gross merchandise volume (GMV) of global B2B ecommerce was over $12 trillion, and it is the fastest-growing sales model out there.

When we talk about ecommerce, most people immediately think of the brands that sell things to them, the end user. These business-to-consumer (B2C) brands are meant for the masses and, for that reason, are more widely known.

One of the core components of B2B ecommerce are customer and company accounts which gives you the ability to set pricing structures and offer an effective quoting system for specific sets of buyers. The flexibility of pricing will just depend on the ecommerce platform you choose; many B2B ecommerce platforms can handle complex account-based pricing and personalization which allow for multiple price lists and show specific pricing information based on account status. If customers need a custom quote, sales reps can use a quoting system in place that allows customers to request a quote for them to send at any time. Even for custom products, product configurators and forms allow B2B sellers to assign prices for each configuration, so that the final price or quote for the customer is automated.

In the capital equipment space, for example, some manufacturers have broken into the ecommerce space with parts and attachment sales using a digital catalog that makes it easy for buyers to see what components are compatible with their equipment models. Having an online parts store is the perfect route to offer continued after-sales business and drive extra revenue!

Most people assume B2B ecommerce only allows for credit cards or other simple payment gateways like PayPal, but there are actually a lot of B2B e-payment options out there. Many leading ecommerce platforms will allow B2B companies to offer a variety of payment options depending on the associated customer accounts. These options include credit card, bank transfers, purchase orders, checks/money orders, mobile wallets, and credit lines. B2B merchants have the ability to set a variety of payment options for specific customers at the account and role level. For instance, depending on the credit worthiness of the customer, you can allow purchase orders at the account level and have specific roles to approve the order. Some platforms, like Magento, already have this as a default option, whereas others would require a third-party integration.

In some ways, the move from B2B sales happening offline to online mirrors other trends we see in the B2C market. Rather than selling offline, businesses are coming to terms with the fact that distributing products and services from a specialized ecommerce platform makes the process a lot easier.

There are a couple of boxes your B2B ecommerce site needs to tick to move to a prescriptive approach to selling products and services. First, take a look at any challenges customers might face when purchasing products on your site:

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B2B ecommerce businesses are currently facing a bit of a boom. Forrester estimates that B2B ecommerce revenues will reach $1.8 trillion in the US in the next four years. And a recent BigCommerce study found that 41% of B2B retailers predict their online sales to increase more than 25% by the end of the year.

Currently, the B2B ecommerce opportunity is huge compared to B2C ecommerce, which has become harder to crack due to high levels of competition and low barriers to entry. B2B buyers are becoming increasingly interested in making purchases online. Sellers, meanwhile, are only starting to make it possible.

B2B ecommerce sites often use quote builders and set up different technology to be able to accept and process larger orders. For example, this may include options for recurring payments, bulk discounts, and shipping.

To streamline the decision-making process, B2B ecommerce site owners offer tailored pricing to buyers. They also set up customer accounts to make it easy for buyers to fill out orders and complete transactions.

The B2B ecommerce industry is in its infancy and growing rapidly. Only about 25% of B2B businesses sell their products online, yet the global B2B ecommerce industry is projected to surpass $6.5 trillion in the year 2020. In the U.S. alone, the industry is already right around the $1 trillion mark. Again, this is only a fraction of total B2B sales, but the numbers are rising.

One of the biggest opportunities with B2B sales is the chance to sell across international borders. In fact, the cross-border market for B2B sellers is poised to reach over $63,084 billion by 2026. (acumen) A key B2B ecommerce best practice for international expansion is to go beyond wire transfers, cards and invoicing and accept a variety of payment methods including bank transfers and ewallets.

As a B2B ecommerce business, you must know the regulations and laws for both your industry and your location. This might seem dry, but it can make or break your success. So take the time to do your homework and understand marketing regulations like GDPR in Europe as well as payment fraud best practices and compliance. 041b061a72