1 Open up the site
It is common that everything starts with logging in at B2B sites. First when an agreement is signed, products are displayed. Rethink and start showing your product range without logging in. The prices doesn’t have to be displayed to everyone. Have in mind that the buying process for a lot of people start with searching for information, be there from the start and show what you can offer. Pages with login doesn’t index by the search engines, if the product pages are protected with login, the products can’t help you to reach the customers. Make it easy for a new customer to go from looking to shopping from you through an easy registration.
2 To find and be found
The product information is the base for both the organic search by an external search engine as Google, Bing, or Yahoo as well as the internal search that should make it easier for the customer to find the product at the site once the customer has found the site. To be visible in the search, is your way of showing that you exist. The trend with content marketing, where you write texts and articles to help the customer is another. Good and relevant content increases the potential to be found. Talk about the things that the customer is interested in.
The customer should be able to quickly find in a complex product range at a site with a working search function. It is recommended to add the internal search as a constantly existing element. Examples of search functions are Lucene, a very competent search which meets more than the basic need. Lucene-search offers for example a compact search result list while typing, a more refines result list when clicking on Search, and the search result presented per menu category. Loop54 is an advanced search function that is based on logic to provide the most relevant search result to the customer.
3 The Informed Customer
There has always been well informed customers. But it has never been so easy to be well informed before. Today we have created a general behavior where we look for information whether it is a product, news, a recipe, or a YouTube-video. The informed customer gather information; search, compare, and question. An order can very well go to a supplier with a slightly higher price, but who meets the information need, and therefore creates trust. Since we humans rather buys from the ones we trust. That also applies whether if it is a web shop that we order from.
The customer is often a long way in the decision making since it is often easy to find information. Make sure to be a part of the beginning of that process. Lacking information about the product direct from a business system or a lot of enriched information suited for e-commerce? It can be the factor that is decisive for an order.
4 Personalization
Forrester has personalization as the key success factor for companies who is digital under 2016. Data that you gather can be used to personalize the site.
Custom-made content provides higher relevance for the customer and the probability increases to the order to be completed. It is a waste to show content for the customers that they are not interested of, it is a risk that instead of making it easier, ends up making it harder.
Personalization is especially good if you sell to several specific groups with different needs. The things that are interesting for someone can someone else be completely uninterested of. Tailored content is based on rules and you can for example be controlled by visited pages, order history, and geographical position.
Gather information about your customers. The web has the best prerequisites where you can get information about a logged in customer for free. Use it. Come up with a strategy – What do I want to know and what should I do with the data? Information about your customers is a gold mine. And it is your own!
5 Think Mobile Units
The mobile has become natural to always bring, and is rarely more than an arm length away for several. More and more shop from a mobile unit as a private person, there is no reason to not think that a part of the buying process in a B2B store will happen with a mobile. If you are logged in, the possibility to move your cart between different units should be available.
Think about how your customers use their mobile phone, and what information that is most important for them to see straight away in the mobile. For responsive sites, sites that adjust the content by device, you usually talk about mobile first. You go through the design from the unit that can show the least information and prioritize what is most important. To a tablet or laptop, you just then add more information that increases the experience, but is not absolutely necessary.
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In what context does your customers use the mobile phone?
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Which information must be visible then?
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Which aids should be visible straight away?
6 The web as a Starting Point for Product Information
For an e-commerce site, the most important information messenger is the product. Traditionally, B2B has a legacy of sales from a catalogue, or from data in a business system, where both sources have their limitations in information content. The customer expects more and more today more information and better quality in the information in e-commerce than the business system or catalogue can meet.
For several B2B sellers, the catalogue is the foundation that the sales rely on. If you sell through a catalogue, take a moment and reverse the ideas of the catalogue. Why not see the web as your base for selling information? What are the pros of seeing the web as the foundation for information, instead of the catalogue?
What does the customer need to know? Explain what is needed for assembling. Provide information for every occasion, not only the purchase phase. What do you want to do is relevant to ask the customer.
7 Make it Easier for the Sales Staff
The change from looking in a paper catalogue and talking to sales reps, to searching for the information and ordering products online is huge. It is all about adjusting the sales organization to the new way of selling, and seeing the web as a helping hand, and not a competitor that is trying to steal their job. There are numbers of different chat functions that can be used to offer visitors at your site to get in touch with a sales rep or customer service. The sales organizations expertize is often needed, but it is better if they do the work where it is really useful and provide suggestions and recommendations when it is needed.
Make sure that the product information and range is updated at the site, to make it easier for both customers and sales staff. The sales staff can help placing orders, and also offer help with existing carts. Let the sales staff become experts who can help in the way that different customers want.
8 Make it Easier for the Customers
Despite if the customer wants to order from you, you need to provide the customer with the option to work as the want, despite if they want to check out the site and add one product at the time to the cart, or if they want to add all items in a form of a quick order. The customer might want different shopping lists that they can work on, or watch lists so that they are informed when a product is in stock again.
If you sell spare parts, a really nice function is that you can see cutaways and easily click down to find the parts that you are looking form, and in an easy way order them from there. Some of you sell products to store, and they probably don’t have your full product line. A function that you could have that makes it easier for stores are to show a recommended price, and what the store buys the product for together with contribution margin/coverage ratio. It is then easy for the store to see how far you can go if you want to offer the customer any discount. If you can quickly hide this information, the store can use your web page to compare different products together with the customer.
You can also have a function where you as a customer can create a product page or catalogue by selection a certain number of products that you can use to create a nice PDF with product information where the store can put their prices.
We have also built an attest function in certain systems, in order for those with budget responsibility can easily attest an order that is placed on the site. They don’t have to handle a lot of papers or e-mails internally. Anything to making it easier for the customer.
9 Omnichannel
Corporate customers are also expecting the prices to be the same in different channels, and that the same delivery methods can be selected. Working with omnichannel should be just as natural in B2B as in B2C. Make sure to use all channel’s strengths, and finding synergies. As a customer you expect to move free within all channels, receiving the same experience everywhere.
There are great possibilities for the companies that can offer an online order or reservation to then pick it up in the store the same or next day. Something that is suited for some companies is a form of Drive through, as the hamburger chains have. You order to pick up in the store, but instead of going in, you can go straight to picking it up. Fast and easy.
10 Efficient e-commerce Projects where B2B meet B2C
It is the same people who shops at a B2B site as a B2C site, which makes their expectations similar in some extent. A B2B buyer has a somewhat different focus since these orders are often more controlled by a need, which can lead to a smaller effect for inspiration to purchases. But it is equally or more important that the B2B buyer clearly sees which alternatives there is to a product, and which the differences are. Several of the B2B sites today are basic order systems, not completely different from the orders in a business system. This makes the overview of products and the exploring function you expect at a site today often is lost.
An important difference between B2B and B2C is that you often have a different kind of relation to the customers. There is often a contract between the parties regulating price and assortment, and in that case it is important that it is also reflected on the site. If you can call your sales rep and get a special price, you undermine your site.
We are convinced that there is an enormous potential to improve several B2B sites by implementing a lot of the functionalities that is self-evident in B2C. The consumer sites simplicity and efficiency, and how we people behave as consumers, are driving the companies in the same direction, how does your company prepare for the journey to modern e-commerce?