User Review
( votes)There is a lot in the way B2C brands approach their market that’s starting to influence B2B companies. The all-business mindset, with a product-centric focus, is not as profitable as a more customer-centric focus — even in B2B.
A fundamental step toward making the shift toward a more traditional B2C focus is creating a dynamics-integrated ordering portal.
Many B2B brands are slow to adjust. A customer-centric structure is only used by 23% of B2B marketers, despite customer-centric brands being 60% more profitable than companies with other primary focuses.
Though not everything B2C companies do is applicable in a B2B market, there are several user experience features online that B2B companies should adopt. First and foremost is an updated ordering portal.
Pushing Savvy Product Catalogs
Online product catalogs are the meat and potatoes of many B2B companies’ online presence — especially those serving up dozens or even hundreds of products and services.
However, long gone are the days when it was effective to simply upload all the tiny text of your print product catalog into a spreadsheet and let prospective buyers sift through all the information.
Now, even those searching B2B brands are heavily influenced by multimedia products and dynamic content.
Given that the primary differentiation in B2B purchases comes down to user experience, creating product catalogs with efficient search tools make users feel at home. Dynamic content that leads them to exactly the information they need is vital.
Serving Up Self-Service Ordering
Amazon’s one-click system (no longer under patent) is the gold standard. That system has also changed people’s expectations about how simple and easy the buying process should be, which impacts B2C and B2B.
It all comes down to convenience. It’s estimated that if it took one second longer for Amazon’s website to load, the company would lose $1.6 billion in sales. Though you may be doing a lot fewer transactions than Amazon, losing just one or two of those because you don’t have a quick one-page checkout system can significantly hurt your bottom line.
It would also behoove you to include automated recurring orders. This is the type of thing that computers are really good at, and it means that a customer only has to make the buying decision once to keep getting orders filled — which means they’ll spend less time around considering not making an order.
The final benefit of adopting a B2C approach to your online checkout is that customers can place their purchases at any time of the day from anywhere in the world — they don’t need to wait for your company to be open to doing so.
Perfect with Personalization
Personalizing customers’ user experience is vital to creating a dynamic website that builds loyalty and increases sales. The level of personalization can get as granular as targeting specific users and can also be expanded to include groups based on certain demographics or online behaviors.
Personalizing a user experience online means having a dynamic website that will serve up content that meets specific users’ needs or provide special deals based on certain criteria.
You can even personalize the checkout process. Based on what a customer is buying, you can offer additional free products or offer discounts on similar products. Not only can this help increase sales of auxiliary goods, but it will also help you build more robust B2B relationships and increase brand loyalty.
Final Thoughts: 3 Advantages of a Dynamics-Integrated B2B Ordering Portal
Having a dynamics-integrated ordering portal for your B2B business is essential. Customers (even in B2B) are less willing to mess around with complicated, impersonal ordering forms.
They have high expectations and will take their business to whoever can meet them.
ERP-integrated e-commerce is the smartest move any company can make, and the best time to get started is right now. K-eCommerce has written a guide that breaks down the immense opportunities e-commerce presents B2B companies and shows you exactly what to expect when you start selling online. It’s yours free to download.
