B2B eCommerce - Amazon S3...B2B eCommerce 65 1.2 Findings from Statista show that the value of...

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Sweet Technology

B2B eCommerce: YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GETTING STARTED

1: Introduction to B2B eCommerce

1.1: Overview of B2B eCommerce

1.2: The latest B2B eComerce Trends

2: Why Should Your Business Invest in B2B eCommerce

2.1: How Does B2B eCommerce Benefit Your Business

2.2: How Does B2B eCommerce Benefit Your Customers

3: How To Get Started On B2B eCommerce

3.1: Starting The Transition to Sell Wholesale Online

3.2: 11 B2B eCommerce Features Your Site Needs

3.3: How to Get Your Customers Onboard

3.4: Essential Metrics & KPIs to Measure

Conclusion

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Contents

B2B eCommerce Your Ultimate Guide to Getting Started 1


1

Introduction toB2B eCommerce

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1.1

Welcome to the start of your B2B eCommerce journey. By opening up thiseBook, my guess is you recognize the vast growth potential of B2B eCommerce and are looking to tap into this market to grow your business.

You could be:

• A new business owner who is starting a wholesale business and is considering online as channel to focus on

• An existing wholesale business owner experienced in selling through traditional B2B channels and exploring selling wholesale online

• An online retail business owner who is looking to expand her business to sell to• wholesale customers

Regardless of which profile you fall under, this eBook can help you get started on B2B eCommerce. In this eBook, you will learn the basics of B2B eCommerce, how it can help you grow your business, and what the process is to get your wholesale business online.

An Overview of B2B eCommerce

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1.1 An Overview of B2B eCommerce

Let us start off by taking a quick look at how B2B eCommerce benefits your business.

Imagine you never again have to:

• Waste needless hours to review Excel files due to an inefficient and error-ridden spreadsheet-based order management process

• Devote hours per week to keep inventory up-to-date• Lose track of open invoices and overdue payments from your wholesale customers• Lose customers due to their unhappiness in a lengthy manual ordering process

through phone calls or emails

With B2B eCommerce, you would be able to:

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Start taking your wholesale business online by starting a free trial with Sweet Technology to set up your own B2B eCommerce Store!

Still not convinced that this is the right step for your business? Read on to learn about the latest B2B eCommerce trends and why moving your wholesale business online is beneficial for you.

Receive and track payments online to get paid faster

Get access to customer analytics and enjoy better customer retention from an enhanced overall customer experience

Improve your inventory management accuracy and efficiency

Save time and reduce errors by automating your order management process

https://www.getsweet.com/sign_up


1.2

Findings from Statista show that the value of global B2B eCommerce Sales reached $7.7 trillion dollars in 2017, a 32% increase compared to 2013.

At that size, B2B eCommerce was already triple the value of the $2.3 trillion dollars B2C eCommerce market, with no signs of slowing down in the next five years. If you haven’t already, you should enter this lucrative industry now.

B2B consumers preferences and expectations are continually changing in line with our fast-changing digital landscape.

For a better understanding of the B2B eCommerce landscape, here are five major trends in B2B eCommerce.

1. Mobile eCommerce Continues Its Fast Ascent

In the past, mobile eCommerce was an area in which B2B lagged behind B2C. That’s not the case anymore.

Compared to 2014, when mobile eCommerce accounted for 5% of B2B sales, a 2017 study, by Boston Consulting Group and Google, found that mobile drives or influences over 40% of B2B sales.

From product research to payment transactions, B2B buyers are increasingly dependent on their mobile devices during their entire B2B purchasing journey. In fact, 50% of B2B search queries are made on smartphones today. By 2020 this figure is expected to rise to 70%.

The Latest B2B eCommerce Trends


2. B2B Buyers Are Increasingly Technology Adept

B2B buyers are increasingly technology savvy, and this is changing the way they research and shop. The driving factor is that nearly 50% of B2B buyers are millennials who tend to be more receptive to new technology.

Gone are the days where B2B buyers would visit their local stores, talk to a sales rep or order through a catalog. Instead, they would conduct their buying process online even if they ultimately purchase it offline. The internet plays a big role in a B2B buyer decision-making with 89% of B2B buyers using it as part of their B2B research process. Also, for many B2B shoppers, online is the last point of influence before they decide if they would go ahead with their purchases.

Generally, people have become accustomed to using technology to shop for consumer goods on eCommerce websites like Amazon and Asos. Thus, they expect their online wholesale shopping experience to match the ease and convenience of their online consumer shopping experience.

1.2 The Latest B2B eCommerce Trends


3. Customer Personalization Is More Important Than Ever

B2B customers today expect a higher level of personalization than before. 59% of customers indicate that personalization influences their shopping decisions. In fact, 77% of consumers had chosen, recommended or paid more for a brand’s product or service when they received a personalized service or experience.

Businesses must be able to merge a personalized digital experience with the complexities that come with doing B2B sales, for example, having a unique product catalog and pricing list for each customer.

To succeed in selling to B2B customers, your business needs to personalize and deliver the right type of content, at the right time, to your customers.


4. Rising Tendency Towards Self-Service

Customers today want self-service. 90% of customers expect businesses to provide a self-service order portal. B2B buyers are seeking to become more independent in their purchasing process with 93% of B2B buyers saying they prefer buying online than from a salesperson when they have decided to make a purchase.

B2B buyers want to be able to do online research, place and manage orders without the need to physically communicate with their suppliers.



5. Rise In Importance Of Multi-System Integration

Multi-System Integration is an approach to streamline your business’s entire workflow by connecting different applications together so your business can run effectively and efficiently.

Most eCommerce platforms are developed with the sole purpose of handling eCommerce orders. It does not have features to assist you in managing back-end operations like inventory and order management, accounting, or shipping management.

Your business would typically use different software to manage these back-end activities.

However, when you run your business on separate business applications that are not integrated, you run the risk of having a siloed, disjointed work process. You could lose valuable customer order information and waste time doing manual entry.

96% of businesses believe it is important to integrate an eCommerce platform with other automated workflow applications. With a multi-system integration system in place, your workflow applications are all connected to each other and can run automatically and smoothly.

Not convinced? An Oracle report highlighted that integrating your eCommerce site with a back-end system can improve company revenue by 14.8%.

To find out more, check out this blog post on B2B eCommerce Trend 2018 for a more in-depth explanation of these trends.

https://www.getsweet.com/blog/posts/b2b-ecommerce-trends-2018-what-your-business-needs-to-know


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Why Should Your Business Invest In B2B eCommerce

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2.1

Running a small business is no easy task. There are challenges and pressure you encounter daily.

A B2B eCommerce solution can help ease your workload.

Your day-to-day wholesaler operations benefit when you sell online. Here are some of the key benefits.

How Does B2B eCommerce Benefit Your Business

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1. Save Time And Reduce Errors

With a B2B eCommerce platform, you can centralize your order management process in one platform.

Typically, for an eCommerce company to fulfill a customer’s order, different departments would be responsible for various stages of the order’s processing, e.g., receiving, picking/packing, fulfillment, accounts receivable, and more. Consider the multiple spreadsheets required to store your customers’ order, stock information, shipping updates, and more. Spreadsheets which are probably managed by various departments and stored on individual’s hard drives. It can be time-consuming to analyze multiple spreadsheets for up-to-date information, and the order processing workflow is easily disrupted when different departments have to wait their turn to input data. Ultimately, this results in delays and lower productivity.

Also, manual data entry leads to increased error rates, typically due to human error. Root cause analysis and fixing then requires additional time and effort.

A B2B eCommerce portal eliminates manual data entry and helps to centralize information for your employees. By automating this portion of the order process and facilitating the sharing of data, a B2B eCommerce solution speeds up your order processing time and reduces errors.

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2.1 How Does B2B eCommerce Benefit Your Business

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2. Improve Your Inventory Management Accuracy And Efficiency

There is nothing worse than accepting a customer order and then finding out you cannot fulfill their order due to an out-of-stock situation.

With a B2B eCommerce portal, your entire organization gains real-time access to customers’ orders. By having up-to-date access to order information, your production team can take quick action to replenish stock when it is running low. This improves your business’s organizational efficiency and reduces supply chain costs driven by excess inventory.

With easier access to order and inventory data, your operations team can focus on advanced inventory tactics such as forecasting and optimizing reordering and production.

3. Get Paid Faster

Say goodbye to the days of chasing customers for payment or wondering if they have paid you. Get paid faster by optimizing your payment workflow with a B2B eCommerce portal. With payments set up on your B2B eCommerce portal, your customers can pay you instantly with a variety of payment methods. Your business can manage and track each customer’s payment status easily through a B2B eCommerce portal.

Worried that your customers will submit a big order before they’ve paid for the last one? Set predetermined credit limits on customer accounts to control how much credit your customers can owe you without providing payment for past orders. Once your customers exceed their credit limit, they will be required to make a payment for their previous orders before placing new orders.

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4. Enjoy Better Customer Retention

By creating an easy and quick B2B ordering process, you can impress your new and existing customer and enjoy improved customer retention overall.

Moving your store online provide your customers with 24/7 purchasing, where they can order from you anytime, anywhere. Customers accustomed to shopping on Amazon do not want to waste time communicating back-and-forth with your sales rep when they could have placed their order, and had it processed during the same amount of time. 74% of B2B customers said they are highly likely to change brands if a business has a difficult purchasing or checkout process.

In addition, your business can reduce your cost-to-serve by giving customers real-time access to an up-to-date product catalog and pricing list. Your customers no longer have to call or email you every time they have basic questions about product catalog and pricing. Instead, they can head to your B2B eCommerce website to check for themselves.

To find out more about how your customers can benefit from using B2B eCommerce, continue reading on.

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2.2

Now, you might be worrying about your customers’s reaction when you invite them to your B2B eCommerce portal. Will they be receptive to submitting their business orders online?

There’s little reason for concern. As mentioned earlier, B2B shoppers are no different from their B2C counterparts. In an increasingly digital age, B2B shoppers want an intuitive and frictionless purchasing experience. A B2B eCommerce portal is your solution to providing that.

Here are some of the key benefits your customers will love.

1. Empower Your Customers

As mentioned earlier, B2B customers are increasingly looking for self-service when ordering products. A B2B eCommerce portal allows your customers to order at their own time and pace. They can avoid being pressured by salespeople and then purchase products at their own convenience.

How Does B2B eCommerce Benefit Your Customers


2. Easy Ordering Process

Your customers will thank you for the ease of ordering through a digital platform. Customers can quickly view your product catalog and prices and instantly make their orders on a single platform. With your B2B eCommerce site available 24/7, it is quick and straightforward for customers to place orders at their convenience. They no longer have to spend time trying to reach your sales rep.

3. Easily Track Order Status And History

With a digital platform, your customers have all their order details at their fingertips. They can use your B2B ordering portal to instantly access their current order details, order history, account balance and more. They will save time previously spent calling your sales team or searching through their email history to check on previous orders.

4. Pay With Flexible Payment Methods

Not every B2B customer wants to pay cash on delivery. A B2B eCommerce portal allows you to offer your buyers flexible payment options such as credit cards, ACH bank transfer, or even PayPal. Your customers can track their payments and balance so they can keep track of whether payments are due.

Now that you know how B2B eCommerce benefits both your business and customers, let us proceed to the next section and learn how you can get started on B2B eCommerce.

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2.2 How Does B2B eCommerce Benefit Your Customers


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How To Get Started On B2B eCommerce

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3.1

Now, you must be ready to embark on your B2B eCommerce journey. How do you proceed? Let us start by providing you with a short list of steps to aid you in your transition to selling wholesale online.

1. Confirm The Opportunity With Your Customers

Before you start the process of creating your B2B eCommerce portal, you should ensure that launching a B2B eCommerce initiative will serve your existing customers better and/or reach new customers. A customer-centric approach is important as a B2B eCommerce portal is only useful if your customers are willing to accept and use it. You need to provide your B2B buyers with a better purchasing experience for them to move away from their traditional ordering methods to B2B eCommerce.

You can start by engaging with a few of your customers whom you feel will be willing to move online to purchase wholesale from you.

After gathering your customers’ feedback, you are ready to start planning for your new B2B eCommerce portal.

Starting The Transition To Sell Wholesale Online

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2. Create Your Product Catalog

Your online product catalog needs to have aesthetically attractive photos and an easy to navigate hierarchy to make things easy for customers.

Based on the type of customers you plan to target with your B2B eCommerce portal, create a list of your finished good products your business wishes to sell. Remember to include all variations (color, sizes, etc.) in the list as well.

Once that is completed, shoot high-quality photos of your products you plan to upload onto your B2B eCommerce platform.

Do not forget to include product descriptions that contain key details about your product features. Your product description must be able to address any potential queries your customers might have.

3. Sort Out Your Customer’s Pricing

For the products you will be including in your B2B eCommerce site and the customers you’re planning on including, you will need to sort out any negotiated rates and wholesale prices. You would not want to cause any confusion or conflicts with your customers over the prices they view online.

One useful tip is to classify your customers into various groups based on different factors such as geographical locations, sale taxes and customer types (wholesaler, retailer, distributor). Doing so will help you to have an easier time managing your pricing list and billing information.

4. Organize Your Customer’s Contact Information

You will need to upload an updated list of all your customers’ contact information (name, company, billing information) onto your B2B eCommerce platform.

One important piece of information that your list needs to contain is your customers’ email address. Having your customers email address in one place makes it easier for your business to send a mass invitation to access your online portal instead of sending it one by one.

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3.1 Starting The Transition to Sell Wholesale Online


5. Map Your Order Fulfillment Process & Workflow For B2B eCommerce

You need to map out how to integrate your new B2B eCommerce sales channel into your current workflow. Understanding where your B2B eCommerce portal can help to streamline your workflow can help to make this process easier, as well as get buy-in from your colleagues in other departments who may be impacted.

You will also need to map out your workflow to enable automation of certain manual tasks with the help of your B2B eCommerce portal.

6. Finding The Right Tool For Your Business

Your business needs to find the right tool to set up your B2B eCommerce portal. Here are some of the ways you can start selling with B2B eCommerce:

• Dedicated B2B eCommerce Portal from a hosted company

• B2C eCommerce Website Configured for B2B

• B2B Marketplace Listing

• Develop your own B2B eCommerce portal from scratch

If you are serious about taking your B2B business online, a dedicated B2B eCommerce portal from a hosted company is usually your best bet. A dedicated B2B eCommerce portal has inbuilt features that are specifically designed for B2B purchasing needs. It offers a lower total cost of ownership, faster time to market and more flexibility to manage your operations compared to the other alternatives.

Start taking your wholesale business online by starting a free trial with Sweet Technology to set up your own B2B eCommerce Store!

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3.1 Starting The Transition to Sell Wholesale Online



3.2

To reap all the benefits B2B eCommerce has to offer, ensure that the solution you choose has the following features.

1. Personalized, Customer-Specific Product Catalogs And Pricing

2. Order Management Rules

a. Implementing Minimum Order Quantities

b. Enable Or Disable Back-Ordering For Out-Of-Stock Products

3. Multiple Payment Methods And Terms

4. Account Balance And Past Payments View

5. Order History Tracking

6. ECommerce Platform Customization

7. Personalized Customer Invitation

8. Detailed Product Page

9. Integrations With Your Accounting, Shipping, And CRM Applications

10. Gated Access To Wholesale Product Catalog And Pricing

10 B2B eCommerce Features Your Site Needs


3.3

Now, with your B2B online store all set-up, how do you start getting your customers to use your online portal? Here a few tips on how you can do just that.

1. Target The Right Type Of Customers

Not all of your wholesale customers will be immediately receptive to placing their wholesale orders with you online. Identify which of your customers are most likely to start using your B2B eCommerce Portal and target them first. Once a few of your customers start using your B2B eCommerce Portal and are happy with it, you will have a few examples and references to use when convincing other customers to jump onboard and use your B2B eCommerce Portal.

2. Inform And Educate Your Customers

Keep your customers updated during the implementation of your B2B eCommerce portal. Send personalized emails introducing them to your B2B eCommerce portal. For a more personalized touch, give your customers a call to share the news of your new online portal and address any queries they might have of it.

It is crucial for a customer to understand the on-boarding process clearly. You will need to provide a thorough breakdown of the entire process, from how to log on to the platform to how to navigate around the site.

One effective method to use to educate your customers is to provide group demo sessions. Demos serve as an excellent opportunity to highlight essential site features and to teach customers how to use the B2B solution. It can also be used to gather immediate customer feedback of the ordering process.

How To Get Your Customers Onboard


3. Incentivize Your Customers

Drive initial adoption by providing a reward for your customers to start using your B2B eCommerce portal. Give discounts like free shipping, discounts off their next purchase, or free samples for placing orders using your portal.

4. Be Open To Feedback

The most important thing is to be open to hearing your customers’ feedback. Learn from your customers’ experiences and find out what they like or dislike about your B2B site. Using their feedback, make changes to improve your customers’ online experience. When you receive good feedback, it serves as a verification of the success of your customers’ onboarding process. When you receive bad feedback, act quickly to make improvements and iterate.

5. Track Your Customers’ Onboarding Process and Improve Where Necessary

Your business will need to establish your own set of metrics to track your success in getting your customers onboard to use your B2B eCommerce platform. Doing so can help you understand where customers are dropping off and why. In the next section, you can find out what metrics can be used to measure how well your customers are engaging with your B2B eCommerce portal.

3.3 How To Get Your Customers Onboard


3.4

Now with your B2B eCommerce site running, how do you measure success? While there are many metrics and KPIs to measure, here are the top B2B eCommerce metrics to help you track your business’s B2B eCommerce performance.

Measure Sales Performance

Average Order Value

This KPI helps you measure if the average order value from your customers has increased over time.

To calculate your average order value: Average Order Value= Total Revenue/ Total Number Of Orders

This KPI can help you determine if you are selling more after implementing a B2B eCommerce Portal. An article by eConsultancy reported that on average, B2B companies experienced a 44% increase in their average order value after moving their ordering process online.

This KPI can help you understand if you are capitalizing on the cross-selling and upselling potential a B2B eCommerce platform offers. It will also let you know whether you are helping your customers find not just the products they’re looking for but other products they may need.

Essential Metrics & KPIs To Measure


3.4 Essential Metrics & KPIs To Measure

Measure Customer Engagement

Online Customer Retention Rate

This KPI measures the rate your customers have embraced your B2B eCommerce portal.

To calculate this metric, Online Customer Retention Rate = [(Number Of Online Customers At The End Of Period – The Number Of Online Customers Lost During The Period) / Number Of Customers At The Start Of The Period]

A B2B eCommerce portal is an alternative to other sales channels such as phone calls or emails. Using this KPI helps your business understand if your existing customers have made a successful transition to using an online portal.

Online Order Frequency

This KPI measures how often your business receives online orders in a given period.

To calculate this metric, Online Order Frequency= (Number Of Online Orders In Time Period/ Time Units(Days/Weeks/Months) In Time Period)

This metric is a good indicator to assess if the implementation of your B2B eCommerce portal has helped increase your order frequency.

Business should expect a higher online order frequency as a B2B eCommerce portal has the benefit of making your customers’ ordering experience more accessible and convenient. Also, it helps your customers to place orders to the go, allowing them to make orders anytime and anywhere they are.



Net Promoter Score

This KPI measures the willingness of customers to recommend your company’s B2B eCommerce Portal to others.

The Net Promoter Score is calculated based on responses to a single question: “How likely is it that you would recommend (your business) to a friend or colleague? The counting of the score is calculated on a scale of 0 to 10.

Based on their responses, your customers will be grouped into the following:

• Promoters (Score of 9 to 10)

• Passives (Score of 7 to 8)

• Detractors (Score of 0 to 6)

To calculate this metric, Net Promoter Score =% Of Promoters - % Of Detractors

This KPI helps your business gauge your customers’ overall satisfaction with your B2B eCommerce Portal. You can complement this KPI with customer feedback and surveys to gain a better insight into the underlying problems and the features your customers love on your B2B eCommerce portal.



Operational Excellence

Number Of Customer Service Phone Calls And Email Count

This KPI measures the time saved on answering customer queries and taking in orders with the usage of a B2B eCommerce Portal.

To calculate this metric, You can measure how many customer service phone calls and emails your business receives over a fixed time period

Traditionally, customers will call or email your business to place orders or ask questions regarding their orders. With a B2B eCommerce portal, these tasks can be eliminated as customers can log in to their account to order or track their order history.

The fewer phone calls and emails you receive, the more time you saved that can be used for other productive tasks. If the number of phone calls or emails does not decrease, you would need to re-assess and find what needs to be fixed on your website.

Average Time Taken To Process Orders

This KPI helps to track the average time taken to process an incoming order.

To calculate this metric, You would need to track the average time of an order from when a customer has placed an order until the order has been fulfilled and delivered to your customer

This metric helps your business to understand if your B2B eCommerce portal has helped you save time in your back-office operations. If your average time taken to process orders does not drop, you should take another look at your workflow and assess what changes need to be made to assimilate your B2B eCommerce portal successfully into your workflow.



B2B eCommerce has already outgrown B2C eCommerce and it’s widely expected to continue growing as more businesses adapt to buying and selling wholesale online.

Creating effective customer-service solutions is vital to growing any B2B brand. Customers expect their wholesale buying to be simple and quick - just like when they are shopping for retail. Having your products online should not be seen as a convenience but as a necessity, for any wholesale business.

Not only will your customers benefit from a B2B eCommerce platform, so too will your business. Apart from giving your customers a better wholesale experience, reap the benefits of a more streamlined order and inventory management process, saving you time and reducing errors for your business.

What are you waiting for? Now that you have learned the benefits of launching a B2B eCommerce site and equipped with the knowledge of how to do it, it is the time to start jumping on the B2B eCommerce bandwagon and take your business to the next level.

If you are ready to give wholesaling online a try, our B2B eCommerce Portal Is a great place to start.

Conclusion


Sweet Technology

CLICK HERE TO START A FREE TRIAL

Sweet was founded in 2015 with one simple mission: help growing wholesale companies scale by streamlining their back-office operations.

Sweet is a cloud-based inventory and order management platform for wholesalers. We’ve built Sweet to help you keep up with the non-stop nature of running a business today. We can help you sync orders coming in via email, calls, texts, etc., and then ensure your production, accounting, and customer service all have the same information.

Sweet keeps your business streamlined so you can focus on what’s most important: making great products and growing your business.

About Sweet Technology


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