Get Your B2B Sales Team On Board for Your eCommerce Migration

(This is a guest post from our friends over at ES Tech Group, who offers the B2B webstore platform, EvolutionX, and web catalog service, FusionPlus.)

Uber and Lyft are taking over taxis. Self-check-out kiosks are taking over store clerk positions. B2B eCommerce webstores are taking over salespeople’s roles – or are they? The answer, in short, is no; however, some salespeople still seem to fear otherwise.

While the salesperson’s role is not becoming obsolete, it is changing; however, before we dive in to how we can get our sales team to corroborate a digital transformation, it’s first imperative that we can explain to them why this additional sales channel is essential.

Delivering Omnichannel Customer Experiences in B2B eCommerce

As B2B eCommerce continues to gain traction among B2B sellers, they are now faced with the challenge to deliver the same streamlined customer experiences at different customer touchpoints. Modern buyers are looking for simplified and convenient access to product catalogs online but they also may require personal assistance or a direct phone call with a sales rep. They search for items on their mobile phones, then send RFQs on an eCommerce portal, and negotiate prices in person on a call. They expect matching buying experience on every sales channel and this is why having a strong B2B omnichannel strategy is such a vital foundation for each company’s customer-focused eCommerce.

Delivering omnichannel customer experiences in B2B eCommerce is also important for converting offline buyers into fluent eCommerce users. B2B eCommerce market is growing fast – Forrester estimates that US B2B eCommerce has surpassed $1.1 trillion and will grow up to $1.8 trillion by 2023. The name of the game for B2B companies today is bringing more customers online and that means facilitating their eCommerce buying journey every step of the way.

So, what are the key elements of an omnichannel strategy in B2B and how to implement them? We’ll start with an overview of organizational and cultural changes, after which we’ll shortlist major technological enablers. (more…)

How to Choose the Best B2B eCommerce Platform for Your Business

(This post was originally published on August 17th, 2016. It has been updated for accuracy and completeness.)

According to Forrester, US B2B eCommerce is expected to reach $1.8 trillion and account for 17% of all B2B sales in the US by 2023. B2B eCommerce is on pace to be twice the size of B2C eCommerce.

However, many B2B sellers are still in their infancy for building out strategic online channels. So far most have been slow to adopt eCommerce best practices. If there’s one thing to learn from B2C selling, it’s how crucial it is to choose the right platform to power your online business.

This article aims to show B2B merchants the role eCommerce technology plays in building a user-friendly online experience and how to evaluate which B2B eCommerce platform is best for your business. (more…)

Magento 2 New Features: B2B eCommerce & Multi-Location Inventory

(This is a guest post from our friends over at JetRails, a fully-managed white-glove eCommerce hosting service.)

As a robust, open source eCommerce platform, Magento has attracted manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and other B2B businesses to its previous-generation software platform, Magento 1 (M1). In most cases, these businesses needed to add Magento extensions and engage in additional custom coding in order create the appropriate shopping experience for their B2B customers as well as to follow unique business rules and practices that were central to how they sell their goods.

Magento 1.x is now on a slow march toward an End of Life in June of 2020. That means that businesses still using M1 are planning to move off of this legacy platform before security patches stop arriving, and before the last minute rush to replatform.

As part of this process, merchants will be able to step back and evaluate which eCommerce platform will be able to best support their future needs. Some SaaS solutions like BigCommerce have evolved to include some B2B features. Depending on the features and functionalities that you need, Magento 2, with its open source architecture, may still be the way to go because of its flexibility and customization.  (more…)

2019 Retail Goals: Improve Your Returns Process

The faux holiday National Returns Day came earlier this season than previous years. UPS estimated that they would process and ship 1.5 M returned packages on December 19^th and expected another wave of 1.3M packages to hit on January 3rd. It’s unusual to see a spike in returns before Christmas. Experts, however, contribute this new trend to major holiday deals happening even before Black Friday. No matter when “National Returns Day” happens though, returns are an inevitable part of holiday selling or retail in general. And how you handle returns can have a major impact on both your profitability and customer satisfaction.

So, were you ready to handle returns this year? If you weren’t, here’s our latest tips and advice on why you should improve returns in 2019 and how to do so. (more…)