Learning from B2C: Making B2B eCommerce More Accessible for Self-Service

(This is a guest post from our friends over at Zoey Commerce,a powerful eCommerce solution for B2B and wholesale businesses.)

Traditionally, B2B eCommerce has been a more manual process than its B2C counterparts. There’s a variety of reasons for this, from more complex product offerings to lagging technology solutions for B2B business. Fortunately, the latter issue has been quickly getting resolved, with off-the-shelf B2B eCommerce solutions providing much more robust capabilities than they did even just a couple of years ago.

For B2B and wholesale sellers, this means the opportunity to take much more time-intensive sales and streamline them, simply by offering their buyers stronger self-service tools. Some of these ideas come from the B2C eCommerce space, and will look familiar to all of us as B2C shoppers when we take off our work hats.

Here’s some ways that B2B businesses can leverage modern eCommerce technology to put more power in the hands of their buyers.

RPV: The Most Important KPI for Your eCommerce Store

(This is a guest post from our friends over at, 121eCommerce, a seasoned Magento Professional Partner and web development agency specializing in B2B and B2C eCommerce.)

If you run an online store, chances are you have your eyes on a lot of KPIs. From return rates to bounce rates, cart abandonment, conversion rates, AOV and more – there’s a lot to keep track of.

So what’s the most important KPI to keep your eye on? 

It’s none of the above.

It’s RPV. Revenue Per Visitor. 

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…)