How to create a strong selling strategy with the help of B2B ecommerce?
B2B buyers know exactly what they want, and they are more demanding today than ever. If you’re doing B2B ecommerce sales, your goal is to create the best possible online shopping experience for users, because a happy customer becomes a faithful customer. Still, many companies are just not capable of keeping up with new market trends and more and more demanding clients. What is the consequence of such a discrepancy between your sales strategy and buyers’ needs? The answer is obvious and inevitable – less income from sales.
If you are not generating a positive B2B ecommerce shopping experience, not only are you loosing potential new buyers, but you are most likely losing the ones you already have. That is a very expensive and unnecessary “violation in steps”. If you are losing income because your B2B web shop doesn’t offer a positive online shopping experience, the attempt to make up for such a loss with a new acquisition will cost you approximately five times more.
B2B buyers are willing to pay more for a good online shopping experience
Over 70% of B2B ecommerce buyers make the decision to buy based on the experience during shopping. What does that mean? B2B buyers want updated and accurate information, clear price lists, simple catalogue searching and specially adjusted offers and services. Also, they want to see that you are easily available and involved in the whole process, especially at the time of delivery. In B2B ecommerce, the buyer always has to be the centre of attention.
You still think you can develop sales in B2B ecommerce without a special focus on creating a pleased client? Think again, because research has shown that buyers are willing to pay a 16% higher price if it is justified by a positive shopping experience in a B2B web shop.
52% of them confirmed that they are willing to pay more if the B2B web shop is quick and responsive. That means that your buyers want a B2B web shop that functions without any delays and that can be accessed from a desktop computer, smartphone and tablet. Even 43% of buyers consider a higher price is justified if a web shop offers some benefits for clients, like a special discount for buying in the B2B web shop.
Even the smallest improvement of the online shopping experience directly affects keeping the buyers on the web page, the levels of their satisfaction and sales results. But, a great number of B2B ecommerce companies still neglects this fact, which loses them huge amounts of profit, without even being aware of it. Don’t be one of them.
Reality check – a fair amount of your online customers are not pleased!
B2B buyers want you to recognize their needs and create a specially designed offer accordingly. You want simple online shopping and a web shop that connects clients to suppliers very quickly.
Still, research on B2B buyers’ satisfaction has given very worrying results. More than a third of buyers isn’t pleased with their online shopping experience in a B2B web shop at all!
On the other hand, only 11% of them has had an excellent online shopping experience. Most of them consider their B2B ecommerce shopping experience not bad, but still nowhere near what they expected.
Do you realize now how much room for improvement there is and how many times have you, not knowingly, disappointed your buyers?
Here’s a simple calculation. Almost 50% of B2B ecommerce clients buy once a week on average. If your B2B web shop doesn’t offer a positive online shopping experience, it means that half of your online buyers has to experience all the shortcomings of your web shop at least 52 times a year.
However, a good thing is that it won’t be able to disappoint them as much. Every third B2B buyer will give up not only on the web shop, but on the whole brand after just the first bad online shopping experience!
Buyer satisfaction is a measurement of success in B2B ecommerce
A pleased B2B buyer quickly and simply makes the decision to buy thanks to detailed and clear information.
The buyer wants a simple and efficient shopping where he/she won’t waste time on unnecessary things and searching through an unclear offer. He/she wants clear and visible catalogues and price lists, updated VAT calculations or an automated quantity discount calculation.
Here’s exactly where B2B ecommerce comes in and offers all the afore mentioned.
Yes, B2B ecommerce is an excellent tool for digital transformation of your sales and there are more and more B2B companies that are taking it seriously. Latest research has shown that the number of companies that plan to strengthen their sales strategy by using B2B ecommerce, has increased significantly. Still, they plan to do it in the next five years.
What will happen till then? An extremely competitive B2B ecommerce market already now presents a huge challenge for many B2B companies. And that competition will only grow stronger in the years to come. So why wait?
Good B2B ecommerce is the base of a strong sales strategy
So, just the idea of implementing B2B ecommerce isn’t enough. The time for digital transformation of your sales is now and your first task is to find a qualitative solution that will become the foundation of a strong sales strategy. Simply put, you need a good B2B ecommerce system.
Yes, a B2B web shop requires a very serious approach. If you recognize yourself in any part of this blog, the good thing is that you can start fixing your B2B ecommerce shortcomings today. Invest in a quality ecommerce platform, offer your clients simpler online shopping and a better overview in the order creating process and of course, do it as soon as possible.
You are interested in achieving that? Contact us today so we could present you with the best solutions for creating pleased online buyers and a successful web shop.
