Digital transformation in sales and marketing drives B2B ecommerce. The goal is
to replace cold calling, offline marketing, and paper transactions to improve
efficiency, reduce costs, increase attach rates, and drive revenue.
Many B2B customers are accustomed to online shopping. So
offering a consumer-like B2B shopping experience has become a necessity for
modern sales organizations.
Procurement departments are seeing the benefits of automated
sales processes that B2B ecommerce offers, so growth rates are expected to keep rising.
What is B2B Ecommerce?
B2B ecommerce occurs when online transactions take place between two businesses. This typically happens between manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, or organizations through online sales portals.
Rather than relying on sales reps, businesses now use various online channels like marketplaces, customer portals, and websites. These tools help them connect with one another throughout the buying journey. Through different digital devices and apps, buyers and sellers can interact and manage their orders on their preferred platforms with minimal effort.
The B2B ecommerce industry is growing rapidly and changing how businesses collaborate. By 2027, the market value is expected to reach $3 trillion, accounting for 24% of all US B2B sales. The main driver of this growth is the increasing demand from businesses for faster, more efficient transactions.
Innovations in ecommerce are helping businesses digitally transform their sales processes, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Many businesses are adopting modern B2B ecommerce platforms that equip sales teams with essential tools. These tools automate tasks and help reduce repetitive work.
Overall, shifting to online selling has improved the customer experience, simplified ordering, and opened up new revenue streams for businesses.
Differences Between B2B and B2C Ecommerce
Both B2B and B2C ecommerce share many similarities. What unites them is the desire to offer great personalization and convenience. Both are influenced by innovations in fulfillment, shipping, payments, and technological advances.
Definition
The main difference lies in who buys the products. In B2C ecommerce, the customer is the end consumer. In B2B ecommerce, the customer is a legal organization. The sales are made to other businesses, which come from various industries and verticals, each with their own needs and buying processes.
Order Size and Longer Sales Cycles
Globally, B2B ecommerce is larger than B2C. On average, B2B order sizes are also much larger than those of B2C.
In B2B, companies usually deal with high-value but low-volume sales, whereas B2C transactions often involve low-value but high-volume sales.
Another key difference is in pricing. In B2B, prices can often be negotiated, while in B2C, prices are typically fixed. However, consumers can enjoy discounts and coupons for loyalty or during peak seasons.
The sales cycle in B2B is generally longer due to the involvement of contracts, quoting, and purchase orders. Some customers have complex internal processes, requiring multiple stages of stakeholder approvals before completing a purchase. As a result, the entire transaction process can be complex and time-consuming.
This requires a specific digital workflow that can accommodate the decision-making process. Customer portals and websites must be flexible and adaptable to customers’ organizational structures.
Complex Payment Options
In the B2B environment, customers often use financing methods like invoicing, leasing, and credit lines to pay for their purchases. The payment terms usually vary depending on the customer, order size, and order value.
In contrast, in the B2C industry, credit cards are the usual way to pay, which is not typically seen in B2B.
Long-Term Relationships
In the B2B business, maintaining longevity and trustworthiness is crucial. Partners strive to establish long-term relationships, as one-time transactions are rare. Therefore, setting up a seamless recurring purchasing process is vital in B2B ecommerce.
B2B purchases are always rational and planned, unlike those in B2C, where impulsive decisions often lead to one-off purchases and high returns.
Personalized Products and Prices
Typically, B2B businesses have personalized product catalogs, price lists, and quotes. The payment and shipping options can vary depending on the contract terms. As a result, personalization plays a crucial role in B2B operations, and it has a high level of customization.
Customer Experience
Another difference between B2B and B2C ecommerce is the customer experience. B2B ecommerce sites often try to mimic consumer-like in-store experiences. But this can be challenging due to their diverse customer base, where each customer may have their own unique buying process.
5 Benefits of B2B Ecommerce
1. Streamlined Procurement and Sales
B2B ecommerce tools help automate the sales process between businesses, suppliers, and distributors. Tasks that were previously done manually can now be automated and streamlined.
2. Increased Efficiency and Productivity
Automated sales processes, such as ordering, invoicing, payment, and inventory management, can increase your efficiency and productivity. By automating these tasks, you’ll have more time to focus on growing your business and less time to spend on administrative tasks.
Streamlining order processes saves time and cuts down on mistakes. With automation, there is less manual data entry, which means fewer errors occur.
As a result, you’ll need fewer resources to manage the process. This means your sales team can focus on top accounts and spend more time selling, rather than getting bogged down in administrative work.
3. Better Inventory Management
With real-time inventory tracking connected to the B2B ecommerce platform, you can automate inventory alerts and reordering points.
This level of data exchange and automation prevents overselling and stockouts, ultimately increasing customer satisfaction.
4. Customization and Personalization
The vast amount of customer data enables you to create an excellent personalization experience. You can use this data to personalize content, product recommendations, and offer easy-to-use interfaces. This creates a great customer-centric user experience, driving loyalty and satisfaction.
With this level of customization, you can sell more to existing customers by offering targeted promotions, advanced search functionality, and quick reordering.
Customization also helps you grow and automate sales through self-service, personalized catalogs, detailed product information, pricing, and shipping options. User-friendly and intuitive interfaces can help you achieve this.
5. Improved Data Analytics and Reporting
To make informed decisions and customize your approach, you need tools that support you. With the right data tools, you’ll gain many benefits in your B2B ecommerce efforts.
You’ll be able to refine marketing strategies and enhance customer experiences. By gathering data on how customers behave and their transaction history, you can spot trends and improve your operations.
A good B2B ecommerce platform allows you to seamlessly integrate your current systems, such as ERP, OMS, and CRM. With real-time synchronization, you’ll streamline operations and increase efficiency.
The unified sales enablement platform, backed by data analytics, equips your sales teams with tools and insights for faster deal closures. It also facilitates improved internal communication between sales representatives, enabling them to act on data quickly.
B2B Ecommerce Types
B2B ecommerce is one of the fastest-growing markets worldwide. As a result, many businesses operating in B2B are pushing forward with digital transformation and exploring ecommerce opportunities to improve their sales operations.
Various B2B companies, such as distributors, manufacturers, and wholesalers, can benefit from B2B ecommerce. In fact, virtually any business can explore the advantages of selling online.
Wholesalers
These businesses act as intermediaries between manufacturers and retailers. They use B2B ecommerce to sell goods at a retail value, which they purchased in bulk at a lower price.
Wholesalers mostly focus on storage and inventory management. Typically, they do not engage in the promotion or sales strategies of the products.
Many wholesale businesses provide a customer portal, which enables retailers to access customized catalogs and easily buy products.
Wholesale companies can also list their products on online marketplaces. These marketplaces can be an effective way to reach a buyer base without much marketing effort.
Manufactures
Manufacturing involves producing goods from raw materials in large quantities and selling them to other businesses or directly to consumers, depending on the business model used. When selling to businesses, this can include suppliers, wholesalers, or other manufacturers.
If a manufacturer decides to sell products directly to consumers, it must handle consumer marketing, sales, packaging, and other tasks.
If a manufacturer partners with a distributor, the marketing and sales responsibilities are typically transferred to the partner, allowing the manufacturer to focus on its core business, including production facilities, machinery, and skilled labor.
Manufacturers can use B2B ecommerce solutions to digitize their sales process, meet digital demand, and offer online transactions with personalized features such as pricing, delivery schedules, catalogs, quoting, etc.
Typically, client portals and ERP integrations are involved in B2B ecommerce transactions. These solutions help reduce costs and maximize transaction value. The connection to ERP also helps monitor inventory and perform forecasting.
Distributors
Distributors work closely with manufacturers to promote, sell, and distribute products to wholesalers, retailers, or end consumers.
They provide sales support, promotional activities, and sometimes after-sales service. Distributors take care of packaging, shipping, and marketing, freeing manufacturers from these tasks.
The value distributors add is streamlining supply chains. Online platforms and digital tools make supply chains more efficient. Therefore, digital transformation is crucial for distributors to succeed.
B2B Marketplaces
The most prominent examples are Alibaba and Amazon Business. These platforms enable commerce between businesses.
The main characteristic of such platforms is that they offer a wide range of products and services from different sellers, providing a user-friendly experience for buyers. They can manage all their procurement activities in one place.
Typically, these platforms have a great product search, allowing buyers to easily compare products and prices. They can also do bulk ordering and automate their procurement.
For sellers, there are benefits such as reduced marketing efforts, a broader reach, and access to international markets. However, a drawback is that they do not own the customer data, which limits personalization.
How To Start with B2B Ecommerce
The main difference between B2B and B2C ecommerce lies in their goals. In B2B, companies prioritize optimizing processes to make the digital sales experience efficient for procurement and sales teams. In contrast, B2C ecommerce focuses on maximizing revenue and profit.
To succeed in B2B digital sales, you need to understand the role ecommerce plays in the B2B user journey.
Demand Generation
Most B2B companies begin their purchasing journey by learning about products online. Therefore, it is essential to create demand for the product through online channels. This is usually achieved through digital marketing activities.
The marketing mix should also include offline demand generation tactics, but we should keep in mind that the process has largely moved online.
The goal at this stage is to generate qualified leads.
Try & Buy
At this stage, sales reps or partner sales play a crucial role. Here, the sales teams typically try to understand the customers’ needs and shape their sales proposals to facilitate a sale.
Now, ecommerce takes center stage. Customers can review product catalogs, discuss processes, and see how procurement will work through customer portals or ecommerce marketplaces.
Customer Success Management
During the Customer Success Management stage, onboarding occurs. Procurement teams receive training on using customer portals for buying, quoting, and repurchasing. Additionally, necessary integrations with customer ERPs are completed at this stage.
Sales reps keep track of customer satisfaction and needs, and help facilitate cross-selling, upselling, and preventing churn.
Ecommerce Integration into Digital Sales Process
To integrate ecommerce into this process, companies need to consider several factors.
Selecting a B2B Ecommerce Platform
A B2B ecommerce platform drives your backend and connects tools such as order processing, inventory management, and marketing tools.
Choosing the right B2B ecommerce platform is a crucial step, as it will either empower your digital sales or become a nightmare for you.
Look for platforms with advanced features like personalized catalog management, customized pricing, quoting, and re-ordering processes.
Start with Essential Integrations
To meet high delivery expectations and fulfill orders efficiently, automate the process by integrating your B2B ecommerce platform with your suppliers, warehouses, and distribution networks.
Next, integrate your B2B ecommerce platform with core systems like ERP and PIM to ensure accurate product information and effective inventory management.
Manage Sales and Customer Relationships
The B2B ecommerce platform facilitates long-term relationships, so focus on making life easier for procurement teams. Consider how you can enhance their digital experience and simplify the ordering process.
Use robust analytics tools to analyze customer behavior on your platform and sales data. By equipping the sales team with the right tools, you can free up time for sales reps and help them better understand their customers.
Scaling the Business through Digital Transformation
To scale your business, embrace digital transformation by investing in top-notch technology and talent. This will help you identify growth opportunities, optimize operations, and improve customer experience, allowing your teams to leverage technology and drive business growth.
Train your teams to navigate the transformation process successfully. Be open to change and consider investing in automation, advanced analytics, personalization, and customer experience enhancements. Don’t forget to think about how these changes will affect cash flow, sales reps’ roles, support, payments, and inventory tracking.
B2B Customer Portal Operations
Customer Onboarding Strategy
Design a customer onboarding strategy that works for you. Create demos to show customers how to use the customer portal. Collect their feedback to improve your platform and enhance the onboarding process over time.
Curate The Catalog
Create personalized customer catalogs with custom configurations and pricing tailored to each customer.
Highlight top-performing products that are in high demand, easy to ship, or easy to configure.
Display products with high-quality pictures and detailed descriptions.
Ordering Process
Consider incorporating a quoting feature and a multi-stage approval process to align with internal customers’ buying procedures.
In the checkout, think about offering relevant payment methods, including leasing and invoicing options.
B2B Ecommerce Misconceptions
Myth #1: B2B Companies Don’t Sell Online
The reality is that most people, especially younger generations, are digitally savvy and prefer making purchases online rather than through email quote requests or phone calls. Today, B2B customers seek the B2C convenience, and in response, nearly 65% of B2B companies have added ecommerce capabilities to their sales process.
Myth #2: B2B Ecommerce Only Works for Low-Ticket Transactions
Many people mistakenly believe that no one is willing to spend hundreds or millions of dollars on products online.
However, the truth is that B2B is larger than B2C, and there are numerous examples of products being bought through ecommerce platforms, with transactions exceeding $1 million over a quarter or year.
In fact, over 35% of business buyers spend more than $500,000 per transaction, while 15% spend over $1 million.
A modern B2B ecommerce platform can efficiently handle such high-ticket transactions, allowing everything to be done without the need to meet a sales representative.
Myth #3: B2B Buyers Want to Interact with Sales Rep
This is partially true, especially for first-time purchases that require catalog customization. However, once the process is standardized, buyers tend to prefer making their B2B purchases online.
As this study shows, 75% of B2B customers prefer to complete transactions without sales reps, but they still want personalized, consumer-like experiences. B2B customer portals can provide this.
Myth #4: B2B Ecommerce Demands Price Transparency
A main advantage of B2B customer portals is that they can be personalized, allowing customized pricing to be visible only to authorized users who log in to their tailored portals.
Myth #5: B2B Ecommerce Doesn’t Need Marketing
While sales representatives and account executives typically handle the first sale and onboarding, it’s true that marketing isn’t necessary for individual B2B ecommerce transactions.
However, to find customers, sales teams need leads. From a broader perspective, ecommerce is part of the digital sales process, which includes demand generation, lead generation, and lead nurturing.
Demand generation relies heavily on various B2B marketing activities, such as inbound and outbound marketing. Therefore, every B2B business must invest in marketing to generate leads and expand its customer base.
Myth #6: B2B Ecommerce is Not Innovative
This is a common misconception, as people often associate innovation in ecommerce with B2C ecommerce companies. However, in B2B ecommerce, demands are high, and procurement departments want streamlined purchasing processes, and buyers want consumer-like experiences.
The complexity of B2B ecommerce can only be addressed with innovative technological solutions. As a result, B2B businesses are often at the forefront of technological advancements.
The need for high standards and customer-specific requirements in B2B businesses drives innovation in B2B ecommerce.
Marketing Tactics for B2B Ecommerce Success
The type of business you have will likely influence the marketing tactics you use.
If you sell through marketplaces or your own website, and mostly rely on self-service, you’ll probably focus on getting more traffic to your website or improving your marketplace presence.
When sales reps are necessary, especially during the acquisition and onboarding stages, your marketing efforts might focus on generating demand and leads.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. The tactics you choose should fit your business needs and help your prospects find you.
SEO
Since most customers start their journey online, making your business easily found is crucial. This is why SEO is vital, not just for B2C, but also for B2B ecommerce.
Positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in your field will help you with your SEO efforts. Develop a content strategy by thinking about how you’ll showcase your expertise. What kind of assets and articles do you need? How often will you publish them? Answering these questions will help you create a solid content strategy.
Pay-Per-Click
Use pay-per-click to buy traffic. Unlike SEO, which helps you generate traffic organically, PPC brings you traffic right away. However, this comes at a cost.
Design your spend strategies and decide what ROAS you can accept. Knowing your average CLV can definitely help you optimize your spending. Moreover, improving CLV also affects your return on investment in PPC.
Events
Webinars and online events are typical lead generation activities. They’re a great way to promote your solution to potential customers. By knowing customer pain points and concerns, you can address them through these events and position your company as a subject matter expert.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to increase customer engagement. In B2B, it’s commonly used to nurture leads through the sales funnel and keep your company top of mind when customers are selecting a provider or product.
Personalization
No matter the type of business you have, personalization plays a crucial role in the customer journey. Building a seamless and frictionless online experience is a challenge, but mastering it will set you apart from the competition.
Using specific pricing, payment options, or product catalogs helps to personalize the experience.
Make sure your sales reps have all the customer data they need to personalize their discussions and the reordering process.
Marketplaces
Marketplaces are effective platforms for marketing your products. They help you connect with customers more efficiently.
By using one place for their procurement needs, customers can simplify their buying journey and avoid switching between multiple platforms.
For companies, marketplaces are also beneficial because they quickly put you and your products in front of customers. This is faster than building your brand and presence on your own. However, there is a cost to consider. Marketplace fees can reduce your profit margins, so make sure to do your calculations before taking advantage of this opportunity.
Final Thoughts
B2B ecommerce is a rapidly growing channel with immense opportunities. It enables trade between companies, making the buying process easier.
B2B buyers demand a seamless digital experience, and recent technological innovations are helping to meet this demand. To drive change, B2B companies need to recognize this need and efficiently use technology, implementing the right strategies. This will help them adapt to the future and embrace digital transformation in marketing and sales.
Looking ahead, the B2B ecommerce will continue to grow, becoming an integral part of modern B2B sales. Further innovations and advancements in technology will facilitate trade and enhance operations.
Photo: @Dusan Petkovic via Adobe Stock