Amazon and Ebay have to lead the B2C industry and it rises the digital shopping revolution. Hundreds of retailers went online because of the attractive benefits of the online business and now the e-commerce industry is having sights for the B2B business. The e-commerce industry has already altered the working of B2B businesses from customer acquisition to customer retention, and from order fulfillment to create a stronger relationship with customers. At Ceymox Technologies, we have developed several e-commerce stores for B2B business and have analyzed the issues or obstacles faced by our clients. In this article, we will let you know about the 11 most common obstacles in the B2B business growth.
1. Choosing the wrong E-commerce Development Company for your B2B store:
This is a very common mistake that business owners do. They believe a company having experience in D2C e-commerce stores is also good for developing B2B stores. Well, B2B and B2C e-commerce stores have a lot of significant differences. Thus, choosing the right e-commerce development company that understands and has experience how B2B businesses work, what should be the essential features, etc. Nothing can be worse than selecting a company that doesn’t know about your business to help you succeed.
2. Ignoring your competition:
Since you are putting your money, invaluable time, and reputation at stake, you can’t commit the mistake of ignoring your competitors. This is another mistake that many business owners still commit. Don’t assume that your competitors are still operating with legacy platforms. In fact, they are adopting or have already adopted the latest technology revamping their entire business. For instance, some B2B merchants like Grainger, Fisher scientific, Pasternack, and Hass Automation are now providing the B2C level of customer experience in their B2B stores.
3. Thinking about e-commerce in isolation:
B2B don’t work in isolation. Today’s customers expect an omnichannel experience from your B2B store. Thus make sure all your channels by which the customers can interact with your business or brand should deliver an omnichannel experience. Also, consider how these multiple channels interact with each other.
4. Ignoring 3rd party integrations:
As a B2B business owner, you should not ignore the needs of your e-commerce system and 3rd party integrations are one of them. Your e-commerce store is just a storefront that the buyers see and interact and there is a lot to happen after an order is placed by the buyer. Entering the data manually is a very tedious job, prone to errors, and is also not scalable. Thus, you should integrate your e-commerce store with systems such as accounting, ERP, PIM, CRM, OMS along with automating syncing information like orders, customers, pricing, etc.
5. Ignoring Customer Experience:
B2B e-commerce stores are quite notorious for their poor user experiences such as slow loading, lacking modern features, and no options for personalization. Since customers are regularly browsing the B2C stores and making purchases from those stores, they also expect the same kind of experience from B2B stores. Thus, you need to provide a better UX experience for your B2B store. It should have features such as custom pricing, product recommendations, and order history display.
6. You are not utilizing content:
Content is king in any website, whether it is a B2C store or a B2B store. It can improve the SEO of your site and can also help customers to make better buying decisions. In a B2B store, you should go beyond the traditional content strategy i.e. text and basic image content, and also utilize other types of content such as videos, blogs, and social media.
7. Not focusing on SEO:
If the users wouldn’t be able to discover your site on the search engines, then how sales will occur? SEO plays a very important role in defining the success of your e-commerce store. If you use the right keywords for your landing pages, correct meta titles, meta description, proper use of HTML tags, alt attribute for images and many other SEO practices. Also, in a bid to keep their competitors from prying, some B2B businesses keep their pages hidden. Well, in some cases it may be helpful but if the search engines can’t index your pages, they will never appear in search results. Ultimately, it will decrease the visibility of your business and products.
8. No option of Online Pay:
There are many B2B business owners who still don’t provide online payment methods in the B2B e-commerce store. They provide traditional payment methods such as credit limits and purchase orders if you don’t have to. If the customers can pay for their business online then they can shop when and where they want.
9. Not engaging customers:
In a physical store, the customers get a chance to interact with you. Therefore, in an online store, the customers don’t just want to do shopping but also want to interact with you. Your sales team must understand that driving customer engagement can play an important role in increasing customer loyalty. You can keep your customers engaged even after the sales is made using digital automation. For this, you can use how-to videos, new product launch e-mails, and exciting offers, with much less time and effort than previous manual processes.
10. Not using Analytics:
In the 21st century, data is the new oil. There are many B2B businesses that don’t collect customers’ data or leverage what they are collecting. But using advanced analytics tools let you determine what can be the right strategy for your business, which marketing campaign is giving the best results, customize your marketing and sales activities, build new customer engagement, and more.
11. Not choosing the right e-commerce platform:
Last but not the least, an e-commerce platform is the core of your online business. You must use an e-commerce platform that is best for your underlying purpose, and in this case, B2B business. Adobe Commerce is a renowned e-commerce platform with dedicated B2B purposes. You can provide a B2C like an experience to your B2B buyers using Adobe Commerce. Some examples of the B2B features of Adobe Commerce are Shared Catalogs, Company Accounts, Quick Order, Company Credit, Quotes, Payment on Account, Requisition Lists, etc.
Wrapping Up:
In this article, we have gone through the 11 most important obstacles that B2B owners do. We, at Ceymox Technologies, have a highly experienced B2B e-commerce development team who can meet your any custom requirement. We are having hands-on experience in advanced features and functionalities. Let us know your requirements.
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