Errors in B2B e-commerce

There are numerous misconceptions regarding e-commerce in B2B.

These relate to a lack of understanding of the complex technology or naivety towards proven automation processes that save both time and money.

The misunderstandings about this profitable industry will be resolved below.

The Belief That You're Not Selling in the B2B Sector

Many brands don't know they're in the B2B business, even though this is the case.

In fact, B2B sales include:

• wholesale
• Sales relationships with large retailers or retail chains
• Sales to Organizations (Schools, Companies, Non-Profit Organizations)
• Suppliers who sell to resellers

You don't have to be a vendor to sell B2B. Many online brands are both B2B and B2C.

There is no need for a separate e-commerce website to sell. Instead, you can build website engagement and search engine optimization on a single URL and use customer groups to deliver a personalized browsing experience for your B2B segment.

The Belief that B2B Customers Don't Want to Order Online

When new generation people become entrepreneurs and have purchasing power, their preferred type of shopping (e-commerce) will replace older processes.

In general, B2B customers want to transfer their B2C amenities.

• 41% say that self-service features are among the top three ways in which B2B companies could make online shopping easier for them.
• 73% of B2B executives say that customer expectations for personalized experiences are significantly higher today than they were just a few years ago.

A recent report found that millennials are already B2B buyers:

• 44% of millennials make buying decisions.
• 33% say that they significantly influence or recommend the buying process.
• Only 2% say they are not involved in buying decisions at all.

It can be seen that they shop differently than previous generations.

This was the result of a study by Heinz and SnapApp:

• Millennials are much more independent on their journey to buying than Generation X or Baby Boomers: They conduct extensive research on their own before making a purchase decision.
• While Generation X and Baby Boomers rely on sellers, millennial buyers are more likely to listen to the opinions of their peers or outside experts than they trust a salesperson: They actively avoid contacting sellers early on — almost 60% say they don't do the latter until they're in the middle of making a purchase decision.

This buying behavior is similar to B2C buying behavior, where brands must educate, create trust, and build a community before making or even considering a purchase decision.

If you want your brand to be visible, you need to have an online presence.

The following figures also illustrate this:

A clear majority (89%) of B2B researchers use the Internet for their research process and perform 12 searches before heading to a particular brand's website.

The conviction that e-commerce requires price transparency

With low profit margins and competitors looking to undercut a B2B business, many brands don't want their prices to be publicly available.

This supply chain security is understandable — and that is why many e-commerce solutions only offer the availability of prices after the customer logs in.

This means that only your customers can see the prices and that the prices can be presented exactly as they were negotiated for individual customers.

Another option is to require customers who are not signed in to their customer groups (probably an interested party) to call before prices are disclosed. You will therefore receive information about prices by telephone.

The Belief that Online Orders Are Anonymous

By keeping the customer personally attached to your company over the long term, you can ensure that they don't buy from your competitor.

That's why so many B2B companies are family-owned, making customers feel a sense of belonging.

An online shop can look cold in comparison, but that doesn't have to be the case.

Especially now that millennials are making numerous B2B buying decisions themselves, buyers are looking for an optimized digital shopping experience.

In a demographic report, 55% of respondents said that, all other factors being equal (e.g. price, quality), “a digital shopping experience is extremely important when choosing a vendor.”

With 24/7 chat technology, online chats are possible on smartphones, allowing the new generation to communicate efficiently and effectively via their preferred communication channel: text messages, Facebook messengers, or a variety of other options.

This type of customer service is not only easy to set up but is also highly sought after by customers.

A study by McKinsey & Company found that slow response times on the website are the most common complaint from B2B buyers when ordering online.

Responding faster to customer requests is today's version of high-quality, personal interactions. If this is not taken into account, you may lose orders.

The Belief that an online store excludes individual orders

For B2B customers and wholesalers, the option for individual orders is much greater than with a B2C website.

This is important for many B2B companies and it also benefits the personal relationship.

However, customer-specific orders aren't often the norm in e-commerce — at least that's what many think.

Thanks to customer-specific offer tools, unique variants and segmented customer groups, B2B companies can offer their customers the opportunity to submit a PDF offer at any time, evaluate the offer and receive feedback within normal business hours as to whether the order can be executed.

Your B2B company can then assign the customer to its own customer group so that the customer no longer has to use the offer software the next time they place an order.

Instead, he can simply select the item that was made especially for him and pay for it.

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