Best Practices Guide
B2B eCommerce
sales are growing explosively, and most experts attribute that growth
to companies that are borrowing design and user-experience tips from B2C
playbooks and creating better user experiences for their customers.
Every business buyer is also a consumer who often appreciates the
conveniences and personalized design features that retail websites
offer. However, there are real functional differences in how business
platforms operate, so comparing the two marketing strategies is similar
to comparing. but their underlying purposes, functionality and
capabilities couldn’t be more different.
This guide to building a B2B eCommerce platform
explores those issues to educate company decision-makers about the
benefits, risks and details of designing a world-class business
platform. It’s appropriate to note here that the guide often refers to
business-to-business websites and operating software as “B2B eCommerce
platforms” instead of websites, software and eCommerce stores or
websites. That’s because building a platform has many requirements that
regular B2C commerce doesn’t. For example, Garments, Electronic product
— regardless of features or advanced capabilities — always has areas
where customizations and configurability are needed. Each B2B platform
has unique needs, sales processes, third-party integrations, enhanced
shipping and handling requirements and other variables. No
out-of-the-box software will adapt to every business, and only a few of
the most basic operations can work within those limitations without
changing their business processes to accommodate the software.
B2B eCommerce & Integrations
understands these issues and developed this guide to expose planners to
some of the intricacies involved in building, designing and launching a
thriving B2B eCommerce solution. The company’s years of combined
experience in developing B2B platforms and customizations have revealed
deep insights into functionality, core features, custom features,
front-end applications, back-office systems, the design process,
deployment architecture, how to build a development team and how to
select an operating platform.
If a business is a startup company or an
operation with little business infrastructure, an eCommerce software
product might suffice for handling today’s needs. However, even the most
basic operations may find that their needs evolve dramatically in just a
couple of years and will discover that a more robust platform is
needed. About 99 percent of B2B companies don’t fit that simple business
model, however, because they need complex integrations such as custom
workflows, customer analysis, segmentation and personalization,
multi-tiered pricing, multiple currency conversions, expanded payment
options, expanded shipping and handling features, custom user interfaces
and user experiences, drop-shipping capabilities and special ERP and
CRM customization needs.
A B2B platform, as opposed to a software
product, adjusts software to fit the business and automate operations.
Platforms are built in modular fashion from “building blocks” that can
be configured in multiple ways to handle business today and rearranged
to meet new challenges and business opportunities. A robust API is the
engine that provides access to all the endpoints of functions and
features within the platform that transfer data throughout the system.
This layer is used to integrate with applications, open source software,
sources of business intelligence, offsite databases and internal
operating systems to customize sales reports, user experiences,
responsive design, special products and pricing features and hundreds of
other business applications.
Never think that any business in today’s competitive market is safe
because of its loyal customers, unique products or superior quality of
its inventory or customer service. Business is a competitive race where
passing a competitor doesn’t mean anything when there are thousands of
others in the race. The race is a continuous process involving many
vehicles where each racing car represents one of the company’s
interests. Racing teams need pit crews, and B2B companies with many cars
in the race, need an extraordinary crew to monitor analytics, develop
sales leads, manage inventory and internal accounting, market the
company through multiple channels, develop new products, and customize
platform capabilities to drive new business.
Upgrading IT Infrastructure
Regardless
of software, it’s critical to upgrade B2B IT infrastructure for more
efficient business operations today and collaborative eCommerce and
third-party integrations in the future. Robust platforms include a
middleware layer that facilitates connections with specialty
applications and back-office operating systems, an application server
for connection-pooling and load-balancing, browsers to run software,
development tools to build applications and customize features and Web
servers outside the firewall to connect to the Internet and act as
security buffers.
