Building B2B eCommerce Tech To Fit Wholesalers’ Unique Checklists

Whether it’s a B2C brand stepping into the world of B2B sales for the first time, or a wholesaler or distributor that’s in the early stages of their digitization journey, many of the sellers in the world of B2B eCommerce today are newcomers to the market, with many lessons to be learned.

In the context of the pandemic, the checklist for a successful B2B eCommerce strategy grows even longer, according to Eric Dean, president of IMC_di, which powers the eCommerce website development tool JuniperWeb.

In a conversation with PYMNTS, Dean said today’s wholesalers are dealing with an environment in which end-user expectations are on the rise.

“The importance of that experience has been growing over the last few years but has escalated in the last eight months,” he said, noting the pandemic’s impact on the B2B eCommerce space.

As a result, B2B sellers are now tasked with overcoming more hurdles than ever before. Yet, as Dean explained, they also are presented with more opportunity than ever to strengthen the buyer-seller relationship and drive growth within their own organizations.

Optimizing The Customer Journey

At the broad level, a successful B2B eCommerce strategy begins at the start of the customer’s journey, with first impressions of a digital platform crucial to striking a sale.

What’s important for solution providers to understand as they help wholesalers and other B2B brands along their digitization journeys is that every seller is unique, and their eCommerce website is perhaps the biggest chance to tell that brand’s story to their customer base. Telling that story in a digital setting is even more vital in today’s environment in which in-person trade shows and meetings with sales representatives simply cannot occur.

“These days, a B2B website is that brand’s home on the web,” said Dean. “This year, particularly, more often than not, it’s the first time a brand is going to engage with a customer or prospect.”

Moving along the customer journey, B2B sellers must ensure that the technologies they implement are able to communicate with each other in order to present the most accurate and up-to-date information on their websites. One of the areas in which this is most important, noted Dean, is in inventory and product descriptions so potential buyers aren’t caught blindsided if they seek to place an order when items are not actually available.

With the holidays coming up, retailers procuring from wholesaler websites won’t find inaccurate or incomplete product availability information an acceptable experience.

And, even further down the line, Dean noted that it’s crucial for B2B sellers to have a seamless and integrated checkout experience so that business buyers can actually complete a transaction on the same platform upon which they make purchases.

The B2B Beast

Organizations that are stepping into the world of B2B eCommerce: beware. According to Dean, achieving an optimal end-user experience through factors like product visibility and support for an array of payment methods is far from an easy feat.

That’s especially true for B2C brands that may be looking to take advantage of the massive size and value of the B2B landscape. While Dean noted that there are some important lessons from the B2C world that organizations can take into the B2B space — including the value of the customer experience and relationship — the complexities of B2B are far greater than its consumer-facing counterpart.

“I would be very careful if I were a B2C brand trying to work backwards into wholesale,” he said. “The complexity is just dramatically higher.”

One rising concern for the world of B2B is the expanding threat of fraud, which has exploded in a pandemic environment in recent months. For wholesalers, this means that any technology and eCommerce platforms they do develop or implement must be able to ensure that transactions are secure.

Considering the unique nuances of the B2B eCommerce landscape, wholesalers and other vendors must be wise about the tools they choose. Dean noted that they should work with solutions that can meet the needs that every B2B company must achieve, from fraud protection to a seamless checkout experience, while also being agile enough to tell a brand’s particular story and develop the kinds of valuable and long-lasting client relationships that can make the world of B2B commerce so lucrative.

“We’re big proponents of the technology fitting the business,” he said. “You don’t build the business to fit the technology.”