The potential of B2B marketplace in today’s age

Adding a B2B marketplace that helps you seamlessly connect to other retail partners and increase sales in non-traditional ways. The potential is immense to grow as a brand leveraging the modern methods of selling and having better control of the business. Not only does it provide an easy way for your customers to purchase products online, but also provides a host of other benefits. The recent pandemic has further spurred the growth of digitization and shown how indispensable it is going to be in the future. A B2B eCommerce store is a one-stop online destination where distributors and retailers can see and place orders, manage and track them, avail different pricing options, maintain order history, much more efficiently without the hassle of an offline process.

Here are some of the top reasons to invest in a B2B eCommerce marketplace:

• Scalable solution

A business needs to grow and evolve with the changing times. A B2B eCommerce solution is the perfect setup for growth as it is scalable and can change to meet new requirements and trends. It enables your organization to grow and become scalable to meet market demands and customer needs by opening new sales avenues and channels by making it possible to continuously reach new market segments.

• Improved customer reach

An online store usually transcends boundaries and is not limited by geography. With a fully functional website, vendors can now reach more customers by using SEO and other digital marketing techniques. An SEO-friendly and responsive site not only improves rankings but also increases brand awareness. Developing pages that can be indexed by search engines is a great way to improve your site’s optimization. Having a website also centralizes data and makes the job much easier for any sales representative operating offline for your brand. 

• Increased sales

An online eCommerce store allows implementing easily automated cross-sell and up-sell options, which further encourages customers to buy products from your store. Improved customer reach increases chances of conversion resulting in higher revenue. Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, eCommerce vendors have the agility to build their stores in local languages, currencies and accept local payment methods. This opens wide demography of an audience that is otherwise inaccessible. Today’s technology also allows brands to build and manage long-term relationships and build their own niche following.

• Improved efficiency

Through integration with your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other back-end systems, eCommerce vendors are in better control of inventory and other operations. This integration also makes the website more up-to-date with updated information and promotions. It eliminates the possibility of errors by making processes smooth and streamlined, improving the shipping process, and making the entire operation efficient. 

• Omnichannel experience

In today’s age, a customer can contact you through the form on your website, chat options, visit social media pages, call up the available number or even visit your offline store. To devise a sound strategy, it is important to identify the prime channels that need optimization and ensure that your customer service executives interact with users via their preferred channels like phone, email, live chat, video call, etc. Any business that is failing to capture the omnichannel experience, will likely be left behind by more tech-savvy competitors. 

• Exceptional customer service

An eCommerce store can offer exceptional customer service at par with offline stores and even better. With the vast amount of data at hand, vendors can curate personalized experiences for the user. An eCommerce site can provide access to self-serve portals with accounts, order history, and tracking information. 

76% of B2B buyers have increased expectations around personalized and tailored solutions to their specific needs. (Weidert Group, 2020)

Poor customer service can be a huge blow for businesses as users can simply switch on to their competitors and result in loss of reputation and market value.

• Analytics

With an eCommerce store, you can actually measure performance and see key metrics of your site which in turn helps in devising strategies. Companies can measure and evaluate their marketing campaigns, and other promotional programs, sales tactic effectiveness, customer insights, customer engagement, etc. With the right data at your fingertips, you can now service customers better. Data integration with other business software like ERP, CRM, provides a holistic view of other business processes. 

• Improved sales process

By leveraging all the data in hand, you can work to create a better sales process or work towards revising your existing strategies. With an online process, customers can browse for products from the comfort of their homes, place orders, reorder, place returns easily, access order history, suggest personalized shopping options according to preferences, etc. A representative should have full visibility of customer orders, purchase history, buying habits, etc to present a more full-proof sales process. 

A B2B marketplace has become the need of the hour. It provides brands with a much-needed online presence and builds a strong brand presence and reputation. Increased expectations for powerful digital experiences have made retailers and distributors jittery to create a robust digital marketing solution. But it can be difficult to navigate the world of eCommerce on your own especially when you’re just starting out. 

Citytech has developed a B2B eCommerce solution powered by nopCommerce. The different modules include B2B customer registration, Pricing tiers, and promotions, Customer dashboard, Product details, User access details, Quotation, and Negotiation module, Quote history, Order management, Customer Management, Quick Quote Quick Order module, etc. To check out the complete features and benefits of the nopCommerce B2B solution visit https://www.citytechcorp.com/solutions/b2b-nopcommerce/.