As B2B eCommerce continues to grow, so do the demands of business buyers. Blame it on Amazon, Apple, and other online retailers that have raised the bar on customer experience.
Whether you are a B2C or B2B buyer, this is the experience we all desire. Companies that provide deep content, product images and videos, product filtering or comparisons, plenty of customer reviews, strong promotions, and a personalized experience will win the business.
Furthermore, creating an omni-channel experience for B2B commerce is equally as important. Whether your customers use smartphones, tablets, or traditional computers, they demand a consistent experience. They want to easily navigate websites regardless of the device being used. And if they start shopping on one device and switch to another, they want to pick up right on the page where they left off.
Investing in a best-in-breed solution for your commerce platform will allow you to deliver an exceptional customer experience while increasing revenue from online channels. Over this series, I’ve addressed the top questions our clients ask when building or improving upon their B2B eCommerce sites:
Top 7 Challenges of Establishing a B2B Commerce Site
Improving the Omni-Channel Experience with PIM-Commerce, Part 1
Improving the Omni-Channel Experience with PIM-Commerce, Part 2
However, I’ve saved one of the most common questions for the conclusion.
What is the recommended path for improving the B2B eCommerce experience?
Step 1: Develop a plan
Many organizations impulsively buy software without thinking through the entire process. Choosing the wrong solution can cause a setback of months or years when you want to improve the omni-channel experience.
Step 2: Secure the team
You may need to augment your digital team or partner with an outside consulting team. Then, when you have the right people on the team, you can start identifying the design components and technology you need to support them.
Step 3: Define the content & commerce experience
To create a great experience with your company, you will need to define the content and commerce experience that specifically addresses the needs of your internal and external personas.
Step 4: Deploy & iterate
Once the solution is deployed, it should not be considered “finished.” As you receive feedback from users, you will want to continue iterating or revising these sites until your customers are truly satisfied. With a combined eCommerce and PIM solution, like inRiver, marketing and commerce users can update the daily tasks without IT involvement, a huge help for daily updates to marketing and sales programs.
As the opportunities for B2B eCommerce continue to grow, companies that invest the time and technology to improve the customer experience will remain competitive. However, the companies that develop and execute a strategy to deliver an omni-channel experience will be the ones to outshine and outperform the competition.
Learn more about the path to improving the omni-channel experience with PIM and eCommerce in our latest guide.
