When selling B2B products or services online, you should be able to effortlessly work your way towards new deals with your customers. In the meantime, focusing on a well-designed, intuitive user experience for both buyer and seller never has been more important. Buckle up and remain future proof: in this white paper you’ll find 7 trends that will redefine e-commerce activities for Magento 2 webstores.
Buckle up and remain future proof! Download our free whitepaper '7 Trends in Magento That will redefine e-commerce activities for webstores''.
(1) User-friendly order preparation
Loyal, returning customers should be hailed as kings. One way of doing so, is by assisting them to fill their shopping carts, which is particularly helpful in case of repeat purchases.
Think of this: buyers and/or procurement organizations want to make quick repeat purchases preferably online, as it tends to be less time-consuming and costly in comparison to old procedures (such as ordering by phone, fax or in person).
Even then, you might speed up their ordering processes by automation of recurring sequences. When customers purchase the same products or services from you on a regular basis, you should be able to predict what they’re looking for the next couple of times. So why don’t you start setting up the order details for their next purchase already? Several Magento 2 add-ons offer such quick order features and base their predictive power on customers’ purchasing history.
With just a few mouse clicks, the order will be approved, ready to leave the warehouse on its way to the customer. This user-friendly order preparation feature is especially valuable for companies dealing in products with a high turnover rate.
(2) PunchOut catalog solutions
All buyers have preferred suppliers. Some, including government/state organizations and large buying groups within B2B e-commerce, demand online procurement to take place within their own procurement system, such as Ariba, SAP and Oracle. Accordingly, as a vendor you múst be able to connect your products to the buyer's procurement system.
Present-day punch-out catalog solutions seamlessly integrate your catalog content and products, making them readily accessible from within your customers' procurement application, while adhering to their current requirements and protocols. When customers add items to their cart and proceed to checkout, the deal will be immediately ‘punched’ into your own platform. In the meantime, your customer may continue working with the system he or she is already familiar with.
Sounds interesting? Cart2Quote has partnered up with PunchOut2Go: an indispensable B2B module that allows you to flawlessly integrate PunchOut catalog functionalities into existing modern-day e-commerce procurement applications.
(3) Hiding prices tools
Showing your prices publicly in your webshop might look transparent and welcoming, but isn’t always feasible. Fixed pricing doesn’t leave any room for tailoring nor any negotiation, for example. A major shortcoming in case you offer highly customized products or services. In this case, it’s better to hide your prices.
Maybe you’re already familiar with Hiding Price tools as a means to start your pricing negotiation. The beauty of Cart2Quote’s Not2Order hiding prices module is that it does a lot more than just hide prices. With this extension, you can manage the visibility of prices and the ordering of individual products in your catalog. You may even apply this method to an entire store view or a complete website altogether. While the price is not immediately revealed, your prospect is very much invited to hand over his or her wishes.
When combined with Cart2Quote - Request for Quote extension, the most complete Magento quotation manager, customers are allowed to submit a quote request through user-friendly forms instead. When a customer calls in, you may respond with a price proposal. This two-way communication thread opens up the negotiation process and allows both seller and buyer to build easily towards an equilibrium price.
Want to find out what Cart2Quote’s modules for Magento 2 are capable of? Why don’t you try a demo for free?
(4) Using business accounts to streamline business
Doing business online should resemble all offline activities, whilst maintaining the individual
responsibilities of all team members involved in sales and purchasing. Good news: one can set up a company account in Magento to reflect the structure of your business.
Each individual user can be associated with teams and/or organized within a hierarchy of divisions and subdivisions within the company. It is recommendable to set up roles for company users with different levels of permission to access sales information and resources.
While a financial director may be granted full permission, a senior sales representative should have access to all quotes resources, yet limited (view-only) access to payment information and company credit. In doing so, the hierarchy of actions of all employees involved, reflect the company structure. One can create as many roles as necessary.
Using business accounts definitely helps to streamline the workflows within your business. This Company module is available in the Magento Enterprise Edition only or alternatively via third party modules.
(5) Improved repeat purchase techniques
Acquiring new customers is fundamental, but retaining existing ones is just as important for
long-term success. Do you want your customers to continue to repeatedly buy your products or services? Keep informing them on ongoing developments that could be of importance to them. Ways to stay connected, include:
- Order tracking. Involve your registered customers in the logistics chain. When they’re able to track their orders, not only you ensure full transparency, but it encourages them to come back to your store as well;
- Launch a loyalty program. Successful customer loyalty programs in B2B include: using tier incentives, transaction-based immediate discounts and arranging member events;
- Increased personalization. Offering content adjusted to the specific needs of your customers contributes to customer loyalty.
- E-mail newsletters stand out, because of their personalization level. With e-mail it’s possible to send out targeted, highly engaging messages based on individual customer’s preferences.
- Batch ordering or ordering by SKU for a lighting fast way to allow your returning customers order without browsing or even looking up items in your catalog.
(6) Sales rep modules
Tracking and measuring your sales representatives’ performance is vital in finding out whether your business is successful. This also provides valuable information on what actions to take.
With brand new sales rep modules available for Magento, there’s no room for vacillation and inaction.
Magento 2 Sales Representatives module, for instance, improves the performance of your sales flow, by enabling store owners to assign sales representatives to customers, orders, quotations and tickets. Once the quote is converted to an order, the assignment of the salesperson will also be transferred to the order. This effectively enables business owners to accurately track the performance of salesteams and to adjust the business strategy where necessary.
(7) Content remains king
Build rich content: E-commerce webshops usually focus on the order process and checkout process, making it fast, secure, and convenient. Meanwhile, content on the product page is somewhat sparse and dull since salespeople will take care of the product presentation. Especially, B2B customers now want less interaction with salespeople. Enriching content such as product images, descriptions, videos, testimonials is a must.
Personalization is key in current customer interaction. Showing that you really know and understand his/her needs by offering personalized experiences, puts you a step ahead of your competition. That way, the shopping experience becomes more meaningful and delighting. Again, especially in the B2B segment, personalization is far more critical to build a solid relationship and increase sales value. Some personalizing tactics you must put into account now are custom catalog and pricing, quick order form, company account and requisition orders.
Offer the best B2B experience
To wrap up: if you want to expand or improve your e-commerce activities, now is your time. Current Magento modules offer fast, customer-friendly and streamlined experiences that also improve your own workflow.
Want to know how? Get in touch here! Or plan a Walkthrough demo for our B2B extensions.
Buckle up and remain future proof! Download our free whitepaper '7 Trends in Magento That will redefine e-commerce activities for webstores''.
