A study by Forrester states that over 74% of B2B customers conduct their pre-purchase research online, and 90% start their business purchases with B2B online portals.
To deliver the ideal customer experience and make it easy for others to do business with you, you need to have the essential B2B eCommerce platform features that are built specifically to make their shopping experience convenient.
Key Features of a Great B2B Experience
- Access controls, Roles, and Permissions
It is imperative to consider your demographics when selling online. Every customer coming to your website is different, with a different interest, different job titles, and responsibilities. That is why is it necessary to ensure that they only have access to the information they’re interested in. This is an important feature that can make navigation for the buyers much easier leading them exactly to the product they need.
Access controls are a must if your B2B eCommerce platform features different types of customers with different needs. It gives you a way to create unique experiences for the customers and enables customers to modify permissions based on the roles of the employees added to the company account.
- Corporate Account Management
B2B eCommerce user experience requires much more personalization than a B2C website. When it comes to B2B platforms, one company account can comprise multiple users accounts with different roles. Therefore, it is important to employ a feature on the platform that gives the users permission to perform an action based on their role. This means giving your customers the control to assign accounts while taking control of the actions performed through the account.
Your platform’s corporate account management capabilities must be able to address complex, hierarchical corporate account structures. Buyers must be able to configure their own accounts management structure, add users, and give them purchasing rules according to their teams, departments, and employee roles.
- Multiple Organizations, Websites, and Stores
Many businesses manage multinational brands operating in different countries. That means they need to adapt to various currencies and tax regulations to be able to do it right. Thus, scalability and localization capabilities and features of B2B eCommerce platforms are critical requirements for your business.
These B2B eCommerce features are typically catered by a custom-built B2B platform. In this case, you need tools and features allowing organizations to control multiple businesses, sub-brands, and divisions from one admin dashboard. For example, B2BWoo, with its headless approach and addons, had helped numerous brands achieve scalability, allowing them to set organizations, add multi-website functionality and manage it all from a single admin interface.
- Content Management Systems
Since B2B buyers purchase items for business, merchants must offer supplement information to ensure the buyers are buying the products they need. Product descriptions, videos, certifications, and more, all this information helps you to communicate with the customers and address any query they might have to influence their decisions.
Every B2B eCommerce platform requires a strong content management system, so you can have full control over the content. With a content management system in place, it is easier to update content and product pages with ease and without much coding knowledge.
- Personalized B2B Catalog Management
Personalized B2B business catalogs are a must-have feature of B2B eCommerce platforms. Personalization helps the sellers to customize the product catalog according to the specific needs of the audience, industries, and more. Each group of customers can easily access its own catalog where purchasing managers are able to view content and purchase products. For example, you can easily bundle certain products or set minimum purchasing quantities and set relevant promotions and discounts for different customers.
- Multiple Price List
Pricing in B2B depends on numerous different factors. For example, it may depend on purchasing value of the product purchased by the customer or pre-negotiated discounts, how frequently the product is purchased by the customer, and many more. Not just that, it may also be calculated based on specific businesses and pricing rules, which is another great feature of B2B eCommerce platforms.
All these capabilities of a platform are dependent on the feasibility of customization of prices for each customer, company, or business unit that purchase from you. A price list can also contain an unlimited number of price points, tiers, and currencies, adding to its complexity. You need to strategize your pricing list according to the needs of the customer groups and business accounts. It must also include advanced pricing engines that support price merging functions.
- Segmentation and Custom Reports
Being in B2B business means having treasures of data making your platform a fertile ground for customer behavior analytics, Account-based marketing, and segmentation. It can help with tracking key business KPIs and determine how they are affected by different marketing strategies, new product offerings, and UX improvements.
Therefore, a customizable reporting engine and dashboard is a must-have feature for your B2B platform. Not only will it enable your marketing teams to gain insights into customers’ data, but also help in understanding customer purchasing patterns and preparing targeted marketing campaigns for a better customer experience.
- Flexible Custom Workflows
When choosing eCommerce software, it’s crucial to consider the flexibility and scalability it has to offer. Your solution should be able to adapt and grow alongside your business. Additionally, the ever-changing market brings new opportunities, and as a result, customers may request additional features.
To address these needs, it’s essential to have a flexible workflow engine. This engine allows you to customize various workflows, including order submission, price quotation, and management, negotiations, approvals, and checkout processes, among others. By leveraging this flexibility, you can eliminate time-consuming tasks and streamline processes, enabling you to offer a personalized customer experience at scale.
- Self-Service Options
Customers coming to a B2B platform often consider self-service options rather than calling a sales rep over the phone. Your B2B eCommerce portal must be intuitive to use. For example, business buyers often ask for quotes, negotiate, submit orders, modify details, checkout, track for shipment and reorder — your B2B solution must contain all the features as self-service options.
If you want to build and nurture strong customer relationships, self-service capabilities play a part in getting closer to the goal. Make sure to look for B2B self-service capabilities and features so you can personalize to each customer or adjust as the circumstances change.
- Streamlined Buyer-Seller Interactions
No matter how advanced your B2B eCommerce platform is, it cannot replace human interactions. You need a B2B platform that has the capability to streamline buyer-seller interactions.
For example, one way B2BWoo helps with this is by providing buyers with an easy way to create and submit inquiries, purchase orders, and request for quotes. Business owners even have the option to easily respond to their queries and order on the same platform, thus facilitating a streamlined and efficient negotiation process.
Bonus B2B eCommerce Features
- Payment and Invoicing Options
Business transactions vary from company to company and customer to customer. While one customer purchasing may choose to pay on delivery in full cash, or wire transfer, another may choose to pay via credit card or Net 30 payment terms. Apart from credit cards, and other traditional B2B payment methods, the best B2B eCommerce solutions should also include options such as partial payments, credit lines, and others that may suit your customer requirements.
Once the payment goes through, you also need a system to transfer or update the information to other systems. Besides integrations with payment gateways and processes, you’ll also need to sync orders with accounting and financial systems.
- Integration Options
Most B2B customers would be glad to connect with third-party service providers to maintain a familiar environment to work with. With integrated management systems and providing customers with a familiar working environment, you can improve customer experience and make it more engaging for better negotiations.
Conclusion
When it comes to your B2B eCommerce platform, it plays a crucial role in shaping the first impression of your brand for potential buyers. That is why it is essential to invest time in understanding your own needs as well the needs of your clients, before diving in to select a software for your B2B eCommerce platform.
Don’t just focus on the feature set, but choose a solution, perhaps a complete bundle, that doesn’t only meet your needs but also holds the potential to support your future growth. Look for a scalable system that can adapt and grow with your business.
Pay close attention to integration and customization options offered by the eCommerce software. These capabilities will enable you to respond effectively to the changing market conditions and meet the evolving needs of your customers.
If you’re a WooCommerce B2B store owner and want to enhance your productivity, then B2BWoo is the best option for you. It’s a one-stop-shop for your every WooCommerce B2B eCommerce solutions.