While ecommerce as a whole continues to dominate everyday shopping experiences, the real giant has to be B2B ecommerce. The growth rate of B2B continues to outpace that of B2C and is more than twice the market size with $1.7 trillion in sales towards the end of 2015. For all their differences B2B clients have taken to online shopping much like consumers, with similar expectations of ease and speed of access to the products or services they need. The direction of B2B ecommerce is firmly in B2C style experiences, and as such B2B sellers should look to invest in providing optimised customer experiences for business clients.

Succeeding online in B2B

It’s not just customer needs that necessitate an enhanced B2B ecommerce experience; 60% of B2B firms said their omni-channel clients spent more overall compared with online or offline only customers. This suggests that investing equally, if not more so, into the B2B ecommerce offering can provide real return. This return is increased further with the reported cost of sales and support decreased by up to 90% when offline-only customers are migrated to online purchasing.

While the struggle to achieve great B2B ecommerce may seem like an uphill one, in fact sellers often have more information and understanding of their clients than B2C businesses, and as such they have the ability to deliver even more tailored customer experiences when they have the right tools to do so. With a proven track record in providing the performance and functionality needed to deliver great ecommerce experiences, Magento Enterprise offers B2B ecommerce solutions with a B2C experience.

Personalised customer experiences

With 50% of B2B buyers identifying personalisation as their top must have feature from their suppliers, creating unique service and buying experiences for business clients could be essential in helping to drive revenue. Magento Enterprise offers a wealth of B2B functionality including market segmentation, customer grouping and custom price lists to enable sellers to tailor the buying experience for each client. Set up price lists, discounts and conditions for each customer account/group so that every transaction is simple, fast and accurate. Additionally customer groups help suppliers to track valued customers and personalise their offering accordingly. Customer profiles and multi-user account management tailor the experience further, giving customers the flexibility to allocate access levels to those within their team based on their role, all of which reinforces the personal selling and care your clients are used to but with more speed and convenience than ever before.

Enhanced account management

Sales teams are even better equipped to deliver superior customer service thanks to advanced admin functionality. Account managers are able to keep better track of orders and deliver the right service needed at the right time. Combined with the variety of merchandising and promotion tools on offer, businesses are able to create and act on more cross sell and up sell opportunities for higher AOV.

Quick order

Consumers increasingly expect convenient super-fast check out, but with busy B2B clients this feature is perhaps even more important. Superior performance and quick order functionality offered by Magento Enterprise ensures business clients have their B2C expectations met, making it easier and faster for bulk orders. It’s also easy to give regular B2B clients the service they deserve with order history functionality that enables repeat orders in one click from previous order history, encouraging reorders at a fraction of the support costs.   

Superior search

A huge 76% of B2B buyers named enhanced search as one of their top three features, with business customers using a range of search methods from SKU codes to product features. Magento Enterprise provides improved search with catalogue attribute filtering allowing sellers to meet the expectations of their clients.

Mobile responsive design

While desktop still dominates, mobile use is expected to continue to rise for B2B ecommerce. While only 19.4% of digital revenue comes from mobile for B2B companies, 55% of buyers use mobile to check product information, 50% compare features and 48% search and compare pricing. Altogether that’s a lot of mobile based research, with B2B sellers expected to serve up a mobile ready ecommerce experience.

Mobile responsive design reinforces the ease of use and speedy purchase functionality that B2B clients as experienced consumers themselves, have grown to expect. Magento Enterprise offers a mobile responsive framework so B2B sellers can meet these demands to drive revenue across all devices.

Easy integration and scalability

Importantly Magento Enterprise can integrate easily with all major ERP and back office systems to provide you with access to product, customer and order data right where you need it. Magento Enterprise grows with your business, providing the scalability needed to expand without disruption, and offers easy set-up and management of multiple stores.

Magento Enterprise provides businesses with the tools needed to deliver tailored B2B services with a user friendly B2C experience. This means that businesses can benefit from the cost savings and enhanced control of providing a B2C environment without compromising on professional service and client personalisation. If you think you and your B2B clients could benefit from offering a B2C experience and want to know about how Magento Enterprise can meet your B2B goals, contact one of our team today.