How e-Commerce Empowers Your B2B Business

These last few years, the future of B2B has been greatly influenced by the rise of e-commerce: the proliferation of B2B e-commerce platforms, especially since the outbreak of COVID-19, has been spectacular. Based on a recent study published by McKinsey & Co, digital interactions are now twice as important to B2B customers as they were before the pandemic. Here’s how your business can make the best of it.

B2B e-commerce is much more than a website with a shopping cart; here is some of the key information about how it can benefit your business.

A necessary investment on future success

The objective of a B2B e-commerce platform is to boost your digital transformation:  organising product information, inventory input and output, gathering orders and customer data in a single hub that optimises efficiency and ROI… Keeping it all handy, online, accessible in real time and at the convenience of your sales team allows you to offer your customers the best possible user experience. This requires executive leadership, deep understanding of your customers, and uniting your teams around the ultimate objective: success via user satisfaction and operational efficiency.

The current competitive climate, which concerns all sectors, leaves no room for half-hearted measures: companies that successfully scale their business are the ones that embrace a holistic approach of e-commerce and foster innovation at the heart of their organisation. Failing to do so in due time can leave companies too far behind to catch up: new companies constantly enter the market with a significant technological edge, focusing on innovation and efficient e-commerce platforms to very rapidly take the lion’s share.

Launching your company into B2B e-commerce but don’t know where to start? We’ve got your back! Download our hands-on whitepaper to make your first steps easier!

Optimised customer data analysis

B2B data volumes and diversity can be very difficult to analyse, especially when they are scattered through different entry points in your organisation’s ecosystem. Well-designed B2B platforms integrate seamlessly with your pre-existing processes, collecting data across your whole organisation, cross-analysing them to deliver precious customer insights, commercial performance, market reports, business development opportunities, recommended action points, etc. Knowing your customers better will help you create more accurate segments and detect user pain points to address, allowing you to constantly monitor and optimise user experience, which will reduce costs and increase your ROI.

B2B customers expect the quality of B2C user experience

Your B2B customers are B2C users in their everyday life. They enjoy great user experiences daily with their favourite brands, products and services, and thus expect your organisation’s B2B experience to offer the same quality. They will inquire about your company, prices, catalogues and much more before contacting your business — in order to gain an edge during negotiations. They will also know what the competition offers and will be seduced by its better user experience when margins and quality of the product/service they’re looking for vary very little among different providers.

Useful features, rapid efficiency and a pleasant, seamless omnichannel experience matter much more than ever before: your customers want doing business with your organisation to be as easy as ordering lunch on their phone 30 minutes before delivery.

There’s still time to hop on the B2B e-commerce train

Even though it evolved spectacularly these last few years, B2B e-commerce has not yet reached its full maturity. Which is good news: there’s still time to catch up! This is not a mere trend, but a strategical investment that could determine the future of your business.

We categorised the 3 current levels of B2B e-commerce maturity. Take our test to find out your organisation’s level of maturity, and how to reach the next one!

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Emakina: recognised expertise in e-commerce & B2B solutions

A long-time partner of many leading businesses in Belgium, Emakina’s expertise in e-commerce and B2B solutions is unanimously acknowledged in the industry. Emakina has been a preferred consulting partner of Salesforce for many years, thanks to its vast experience in providing key decision makers with the necessary tools, technological solutions, cutting-edge strategies and business acumen to help them grow and thrive in their markets.

Reach out and speak to one of our experts to design a customised, future-proof B2B e-commerce strategy for your business.

Allow us to map out the custom-made, innovative and future-proof growth strategy that will offer your organisation an edge in fast-evolving and highly competitive markets.