3 Ways to Simplify B2B Ecommerce

Business-to-business ecommerce can be complicated. There are often limitations on who can buy products. Often buyers want assistance in finding the proper item. However, a key to success in B2B ecommerce is that easier can be better.

It does not mean that you remove the functionality which makes the purchasing process complex. Instead, it means that you find a way to simplify it.

Here are a 3 examples of simplifying B2B ecommerce.

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Customer Support

Place your telephone number on top of each page. Make it easy for buyers to call. Sometimes ecommerce owners feel that if their website is working well, they should not be receiving phone calls. But that isn’t correct.

Particularly in the case of B2B, where the purchase is complicated, customer service representatives can help buyers that are unsure about the goods and guide them through the process over the telephone. This can also alleviate the burden of a subpar mobile website.

Medical Supply Depot lists its telephone number in the top right of each page.

Live chat, also, can be an inexpensive way to aid B2B buyers, in my experience.

Easy Path to Buy

Make it easy for buyers to complete their purchase. Display products on the home page. This helps buyers readily select items which interest them, to add to their own carts. Additionally, when they see your goods, buyers can quickly identify what your company sells.

B2B typically requires more checkout measures (like creating an account) than B2C. But let buyers to complete those steps once they have added items to cart. And, importantly, give clients a visual confirmation when they’ve added a product to their shopping cart.

MSC Industrial Supply, a distributor of manufacturing products, reveals”Top Sellers” at the bottom of its home page, with”Add to Cart” buttons.

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MSC Industrial Supply shows buyers a modal popup with related goods after they have added items to their carts.

There are other facets of B2B sites that could simplify the path to buy.

Insert products from pages. Do you have pages on your website that explain the merchandise? Consider allowing buyers to add products to their shopping cart directly from these pages.

Connected products. When a shopper is on a webpage for a particular part, show the accessories which she’ll need for that product.

Category pages. Take an add-to-cart button right on category pages and search results pages.

Simplify a Quote Request

B2B buyers frequently take a price quote before they finish their purchase. But assembling a quotation may require conversation between a sales staff and the purchaser, to clarify. B2B providers can use their sites to simplify this procedure.

The important thing is to develop a system which will handle most orders. To make this system online, it is helpful to understand the process offline. A flowchart can help. List the questions your sales staff wants answered to construct a quote. Also, think about building a spreadsheet, which communicates the flowchart, that lists the different possible options for each step, and what combination of options is legitimate. The flowchart and the spreadsheet can help developers build the quotation system on the internet.