How an Ecommerce Consultant Can Optimize B2B Web Builds
Your company’s website is the first thing potential customers see and the entry point to successful and productive B2B relationships. It has to be easy to use, secure, and just as unique as the services you provide. Working with a website development consultant can take some of the guesswork out of your build and help ensure that you are putting your best foot forward.
B2B commerce is evolving, and businesses need a digital presence to stay relevant. An ecommerce consultation with a development agency can optimize your web build.
Staying relevant in B2B ecommerce is not easy. It is a large, crowded and competitive field that shows no signs of slowing down or shrinking anytime soon. The best approach is to stay current on what B2B customers want from the user experience, which has evolved and will likely continue to do so. Third-party website consultants make it possible to do this while remaining true to the core mission of your business.
Ecommerce is more essential than ever
In a century already dominated by ecommerce, 2020 was a banner year. Even before we witnessed the full working-from-home effect of COVID-19 on the economy, it was forecasted that global B2B ecommerce sales would be $6.6 trillion, far surpassing the value of B2C. The pandemic accelerated everyone’s plans, compressing many years of digitization into just weeks. If there was any remaining doubt that ecommerce was going to become the new normal, it is gone.
What does this mean for B2B websites?
The importance of certain priorities has been amplified. To name a few:
- Your site needs to be rich in content and easy to browse
- Page load times have to be short
- The functionality of the mobile version should be a focus
More people than ever are working from home and across multiple devices. In addition to having a well-developed catalogue of products, your B2B site has to be easily navigable on a computer, tablet or mobile device. What this all amounts to is that the customer experience is more important than ever. In yet another major shift of 2020, customers now feel their user experience is a bigger consideration than the price and are in fact willing, by a wide margin, to pay more for a better one. This represents both an enormous challenge and opportunity.
The last industrial revolution necessitated commodification and the endless lowering of prices. The emphasis this time around is on tailoring to the needs of your customers, which if done well is something they will happily pay for. The onus is on companies to make their B2B websites more seamless and simple to use, but that effort can be figured into the final cost. You are now not only selling your products but the manner in which they are delivered.
The importance of a B2B digital commerce solution
Many B2B organizations fail to launch digital commerce solutions because they believe their products are too complex to sell online or require a more traditional handshake-style sales relationship. The truth is, your business may be left behind if you aren't willing to evolve and move your sales reps, distributors and customer relationships online. If you can sell traditionally, you can learn to sell digitally.
The products and services you sell may be complex and customizable, but in today’s ecosystem, if you aren’t showing them off online, you are missing a big opportunity. This doesn’t mean that you have to come out of the gate will a fully integrated ecommerce site that allows your clients to order online. Starting a simple site with a well-developed product catalogue can be a first step, with future iterations adding B2B commerce functions like online order, account history, personalization and other customer-specific information.
How can a website development consultant help?
With all your energy devoted to running your business, it can be easy to lose sight of how to stay competitive. An outside ecommerce software consultant can help you keep your eyes on the business AND get the digital transformation your company needs to be competitive.
Acro Commerce's team can learn all the particulars of your company and its goals while keeping an eye on the bigger picture, providing valuable insights and courses of action from an informed outside perspective. We are often in the best position to guide you toward various cost-saving and revenue-driving measures, such as:
- Developing relationships with new partners and suppliers, expanding both your catalogue and potential market.
- Leveraging customer data to create intelligent solutions that increase revenue.
- Ending the cycle of replatforming by fixing whatever problems there are with a more precise, surgical approach.
- Empowering sales teams with new tools & systems designed to increase sales velocity.
When to contact an ecommerce consultant
Whether you are starting from scratch on a B2B website or have already begun a build. Acro Commerce's team brings a thorough and methodical approach to the process, complete with:
- Information architecture to map out user motivations and business goals
- Prototyping before full development
- Real-time auditing of every facet of the site
With these measures in place, you can be assured of your site’s functionality and that no resources or efforts are being wasted. Acro Commerce’s method is also platform-agnostic, meaning that the specifics of your business will be taken into account at all times when crafting and implementing a strategy, as opposed to a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach.
