B2B eCommerce System Optimization

Business Website

Enjoy a better conversion rate and sales with our quarterly eCommerce audit to make sure your store is optimized for customers and search engines. More details…

Online Catalog

Show more product data than competitors, indulge your B2B buyers using buyer-specific experiences with their personalized catalog, pricing, discounts, shipping options, payment methods, and order history. More details…

Online Portal

Accept orders and self-serve buyers 24/7, easily onboard and approve new buyers with a powerful eCommerce platform running on mighty Google Cloud infrastructure maintained and proactively monitored for you 24/7. More details…

B2B eCommerce System Data Integration

Synchronizer (optional)

Drastically decrease the order fulfillment time, reduce wasted time and data entry mistakes by automating data synchronization between all your business systems.

Data Analytics System

See how your business is doing with built-in sales reports and complete integration with Google Analytics.

Service Organizer

Keep your customers engaged and happy by organizing all real-time and offline interactions with them in one system. Outsourced live chat agents are available to provide customer support 24/7 starting from $1 per hour.

B2B eCommerce System Marketing Automation

SEO System

Make it easier for Google and other search engines to index your products and suggest your store in the search results for more free visitors to your website and online catalog.

Sales Automation

Recover sales from abandoned carts and increase average order value with recommendations.

Content System

Establish your business as an industry leader by posting regular articles in your blog or using an automated feed of articles specific to your industry shown on your website and posted in your social media accounts for you.

How to set up a full-featured B2B eCommerce System without wasting a fortune

TOC:

1. The brutal truth
2. The impact
3. What you should have with a properly set up B2B eCommerce system
4. B2B eCommerce industry at a glance
5. Why consider FinestShops B2B eCommerce Signature System
6. Components of FinestShops B2B eCommerce Signature System

The brutal truth

Here’s the brutal truth about B2B eCommerce: most eCommerce platforms are designed for retailers, and they leave the business sellers behind. To succeed, you actually have to stand out… which is hard when your system doesn’t have all the required features, and paying dozens or thousands of dollars every year for SuiteCommerce, Shopify Plus or Magento Enterprise are not the funds you want to waste.

Some owners invest a fortune into customizing their store…they think, “If I change it enough, then I’ll be able to make it work for my business customers,” but it only gets you so far. 

There is a limit to how much you can actually get this way before it becomes hard and expensive to maintain, let alone get ahead… plus, by the time you are done, it’s already old news, and it’s time to re-platform.

At FinestShops, we worked with hundreds of businesses over the last 17 years and have narrowed our focus down to one thing: “Enabling suppliers and manufacturers to grow sales online. “

As Covid 19 has recently demonstrated, “the future of B2B commerce is digital”. And yet, many businesses do not have the time and expertise to do this in-house. This is why we created our B2B eCommerce Signature System.

Our mission is to help you with your digital transformation, and here’s what we’ve learned:

1) The sooner you do it, the better you strengthen your company’s competitive position and reduce obstacles and threats;

2) Your customers expect Amazon-like convenience and features from their supplier and want to browse your catalog, see product details, manuals, installation and maintenance videos, and drawings; place and track orders from any device;

3) A solid digital foundation is critical for your business growth and a simple informational website or even static catalog is not enough now.

Hi, I’m Anton Pachkine by the way. Just to let you know that we’re going to cover a lot in this article and if at some point you get lost and need some help figuring this stuff out, don’t hesitate to get in touch! 

You can do this by booking a time to speak to one of our specialists who will unpack everything for you. 

The impact

The B2B eCommerce industry is growing rapidly and is expected to exceed $20 trillion by 2027. Every day more and more businesses are turning to eCommerce as a profitable business strategy, making the industry incredibly more competitive. 

Operating without any eCommerce at all or even with a mediocre eCommerce platform will limit your business’ ability to scale up and outperform competitors, much in the same way as a 100m sprinter’s ability to compete would be handicapped by sprinting with a backpack on. 

With every industry becoming more cut-throat by the day, it’s crucial for any business wanting to succeed to equip themselves with a dynamic and powerful eCommerce system. 

What you should have with a properly set up B2B eCommerce system

There are many eCommerce systems out there and most of them will do some of the things listed below. You can add the other parts with extensions and add-ons or you can customize the platform but in some ecommerce systems that creates compatibility and upgradability problems done the road. If you want everything in one package, we have a special system for that. 

A powerful and versatile B2B eCommerce system will:

Provide your buyers and dealers with more product data than your competitors do

People will be far more inclined to purchase from you if you provide them with more product information than your competitors. And so, your online catalog should have all of the data that your buyers will need to make a purchase without contacting your staff. This includes the basic data product like price, description, stock available, dimensions, weight, color, specification. In addition, you may also want to display information that will assist in the buying process, such as case studies; usage, installation, and assembly videos; user manual, technical documentation; warranty; accessories, and FAQ. 

The more information you provide – the more you sell. From start to finish, your B2B eCommerce system should make it easy for your staff to import or add this information to online catalog. 

Save time on processing orders and quote requests

Your online portal should accept quotes, orders and self-serve buyers 24/7, allowing your staff to focus their attention on other areas of the business.

Item price (according to quantity and customer’s group), shipping (even LTL freight), and taxes (or tax exemption) have to be accurate to allow buyers to finish the order using a payment method of their choice (Credit card, Paypal, Amazon Pay, Purchase order, Bank transfer, Check, Credit and etc).

Reduce data entry mistakes

Any process where data has to be inserted manually by staff inevitably leads to a build-up of errors and delays. Instead, automatic data synchronization between all of your business systems will keep your buyers happy with the order fulfillment speed and accuracy. With everything optimized and automated, in many cases, there is no reason not to offer same-day shipping if an order is placed before your cut-off time which will put you years ahead of your competition.

Gain access to up-to-date business information for better decision making

Having accurate data analytics is key to improving your business performance. The best B2B eCommerce systems have rich reporting capabilities that will show you how your company is performing per day, week and month and allow you to add custom reports that are specific to your business. 

Improve customer retention through enhanced quality of service 

Due to the pandemic, there has been a massive surge of people shopping online. Providing high-quality customer service has never been so crucial to maintaining a healthy relationship with buyers. 

With your B2B eCommerce system, customers should be able to submit a quote request, check their order history, track new orders with up-to-date tracking information, communicate with your staff and be able to submit an instant online message. 

Strengthen your Google rankings to generate more traffic onto your website

The more visible your website is on search engines, the more new buyers you’ll onboard. The best B2B eCommerce systems make it easy for Google to index all your product pages without having to spend thousands of dollars on an SEO agency. 

Boost your conversion rates

To optimize your system for conversions you need to simplify and automate the customer’s journey. This applies to both mobile and desktop users. The elements that don’t require any maintenance but are often missed by merchants are cart recovery emails, review reminders, and back-in-stock notifications. Adding these components can bring you thousands of dollars of extra revenue every month without requiring any extra time on managing them. 

Help you generate relevant content to position yourself as an industry leader

Creating content is one of the major keys to growth. It’s a powerful way to demonstrate your expertise, attract new buyers and enhance the value of your brand. But creating content and distributing it across different social media channels is time-consuming. 

If you have the manpower to generate the content in-house or outsource it, you’ll need a content management or blogging system to easily add new content that’s optimized for search engines.

Even if you can’t generate your own content at this time, there is a way to set up an automated system that will show your website visitors an important industry-related news on your website. Doing so will communicate that you’re active and staying on top of your industry trends. 

Convert more leads into buyers

Customers who abandon a purchase just short of completing it are still qualified leads. Every day, businesses lose out on thousands of dollars from not following up on these leads. 

Most eCommerce systems allow you to create automation that will encourage users to complete their purchase by sending them reminders and instructions to do that (like “Click here to complete your order”). 

It’s also important to think about other ways your eCommerce system can convert visitors into paying customers. For example, do you have a signup form with a special offer to increase registrations? Having these incentives to connect with your target market will help pull visitors closer to your brand and convert leads into buyers. 

Now, I know we’ve covered a lot here…

So if you’re feeling confused and would like someone to unpack everything for you in more detail, feel free to book a time to speak to a member of our team. 

B2B eCommerce Industry at a glance

• The B2B eCommerce market is expected to be worth $20.9 trillion by 2027 (Research and Markets, 2020)
• 64% of B2B companies plan to increase their investments in e-commerce websites. (Digital Commerce 360, 2020)
• More than 80% of B2B businesses that participated in a survey plan to invest in an e-commerce platform to enhance the customer experience. (net solutions, 2020)
• A third of B2B buyers say that their expectations of customer experience have increased. (Accenture, 2019)

Why consider FinestShops B2B eCommerce Signature System™

FinestShops have been providing managed eCommerce services since 2003 and have worked with over a dozen of different eCommerce systems. To date, we have set up and managed hundreds of stores for clients. 

Many B2B eCommerce platforms cost over $100,000 to develop and an additional $24,000+ for the annual contract, and this is just for the license and support. For many businesses, this is a large expense. That’s why we created our B2B eCommerce Signature System, which gives you everything you need to scale up your sales online for a fraction of that cost.

From start to finish, our B2B eCommerce system was built to make scaling up B2B sales as accessible as possible for growing wholesale suppliers and manufacturers. This means no expensive licenses, no per-order fees, no heavy investment, and no long-term contracts. 

You’ll receive a complete B2B eCommerce system that gives you all of the tools you need to gain a competitive advantage in your industry, including:

• High-converting business website
• Search engine optimized product catalog
• Mobile-friendly online portal
• Customer self-service area
• Order and shipping tracking
• Inventory management system
• Marketing automation
• Content management system
• Automated industry news
• Customer service system for online chats and inquiries 
• Available integrations with the most third-party system you are using now or will add in the future