B2B (business-to-business) commerce has come a long way and now many enterprises in this type of business are turning to digitalization to get the most out of all activities directed towards making sales and profits. Digitalization is taking a central role in many large and medium companies. Already the impact of digitization of the B2B commerce can be seen in almost all businesses that have adopted e-commerce.
Of course, digitization may be tricky at first and even once established many businesses may still find it hard to maintain or use. For this reason, a simplified way has been created in which businesses can use digitization and this is in the form of platforms.
Platforms are easy to use and can be designed in a way that suits company’s’ needs and accommodates how they want to conduct the activities in their business. Some platforms have ready-made solutions and owners can pick one according to what suits their business. Actually, platforms offer the best solutions for running B2B digital stores.
Difference Between B2B and B2C Trading
B2C (business-to-customers) e-commerce is popular and practically involves how businesses chose to deal with its customers. On the other hand, B2B trading is predominantly focused on interactions between different businesses especially wholesale businesses. Here are a few differences between these two types of businesses:
- Rationality when buying or selling,
- Many factors are considered in decision making,
- Emphasis is made on the importance of long-term customer relationship,
- Prices differ depending on products and quantity purchased,
- Payments can be made after delivery of products,
- The goal is to deliver products to customers on time.
The inverse can be said about B2C businesses as there is impulsive buying from customers. Also, B2C focuses predominantly on short-term customer relationships.
B2B Supply Chains
Supply chains are very important for B2B businesses. They involve the first step of supplying raw material to the final step of providing finished goods for sale to customers by B2B businesses. A specific feature of B2B chain of supply involves running business activities within a time frame. Setting deadlines, in this situation, will help you to achieve all the goals you have set.
E-commerce businesses can have more access and control of how their B2B business is going. Apart from providing contact with more companies, the internet can be used for the comparison of prices, as this will allow companies to set a competitive price for the products and services that they offer.
For example, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) refers to a system that brings in one place all facets of an operation. ERP is now available for the use by many e-commerce businesses to access different parts of the chain of supply at their convenience. There are many benefits of proper chain of supply management and these include:
- Automation of processes such as transactions and shipping,
- Automation of order tracking,
- Supplying goods to customers on time,
- Automation reduces time wastage and costs.
Therefore, integration of ERP software with supply chain management can be very useful in your business.
B2B E-commerce Platforms
B2B e-commerce platforms provide monitoring sales that also offer easy visibility of supply chain. Maintaining profits then becomes possible as you are already in the right position to do so.
The type of B2B software platform you decide to use will have a great influence on how you deliver the shopping experience to your customers. Features of B2B platforms include:
- Ability to handle complex pricing,
- Flexibility that allows for personalization,
- Optimized mobile experience,
- Availability of real-time inventory information,
- Customer self-service and fast order pads,
- Self-analysis of sales made,
- Ability to order items offline,
- Capability of setting up promotions and sales,
- Efficient ERP integration,
- Wizard with personalized stores and portals,
- Frequent reports on sales, clients, and workers,
- Accurate forecasting of collected data.
Several B2B e-commerce platforms exist and each has different characteristics. A few examples include Oracle, IBM, Shopify, payever and Hybris. These software platforms are ready-made and can be simply used and integrated with the other e-commerce software you may be already using in your business.
If these do not work for you then you have the option of creating one for yourself, by using Magento as an example. Although this may be more expensive and requires frequent updates to suit the changes in technology that occur every time. Let’s take a closer look at a few examples and their characteristics.
1. Oracle
Oracle is your go-to platform if you are looking for a secure way of exchanging information with your business partners. It also facilitates other activities like delivery of products and how to manage trading partners. Key advantages include:
- Provides several security features such as authentication, identity assertion and management, and authorization.
- It integrates commerce cloud and CPQ cloud to provide a way in which businesses can make orders through quotes enabling sales teams to provide custom pricing.
- It has leverage world-class search that allows you to convert shoppers into regular customers by promoting better experiences that will suit customers.
- It allows businesses to personalize content through their channels thus creating an enjoyable shopping experience for customers.
2. Hybris
Hybris is one the leading software platforms for B2B e-commerce businesses. It comes with features that allow you to provide a personalized experience for your customers that will make it easy for you to retain them. Other features include:
- Content management,
- Quick and easy ways of making and processing orders,
- Options for all types of customer’s purchases,
- Great customer shopping experience,
- Advanced personalization options,
- Easy setup and management of customer accounts,
- Support of complex activities and multiple dimensional products.
3. payever
The free payever platform is a popular solution among large and medium enterprises as it helps to maximize the activities within the business. The payever platform provides agility to many companies, permitting them to be productive without increasing the expenses and within a reduced time frame. Some features of payever include:
- Customizable features to provide the shopping experience that customers are looking for.
- Beautiful web design is available for providing the best experience for B2B enterprises.
- Segmentation allows you to separate your customers into those for B2B and those for wholesale buying.
- It has specific payment systems that suit the different purchases or orders made by customers.
- Easy processing of orders especially orders in bulk, with per unit costs and automated calculation of discounts when purchases are made in bulk.
- Quote builder integration that allows any business to create custom quotes that allow customers to directly click on the item they want to purchase and easily order it.
- Advanced shipping features that include customized shipping to customers.
A major advantage of payever Is how easy it is for integration with other systems such as inventory order management, chain supply, and ERP and CMR.
4. Magento
Magento is the platform for many large businesses as it helps your customers with self-management, further permitting you to track orders and view orders made both online and offline. Magento provides B2B features such as:
- Custom pricing which allows you to create specific prices for each product and distribute them to businesses that sell on your behalf.
- Shared catalogs that allow you to control the visibility of items that you sell. You can even go as far as setting up the price according to percentage discounts and custom value.
- Quick processing of orders prevents the unnecessary process of looking through catalogs and allows B2B businesses to directly order the product they want without wasting time.
- Integration of credit limits with ERP to track payments that customers make for all purchases. With this feature, you can create an account model that helps you to store all purchase and payment data.
- Quotes and negotiations that are provided through a two-way communication system that allows you to make orders through quotes and then send the order to a supplier who can add prices using comments.
5. IBM
IBM provides ready-to-use B2B e-commerce software that creates an improved selling for your business as well as the shopping for customers. This platform supports many aspects of a business such as products and services offered, pricing and promotions. It has features like:
- Order management for smooth processes in the business such as supply and dealing with customers.
- Seamless configuration, pricing, quotes, and order of products and services.
- Commerce on the cloud, a cloud-based commerce solution that allows for achievement of revenue faster.
- IBM WebSphere commerce which is a feature that makes it possible to personalize the shopping experience of customers.
Conclusion
With so many e-commerce platforms available for B2B businesses it is easy to see why large enterprises who have chosen to digitize are making immense profits, with increased sales and work productivity. While selecting the right platform for your business is important, it is also a crucial to select the best business model that will help you to get conduct business smoothly.
Picking the right platform will put you in the driver seat and give you the control you need. Already digitization puts you in a position which allows centralization of business activities. You must take advantage of all the benefits that come with digitization and make the best use of them.
