If you serve both B2B and B2C clients, your needs for eCommerce solution will be far different than focuses on one alone. Increasingly, software developers are realizing the benefit of providing a solution that helps its customers cater to both audiences.
How B2B differs from B2C
The most obvious difference between B2B and B2C is the customer requirement. B2C focuses on individual customer transactions, whereas B2B focuses on other businesses as the consumer. This difference creates different needs for B2B applications.
One difference between B2B and B2C is the type of order. For example, when you order office supplies or parts, you usually order the same products as well as the same amounts at fairly regular intervals. Repeat and standing orders are a common B2B requirement.
Type of payment is also a different requirement for B2B transactions. When your company makes a purchase, you rarely use a credit card for payment. Another difference is the type of search function in B2B applications. A catalog to browse through is not necessarily a requirement, depending on the type of B2B purchase you want to make.
B2B eCommerce Solution
B2B proposes unique challenges for the seller, some are just part of the eCommerce selling process while others are exclusive to the business-to-business approach. Here are just a few common issues that come up for manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and others that primarily sell to other businesses—as well as the B2B eCommerce solutions that take care of these issues.
1.Customer specific pricing: The ability of an eCommerce platform to handle a variety of pricing schedules and serve up the right one based on user credentials is essential for B2B eCommerce success.
2.Freedom to optimize. Your marketing team will appreciate this. With the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), it is essential to have a B2B eCommerce solution that allows you to customize your URLs, meta data, and on-page content to get your page ranking high on Google, Yahoo, and Bing so customers find you before your competition.
3.Security. A secure site is must for any B2B in today’s world. Keeping your customers information and your company information should be at the top of your list; be sure to look at this very carefully as you evaluate your options.
4.Easy Search Functionality: B2B’s can sell one thing, thousand of things, or even thousands of varieties of one product! So it is important to give your customers a quick and easy way to search for what they came for. The quicker and easier it is for you customers to get in, find what they need, and get out, the better your chances are at closing the sale and having repeat purchases.
What B2B and B2C Marketers Can Learn From Each Other
A B2C eCommerce presence is an essential element in today’s business environment and it is equally important to choose the right company to provide you with your eCommerce solutions.
Anyone who's worked in marketing for a week knows there's a difference between the strategies and tactics for business-to-consumer (B2C) and those for business-to-business (B2B) online advertising. Yet in some ways, they're more alike than they are different.
Branding
The first is branding, where in B2C the hierarchy of good, better, best translates into brands, sub-brands, co-brands, designer brands, and so on. By contrast, the B2B world typically is characterized by single-brand strategies. Don’t take your brand for granted. If it’s well defined and you understand its “DNA,” it can be extended into new categories or used to create diffusion or step-down brands.
Emotional engagement
Too many B2B marketers focus too much on the features of their product or service and not enough about the emotional benefits. B2B marketers will include all the deliverables in a proposal but nothing tailored to each prospective buyer about the benefits.People buy for emotional reasons. B2C marketers get that! People buy Porsches more because they feel more confident or accomplished. They don’t buy Porsches because of the features listed on the price tag. In fact, when you sell on features, buyers are typically more price sensitive. B2B marketers need to remind people about key benefits related to most B2B services such as stress reduction, clarity, focus, time savings, more time with family, etc.
Marketing Communications
The B2C world makes extensive use of celebrity endorsements, special events, and other high-profile activities, whereas B2B marketers often limit themselves to new product announcements in the trade press.
In the process of publishing technical articles, making presentations at trade shows and conferences, and winning industry awards, we reinforce our position as an authority on sealing technology.
In the final analysis, consumer confidence drives everything, seeing as consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of GDP. B2C marketers seem to have a better grasp of this reality than their B2B counterparts, who tend to forget that many of their products ultimately end up in consumer products.
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