The future of B2B ecommerce will be all about differentiation and innovation (see our previous article on this topic). Simply offering an ecommerce portal will not be enough to attract and retain customers as the market gets increasingly competitive and customer expectations evolve.
Before you can take your ecommerce operation to the next level, you’ll need to ensure you have a strong foundation. At Xngage, we’ve helped more than 70 manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers elevate their ecommerce operations, so we’re sharing our top tips for what you should focus on now to set your organization up for future success.
1. Get Executive Buy In
Digital will play a huge role in the future success of your company, so executive buy in is necessary. Digitizing your core business processes will require a significant investment in both time and money. In order to use digital means to drive your business forward, you’ll need to get the various leadership stakeholders on board.
2. Focus on Driving Adoption
A huge theme of the next few years will be personalized ecommerce experiences. For example, you can merchandise your products on your site differently based on a customer’s previous purchases, site activity, industry, or company. But in order to provide personalized experiences, you’ll need to encourage and incentivize your customers to create an account and use that account to self-service. For example, when your customer creates an account, sets up auto-reorder, or creates a list of preferred products, they could earn points towards discounts or other rewards.
You’ll need to encourage adoption internally, too. If your various internal teams like marketing, sales, logistics, operations, and more aren’t using your ecommerce systems, it’s important to find out why. It may be as simple as a lack of training, or the current systems may be inadvertently making their jobs more difficult. Talk to your people and find out how you can improve those systems and processes.
3. Address Your Product Data Challenges
Sourcing, maintaining, updating, and enhancing product data is a common challenge for B2B organizations. With hundreds of thousands or millions of products from disparate sources, it can be a massive task to keep product information up to date. Enhanced product data will power many of the innovations we expect to see in B2B ecommerce over the next 5-10 years, so it’s vital that your organization address any product data challenges immediately. If you haven’t implemented a PIM, now’s the time to do so. If you find that your current PIM solution isn’t meeting your needs, it may be time to upgrade.
4. Get Clarity on Performance – and Act on It
Your ecommerce operation can offer a wealth of valuable performance data. You can get insight into how your customers are finding you online, how they move through your site, any friction that may prevent a sale, and more. But we’ve found that many B2B organizations are not making the most of their performance data.
Your ecommerce operation needs data dashboards tailored to your unique goals. You’ll also need someone who will regularly monitor those reports and make recommendations for optimization. If you don’t have someone on your internal team with the skills and time to do so, your ecommerce agency partner may be able to fill that gap.
5. Hire Dedicated Digital Staff
Many B2B organizations have established an ecommerce operation without an in-house digital team. However, in order to innovate, you’ll need to digitize many other business processes.
Your ecommerce agency will be a valuable partner in your digital journey, but it won’t have the same insight into the day-to-day operation of your business. An in-house team can help you identify opportunities for innovation, processes to streamline, and roadblocks in your buyer journey that can be addressed with digital means. These employees can build an even stronger connection between your ecommerce agency and your organization, bridging any digital knowledge and skills gaps internally and providing deeper insight into business operations.
6. Make Sure Your Systems and Ecosystems Meet Your Needs
Now is the time to evaluate your current ecommerce systems and technology. If your ecommerce platform, PIM, ERP, or even smaller technologies like on-site search aren’t working for you now, they likely won’t be able to support your needs as your operation grows. The right ecommerce agency partner can help you evaluate your tech stack and make recommendations that will meet your evolving needs.
7. Firm Up Your Logisitics
A robust ecommerce operation will require a complex logistics operation. In the not-so-distant future, your customers will expect to see real-time inventory availability broken out by warehouse location. They’ll expect to schedule out the deliveries of different portions of large orders. They will even look to you to help them manage their own inventory, prompting them to repurchase when their supplies may be getting low. All of these initiatives will require that you’re on top of your logistics.
8. Find the Right Technology Partnerships
The next decade of B2B ecommerce will be about differentiation, innovation, and personalization. We expect the industry to grow beyond the standard ecommerce platforms into custom software that solves your customer's unique challenges. In order to achieve those goals, your organization will need an ecommerce agency partner that has the necessary experience and expertise.
While many agencies can implement an ecommerce platform, few will have the capabilities to develop custom software that addresses your most-pressing challenges. If you don’t have a clear digital roadmap with innovation and differentiation at the forefront, your agency partner might not be the right fit for your future.
Get a Free Ecommerce Assessment
If you’re unsure about what your company needs to do now to take your ecommerce operation to the next level, a free ecommerce assessment from the experts at Xngage is a great place to start. Our team will evaluate your tech stack, processes, analytics, and more to make custom recommendations for technology, strategy, and innovation.