Leverage your existing B2C webstore investment to create a B2B webstore

Business-To-Consumer (B2C) ecommerce sites are now rife in the apparel industry, with chains, wholesalers and boutique designers alike having caught on quickly to this necessary sales and branding tool. The natural step to take once you have invested in your webstore is to take your Business-To-Business (B2B) processes online as well, making it easier for your suppliers/retailers to purchase your stock. Luckily for you, you can easily leverage your existing ecommerce investment to support both your B2C AND B2B operations. Your direct customers enjoy the benefit of being able to purchase online, why shouldn’t your business partners? By using one platform to support multiple business models you can improve customer relations, reducing keying errors, improve business efficiencies, save money and increase revenue.

Improve Customer Relations

Leveraging your existing ecommerce website to support B2B operations will go a great way in fostering and maintaining strong customer relationships.  By giving your retailers the option to log in as a dealer and purchase your products online you significantly improve the customer service you provide them in several ways.

Firstly, by taking your B2B operations online you improve the speed in which orders are placed, paid for and dispatched. Assuming that your current webstore platform is integrated with your in-store systems, retailers can experience a faster process from paying for an order online, to receiving an automated invoice, to receiving their order. Setting up your B2B operations on an integrated online platform means your business processes (such as sending invoices and setting an order to be dispatched) are automated, cutting down on time it takes to get an order to a customer. Customers also save time by being able to carry out the entire order process, from product research to payment, entirely online. This reduces the chances of them having to make a phone or face-to-face query, again saving them time and improving their customer experience.

Secondly, you can use personalisation to improve your retailers’ customer experience. Functionality such as recorded transaction history makes it convenient for retailers to come back to your site and either place a straight reorder, or edit previous orders to suit. Making suggestions to customers about products specific to their purchase needs, showing pricing in the relevant currency, and remembering what was in a customers’ cart if they leave and come back, all provide incentives for your retailers to both place an order, and return to your site.

Retailers also benefit from using your site to place their orders, as they can view a full, consistently updated product range (as opposed to limitations imposed by trade shows, printed catalogues etc.), make easy contact via forms, email or forums/live chat, and enjoy advanced usability leveraged from your existing best practise standard webstore.

Improve Business Efficiencies

Taking your B2B operations online means you can enjoy the same business efficiencies you gain from your existing integrated B2C ecommerce site. You benefit not only from fast order processing, but from having “one source of truth”, the convenience of running two websites off the same platform, less time spent answering customer queries and improved communication and trade with international customers.

The integration between your in-store systems and your ecommerce platform ensures that your retailers are viewing the “one source of truth”, meaning all product information such as pricing and stock availability is updated automatically to reflect the correct information. This saves you time and improves customer service as you do not have to manually update information, or risk keying errors. You reduce the time you spend answering customer queries, as all information is displayed clearly and accurately on the website for the customers to read for themselves. You also save time and money spent communicating with and selling to intentional customers for this same reason, having a B2B webstore ensures all customers can easily research and purchase online. Dealing with one platform makes it easier for you to monitor your business processes for both types of business models, and ensures you are dealing with only accurate information.

Improve Sales

Leveraging your existing ecommerce platform to host your B2B webstore is not only a cost effective way to improve customer relations and business efficiencies, but can also improve your sales. Having a B2B ecommerce website allows you to provide your customers with high quality product information, utilise your existing merchandising and marketing/promotional tools from your B2C webstore, easily reach and sell to international customers and display your full range of products - all which influence the purchase decision.

Retailers have to spend a lot of time sourcing product, and to be able to provide them with a one stop shop that lets them browse, research and purchase all at once is a very strong offering on your behalf. By utilising your best practise functionality from your current website, such as an advanced zoom, accurate stock availability, product descriptions, promotions, suggested relevant products, interactive lookbooks and email marketing tools you are able to increase sales to your retailers just as you did to your direct customers.

You can also increase sales by expanding your customer base to include international retailers. B2B ecommerce sites make it easy and cheap for international clients to buy off you, as they don’t have to hunt out your trade shows or catalogues, or spend money travelling or on the phone. If you are planning to reach an international audience you should ensure your webstore has multi currency functionality, making sure prices, shipping and taxes reflect your customers’ location.

Taking your B2B operation online can be a cost effective way of growing your business and customer base, improving sales and improving your customer experience. B2B improves current business relations, encourages new retailers to buy from you, minimises costs, improves accuracy, speeds up processes through automation and increases revenue. Not only that, but by leveraging your existing B2C ecommerce investment, you are able to support both business models off one platform and reuse your existing functionality, making this step the obvious next choice for this year’s ecommerce strategy.