A guide to evaluating your B2B commerce efforts

92% of B2B leaders have at least one frustration with their commerce tool: from requiring high levels of maintenance, to not accounting for the complexity that characterizes the businesses of so many product sellers.

So, how do successful B2B businesses win online?

Simple — by leveraging powerful B2B-first web stores that boost revenue and save them time.

Our free B2B Ecommerce Platform Checklist is a great first step to assess whether there’s a better solution out there for your business.

3 must-haves for online B2B success

There are three areas that a functional web store can transform for your business:

1. Commercial Results

When you invest in a commerce tool for business, it goes without saying you expect to see ROI. Your online channel should help drive sales and gather insights to support your commercial teams and ensure your business thrives.

2. B2B System Functionality

B2B product sellers have nuanced internal logic that needs to translate effectively to a digital environment. The ideal commerce tool should work with your business complexity, not around it.

3. Internal Team Efficiency

If your sales and customer service reps are acting as part-time account managers, your web store can be doing better to save them time. Plus, smart automation has the potential to save hours of time for your teams.

Now that you’ve established the three broad areas your web store should be improving within your business, let’s take a closer look at how product sellers see this change come about (with the help of some real-life examples).

Evaluating commercial results — is your web store helping or hurting?

Assessing the numbers is the most obvious way to ensure your online efforts are paying off. Is your web store a silent partner in your success story, or a hidden villain hindering your growth?

Successful B2B web stores see a marked improvement in their results upon implementation.

Take the example of Claygate, a British distributor who needed a web store that could accommodate their diverse pricing dynamics, workflow complexities, and shipping challenges. Overhauling their digital channel ensured a web store that prioritize B2B needs, and drove monthly sales up 33%, while reducing phone inquires by 67%.

Achieving remarkable commercial results are a directly result of empowering buyers with extensive web store self-service.

58% of B2B customers prefer making complex purchases online, while 91% of them note there’s at least 1 hurdle preventing them from completing them.

Sales & channel support should enable your buyers to access purchase-critical data with minimal friction.

How does that work?

A B2B-first web store incorporates customer account self-service, flexible payment solutions, and multiple shipping/logistics options to ensure your buyers have everything they need for complex purchasing.

Order errors are a leading cause of frustration between B2B buyers. A web store that ensures real-time syncs with smart catalog automations ensures always-accurate information and a seamless purchase experience.

Leveraging commerce tool features – the B2B difference

Most B2B product sellers today know an online channel is important – but not all of them understand how crucial a B2B-first solution might be.

Here are some signs your commerce tool might not be B2B-first:

1. Struggling with complex orders
2. Limited customer segmentation
3. Headless commerce limitations
4. Security concerns
5. Lack of automation

American manufacturer K-Rain an 100% increase in traffic and 25% increase in sales when they shifted their focus to a B2B-first web store.

With customers worldwide and complex trade agreements to contend with, product sellers like K-Rain require a localized, personalized buying experience that doesn’t burn time for their IT teams. Automation and no-code integrations can help facilitate exactly this.

Enabling team efficiency to save time and optimize internal productivity

Your team is the engine that drives your B2B ecommerce success. They can’t do this if their time is taken up by tedious tasks. A B2B-focused platform can free them up and empower them to focus on what matters most. Here’s how:

For medical supplies organization AOSS Medical Supply, a B2B-first web store enabled saving up to 100 hours of time for sales teams. How? With a web store that delivered seamless purchases for customers, AOSS were able to shift to a maintenance-free experience.

With sales teams not needed for support requirements, resources could be allocated towards strategic initiatives. A B2B-first web store allows product-sellers to empower their teams to operate at full potential. This translates to increased productivity, improved customer service, and growth in revenue.

B2B-first is the future for product sellers seeking to stand out

For B2B product sellers who are serious about maintaining (and growing) market share, a “good enough” ecommerce platform simply won’t cut it.

A solution built from the ground up to handle the complexities of B2B transactions, empower your team, and drive growth will bring you results with impact.