Succeeding in B2B e-commerce requires innovation, adaptability, and a customer-centric mindset. But achieving this is often easier said than done. With customers demanding accurate real-time product information, tailored to their specific needs, online sellers need to develop creative omnichannel solutions to stay ahead.
On March 13th, industry leaders gathered to tackle these challenges and identify fixes. Hosted by Digital Commerce 360’s Senior Vice President of B2B and Market Research, Mark Brohan, the panel comprised of Justin Racine, Principal, Unified Commerce Strategy at Perficient, Jai Baek, Marketing & Creative Director at United Pacific Industries, Kris Harrington, CEO of GenAlpha Technologies, and Sebastiaan Verhaar, CEO of Sana Commerce.
Key Takeaways
B2B sellers need to adapt to the Digital-First Customer. They need strategies for engaging both digital-native and traditional buyers in more effective ways, enhancing their shopping experience across all channels.
Leveraging technology like artificial intelligence, real-time data analytics, and personalization can transform your e-commerce strategy and your competitive advantage, making your operations more efficient and your customer interactions more impactful.
It is important to develop a digital infrastructure that supports efficient, productive operations for internal teams and provides transparency and convenience for B2B buyers.
Innovating with new e-commerce strategies and technologies can generate uniquely helpful experiences, attract new customers, and foster lasting loyalty.
Building a winning B2B e-commerce strategy in 2024 and beyond
Over an hour, these B2B e-commerce experts shared practical use cases, swapped success stories, and offered actionable advice. From best practice integration of AI tools to battle-tested tactics for customer retention, a variety of key approaches for building a successful B2B e-commerce strategy were explored. Read on to learn how peers are tackling some of the most pressing and widespread B2B digital commerce challenges today.
Adapting to the Digital-First B2B buyer
The group highlighted that today’s buyers have high expectations for a smooth online-offline commerce experience and 74% will switch vendors if their needs aren’t met. This means sellers need to simultaneously tackle the challenge of unifying data and the need to develop creative solutions to meet those expectations. Jai Baek, Marketing and Creative Director at United Pacific Industries, expanded on the difficulties; “Connected commerce is a 360 experience, but it’s almost impossible to cater to every customer on an individual basis. The best solution we have right now is to create a central hub where you can distribute product information to multiple customers seamlessly.”
From optimizing customer lifetime value to leveraging AI and emerging technologies, the panelists revealed proven tactics and strategies to help e-commerce businesses thrive in today’s competitive landscape.
The discussion explored how data-driven decision-making and personalized customer experiences can drive remarkable and sustainable growth. It also uncovered best practices for streamlining processes and making the most of precious internal resources to ensure strategic initiatives are optimized.
B2B E-commerce Success Stories
Harrison & Clough, a Sana Commerce customer, achieved an 80% reduction in customer service calls by streamlining their operations, indicating increased customer satisfaction and resource optimization. This efficiency freed up valuable time and personnel, allowing for focus on strategic initiatives.
Similarly, United Pacific Industries saw a 20% increase in sales by digitizing and streamlining processes, highlighting the potential for significant sales growth through operational enhancements.
Uncover what B2B buyers are seeking from digital experiences in 2024.
Learn all about it in the B2B Buyer Report 2024.
Driving B2B customer lifetime value
Driving customer lifetime value comprises many different elements, including digital transformation to serve the digital-first B2B buyer. But, according to the panelists, it starts with gaining a deep data-based understanding of the customer to ensure interactions are hyper-personalized and build brand loyalty over time. Success, in Justin Racine’s mind, requires putting the customer at the heart of the business strategy. The Principal of Unified Commerce Strategy at Perficient explained, “Each experience sets a new bar. B2B buyers don’t want to have to take time out of their day so there needs to be easy, quick, seamless delivery, flexibility, and availability on different channels. That’s what will create the best customer lifetime value.”
Kris Harrington, CEO of GenAlpha Technologies, takes it further as she says, “again if we think about the data that is most useful for customers in a B2B environment we’re talking about price, we’re talking about product availability, we’re talking about product information, we’re talking about ease of ordering, reordering, re-quoting, converting quotes to orders.
This information is housed in an ERP system, and if easily integrated and seamless, you can then expose that information to make it easy for your customers to do many of the things that they’re doing with you in a traditional environment when they’re calling your customer service team for price availability, re-quote, reorder; when they’re calling your salespeople for order status and tracking, all of that stuff is typically in the ERP system, but if you don’t have a mechanism to integrate to a robust commerce site, it’s a first step.”
B2B E-commerce Success Stories
We can see a great example of what success looks like through Hummert International’s experience. By integrating real-time data on inventory, pricing, and shipping, they significantly improved their end-to-end online shopping process.
Advanced search features, accurate shipping calculations, and automated order processing led to a 25% increase in new business. The company also doubled conversion rates and boosted mobile traffic by 123% in just one month; improvements that were the direct outcomes of deliberate and dedicated focus on customer needs.
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Aligning B2B e-commerce technology for competitive advantage
If you struggle with aligning all the tools and platforms you manage, you’re not alone. In fact, a poll conducted during the webinar revealed that the most critical business case in B2B e-commerce is ensuring seamless integration with current systems with nearly half (46%) of the vote.
There are several proven tactics to consider here including revamping e-commerce applications and services, simplifying complex online transactions, modernizing CPQ systems, and integrating advanced offerings like Punchout and subscription models.
Whatever methods a business chooses, the expert panelists agreed, the focus should be on addressing the most important customer use cases. As Sebastiaan Verhaar, CEO of Sana Commerce, advises, “You need to start with the essence of what your customers want and how you cater to that experience. It starts with integrating the ERP and having a single source of truth.”
B2B E-commerce Success Stories
Take, for instance, Labelmaster’s innovative approach to personalization in B2B shopping experiences. By using on and offline customer insights enabled by Sana Commerce Cloud they created customized landing pages and synchronized product catalogs, Labelmaster achieved a significant 50% increase in daily orders while simultaneously reducing staff requirements by 20%. Moreover, their strategic efforts led to a notable 15% increase in sales, coupled with a 50% reduction in checkout load times and a 25% surge in web traffic.
Why connected B2B e-commerce is a 360 experience
Today’s B2B buyers want efficient, seamless, and highly personalized purchase experiences. B2B sellers are responding to this need by utilizing data to enhance the customer experience, implementing unified buying platforms, and offering flexible delivery options.
Successful buyer/seller connections grow from honing and developing the offering over time, adding more and more value as the relationship matures and continuing to listen and respond to what the buyer wants and needs. Justin Racine explains how the knowledge of the customer evolves; “When you first encounter a customer you might add them in as part of a cohort but the ultimate goal is to capture all the interactions, analyze the content they consume and form a broader picture. This enables you to harness all the data points and understand them as an individual. Then you can curate that highly personalized experience.”
B2B E-commerce Success Stories
This sentiment rings true for Sana Commerce customer Palfinger, whose dedication to personalized service yielded impressive results. By providing easy access to specific pricing, detailed product information, and order history, Palfinger saw an astounding 80% adoption rate and an impressive 85% customer satisfaction rating shortly after implementation. Their tailored approach fostered a deeper connection with customers, leading to increased loyalty and engagement.
How AI is used in B2B e-commerce
AI is transforming the B2B e-commerce landscape. A poll during the webinar revealed that the top area of AI investment is data analytics and business insights (67%), with product recommendations and personalization (58%) and customer service and support (50%) also being prioritized. Notably, only 8% are focusing on cybersecurity, which wasn’t what many panelists expected though the other results aligned with the opinions expressed.
So, how are businesses already using AI in B2B ecommerce? Sebastiaan Verhaar explains that many of Sana’s clients are leveraging AI in practical ways including generative AI in content generation, creating SEO product descriptions, and translations. They are also using it to improve product recommendations, dynamic pricing, and stock management. “There are a lot of great examples of AI enhancing the end-to-end customer journey as well as internal business operations,” he tells us, but warns that it’s best to start small and look at specific use cases on an individual basis so you can analyze outcomes clearly.
Generative AI can help busy e-commerce sellers stay one step ahead, as Sebastiaan explains; “We see a lot of clients using AI successfully and leveraging data insights to automate inbound requests so you can answer questions before the customer asks them and manage the buyer journey more efficiently.”
Kris Harrington explains that while manufacturers are considering AI applications in e-commerce, adoption is still limited. She advises a data-first approach. “Start by using the e-commerce tools and harnessing that data. Next take a look at potential orders, and other search patterns before reviewing content from your CRM and integrating it into other platforms. All of these are data points that AI can harness.”
Many in B2B e-commerce and in the business world more generally have concerns about the potential impact of AI on the workforce. Justin Racine acknowledges the stigma surrounding AI replacing jobs but offers a different perspective: “I think the future is using AI to help people make decisions. Interactive AI assistance rather than relying solely on tools to remove some of the leg work.” He also highlights data privacy and security considerations, stating; “From a UX point of view, people are generally more than happy to share information as long as they are getting the right benefit in return and that their data is protected. So, brands need to set up robust mechanisms and reassure users of security and compliance.”
Which B2B e-commerce features are businesses prioritizing?
Many B2B sellers are prioritizing a single source of truth for their operations through pre-built integrations. Kris Harrington explains the wider context; “When working with manufacturing and distributing clients they need to seamlessly integrate systems before moving to digital commerce solutions. They have to upgrade the ERP system to ensure it is robust enough and has an API available to create a smooth switch to the e-commerce environment.” Additional features like after-sales support systems and integrated marketing tools are considered nice-to-haves that can further enhance the overall customer experience.
How to succeed in B2B e-commerce
From technology to process to data the panel explored important topics for B2B e-commerce success. A critical ingredient to that success is company staff. As Sebastiaan Verhaar explains, “e-commerce success is a company-wide affair.” Justin Racine explains, “If you’re building a new e-commerce digital experience and your sales team isn’t on board and they see it as a replacement for their role they’re not going to push it, but I tell the sales people of the clients that we work with, ‘listen let the e-commerce platform take the gum at the checkout counter and you focus in on the big complex items that need that high touch.’ so my piece of advice would be include customer views for sure but don’t leave your employees out of the process.”
Sebastiaan Verhaar of Sana Commerce has the final word with this takeway, ”It’s about the whole company, it’s all about the data, making sure you have one source of truth regardless of what platform you use, really understand your customers and understand their customers. Then address digital transformation use case by use case one at a time. That’s how you can be successful.”
