business challenges you face introduction to b2b ecommerce
TRANSCRIPT
Crimsonwing B2B eCommerce offers businesses the ability to implement sophisticated online trading models cost effectively and in short timescales. It enables businesses to drive down the cost of doing business at the same time as helping you to acquire new customers.
Business Challenges You Face
Crimsonwing / B2B eCommerce
Your customers now expect a B2C style online experience
The Opportunity Is Immense
It is no longer good enough to provide a functional online purchasing facility. Your customers now have considerable experience of superb B2C examples and have an expectation that B2B solutions will be equally engaging and easy to use. Businesses who offer a retail style experience will be rewarded with significantly improved online business results.
Forrester Research estimates that 2013 B2B in the U.S. revenue was double the B2C revenue. This is despite the fact that eCommerce is more mature in retailers selling to consumers than in organisations selling to business.
Many of your smaller customers can only be profitable online
B2B is like B2C but harder
Forrester report that 56% of businesses say “We have customers that we can only profitably support in an online self-serve product purchase environment.” In order to be competitive it is essential that all businesses take measures to drive cost out of the business without compromising customer service.
Most eCommerce solutions are designed to cater for B2C requirements. All of the B2C functionality has a relevance to B2B but there are additional and often complex capabilities that are needed to support your B2B business model. These areas of additional features include:
– Customer price lists
– Complex discount rules
– Customer rebates
– Product configuration
– Support for buying groups and affiliations
– Advanced ERP integration
– Management and deployment of large volumes of web content
B2B is no longer just about desktops
The growth in use of mobiles and tablets for commercial internet usage means that these devices can no longer been seen as an “add-on”. A competent B2B solution needs to work seamlessly across all platforms.
Introduction to B2B eCommerce
Key Benefits Integration
In order to be effective a B2B eCommerce system needs to implement online (and potentially enhance) the complex procedures, terms and processes of an existing face to face business relationship. The relationship will differ from customer and reflect the level of business spend and the customer’s unique requirements.
The detailed characteristics of this relationship will already be embedded with the rules and settings of the organisation’s ERP system. Any effective B2B solution needs to work in close harmony with the ERP system and cannot exist as a standalone entity.
Tight integration between the two is essential. The two systems need to be continuously synchronised.
This synchronisation encompasses:
– Trading terms
– Product Information
– Stock Status
– Customer Information
– Order Data
– Account Status
– Shipping Status
Integration is necessarily highly tailored since it depends upon the technologies and platforms involved and how they have specifically been implemented.
Crimsonwing have been performing complex B2B integrations since 2003. In addition to acquiring vast experience working with varied clients we have developed our own discrete Data Warehouse product that creates a highly structured interface between the B2B eCommerce system and back-end systems such as ERP.
As a major supplier of Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems, Crimsonwing have detailed in-depth experience of both sides of the fence.
Crimsonwing / B2B eCommerce / Key Benefits & Integration
– Tight integration with your ERP system ensures your customers get a consolidated perspective of their entire trading relationship with you
– A highly dynamic catalogue, pricing and offers enable you to engage with customers on a highly personalised basis mimicking the way you do business face to face.
– Enable even smaller customers to become profitablebydrivingdowncoststhrough customer self-service.
– Web analytics give you visibility of what your customers are really interested in giving you the insight to construct appealing offers and deals.
– Frictionlessordermanagementandfulfilment enable you to respond rapidly to customer requirements.
– Sophisticated merchandising tools enable you to grow business from your customers.
– Leverage your information assets within the business by deploying them online and increasing your level of customer engagement.
Catalogue Management Catalogue Browsing
Mobile Commerce
B2B eCommerce Feature List
Marketing, Promotions and Conversion Tools
Site Management
– Related products, up-sells and cross-sells– Customerspecificpricelists– Catalogue promotional pricing with the ability to restrict to stores, categories or products, and categories– Flexible pricing rules) with ability to restrict to stores, customer groups, time period, products, and categories– Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts– Landing page tool for categories– Customer groups– Product bundles– Recently viewed and compared products– New items promotional tool– Pesistent shopping cart– Google Website Optimizer integration for A/B and multivariate testing– Newsletter management
– Simple,configurable(e.g.size,colour,etc.), bundled and grouped products– Attribute sets for quick product creation of different item types– Inventory management with backordered items, minimum and maximum quantities– Batch updates to products in admin panel– Automatic image resizing and watermarking– Advanced pricing rules and support for special prices– Search results rewrites and redirects– Moderated product tags and reviews– Customer personalized products – Customersorting–defineattributesforcustomer sortingoncategory(price,brand,etc.
– Support for native applications on iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices– One admin panel for multiple devices– Seamless integration with your current product catalogue,CMSandstoreconfigurations– Real-time customization including updates for promotions and merchandising– Support for a wide range of checkout capabilities– Mobile HTML5 - quickly and easily create a storefront optimized for mobile devices
– Control multiple websites and stores from one– Administration Panel with the ability to share as much or as little information as needed– Administration permission system roles and users– Fully 100% customizable design using templates– Support for multiple languages and currencies.– Web Services API for easy integration with third- party applications– Content Management System for informational and landing pages– Tax rates per location, product type or customer group(i.e.wholesalevs.retailer)
– Layered/facetednavigationforfilteringof products in categories and search results– Filter products by price and display a range of prices based on even increments or by a similar number of products within each range– Static block tool to create category landing pages– Product comparisons with history– Configurablesearchwithauto-suggestedterms– Breadcrumbs– Ability to assign designs within category and productlevel(uniquedesignperproduct/category)– Recently viewed products– Popular search terms cloud– Product listing in grid or list format
Crimsonwing / B2B eCommerce / Feature List