B2B Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday continues to set records for consumer ecommerce. Meanwhile, B2B ecommerce remains largely underdeveloped.
Essent is publishing a series of articles that examine how B2B ecommerce can perform more like B2C.
Installments include:
Series Overview
10 Areas to Improve
Deals and Promotions
Carts and Catalogs
Customer Self-Service
Enhanced Self-Service
Guest Checkout
Leveraging Mobile
We’ve seen that customer self-service is a win-win in B2B ecommerce because it creates control and visibility for the buyer, while the seller gets accurate orders with significant labor savings.
While a product configurator lets the buyer choose the variables of the product, a visual product configurator takes customer self-service to the next level by providing real-time, visual updates as the buyer customizes the product.
That’s especially important in industries where orders entail a high level of customization and corresponding complexity, like in the promotional products industry. The more variables an order has, the more likely it is that something goes wrong.
A visual product configurator helps ensure nothing goes wrong because the customer sees what the customer is going to get.
It’s like ordering a sandwich
Anyone who has ordered food at a modern convenience store has used a product configurator. You know the type: pick your bread, pick your meat, pick your cheese, pick your condiments and, voila, you see the order and price of your sandwich change in real-time as you make each choice.
It’s not much different in B2B ecommerce. The customer picks the size, the color, the quantity, the imprint area, and the artwork, and, voila, the T-shirt and its price change in real-time with each choice.
Product configurators allow the buyer to see exactly what they’re getting and how much they’ll pay for it. No surprises.
That ease of use and customer confidence in the purchasing process should make a seller’s ecommerce website more appealing, leading to more sales and repeat sales.
Integrating the product configurator is big savings
In effect, the customer has performed your order-entry process for you. There is no need to re-key information.
Perhaps more importantly, integrating product configuration with your business management system can dramatically reduce seller costs.
When your ecommerce product configurator and business management system are integrated, the customer-created order can be imported directly into your system. In effect, the customer has performed your order-entry process for you, reducing labor costs.
And since the order is automatically imported, there is no need to re-key information, which greatly reduces error opportunities and represents even more savings. The excessive costs of re-visiting and correcting flawed orders in the promotional products industry is gaining increased attention. Eliminating those errors represents potentially huge savings.
At the pinnacle of customer self-service, an end-user could configure a product on the distributor’s ecommerce website with that order then automatically imported to the distributor’s business management system and then the supplier’s business management system, requiring virtually no manual intervention.
A big step in providing B2B the B2C experience
Customer self-service enhanced by a visual product configurator and
integrated systems represents a major step in the effort to make B2B
ecommerce as customer-friendly and effective as B2C ecommerce.
Customer self-service is a win-win in ecommerce. It’s enhanced by a visual product configurator. And it’s optimized by integration.
Allowing the customer to configure the product on an ecommerce website provides the type of buyer control and confidence that generates sales and repeat sales.
A visual product configurator enhances that control and confidence by letting the buyer see the product and price change in real-time.
And integrating the product configurator with the seller’s business management system allows the seller to save significant cost in the order entry process.
Customer self-service enhanced by a visual product configurator and integrated systems represents a major step in the effort to make B2B ecommerce as customer-friendly and effective as B2C ecommerce.
Take the next step
Essent business solutions provide a B2C experience for B2B ecommerce.