The reality is when most of us design B2B websites we go to great lengths to make sure the website will match our companys internal stakeholder requirements. How will we receive orders? How will we process those orders? What are the business requirements for shipping and tax?
We are here to say stop doing that. Stop designing your website to match your own fulfillment centers requirements.
Start creating a buyer-centric ordering experience. Create a dedicated shopping experience that matches the expectations of your customers.
Its not particularly difficult if you are using a contemporary B2B ecommerce platform.
Making sure your shoppers experience is correct is the first priority. Making sure the website is properly integrated with your other systems is also important, even critical, but it is a specification to be handled once your customer centric website functions are rock solid.
There are opportunities to make this happen at every level. How shoppers arrive at the website and login, for example. What products does the employee shopper or purchasing agent see after login? Make sure both of these common tasks and views make your website shoppers feel at ease, and help them place accurate B2B orders.
Are there payment methods and business rules that are required by your customers? Do not make the mistake of requiring them to make the right selection when the time comes. Configure your website to match the exact way your customer needs; such as quota settings, credit allowances, cost center allowances, purchase order behaviors, multiple credit cards or any cascading combination of all these options.
We prepared an ePaper on the topic and you can download it free right here.
