More business-to-business (B2B) entrepreneurs are choosing to sell online, riding the wave of the industry’s significant revenue growth. In 2020, the B2B e-commerce market recorded $6.7 trillion in revenue, double its value a decade earlier.
If you are thinking of jumping on the bandwagon but are still concerned about maximizing profits online, this guide is for you. After reading, you will get valuable financial advice on boosting online revenue for your B2B e-commerce business.
Boosting Online Revenue: What B2B E-Commerce Entrepreneurs Need To Know
B2B e-commerce companies sell products and services to other businesses through online sales portals.
Before the innovation of technology from various B2B e-commerce platforms, the B2B model involved manual sales and labor-intensive processes. The introduction of digital buying and selling helps businesses using this model reduce costs and boost efficiency.
Today, B2B sellers work with the following:
- Wholesalers
- Schools, institutions, and non-profit organizations
- Large retailers
- Resellers
Through e-commerce platforms, buyers and sellers meet in a single digital home. This advantage allowed businesses to place and manage orders from mobile devices, creating new opportunities for B2B companies to connect with suppliers and distributors quickly.
The market’s exponential growth can be attributed to the broad range of advantages that e-commerce provides to B2B businesses. Let us look at these benefits below.
Better management of clients and suppliers
With an e-commerce platform, you only need one place to manage crucial processes, such as customer data, order fulfillment, and inventory control. Since sales processes between businesses, distributors, and suppliers are automated, you can enjoy streamlined B2B operations and offer an improved customer experience.
Some platforms even allow B2B merchants to integrate specific mission-critical elements, such as point-of-sale (POS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Instead of starting a platform from scratch, you can use e-commerce solutions that allow you to use your existing business tools and systems via one-click integrations.
Better data analytics
One of the significant advantages of having an e-commerce site is that you can quickly monitor customer behavior as they shop. Some e-commerce platforms allow users to identify which parts of their processes work and the areas they must improve. This information lets you make better business decisions and improve the user experience.
Today, data analytics technologies are not a luxury but a priority. In a recent survey about B2B marketing budgets, 90 percent of marketers said data accuracy is a top business priority. Now that more B2B companies are going digital, the race to adopt innovative solutions will require B2B merchants to rely on accurate data analysis to provide an elevated shopping experience.
More existing customers
E-commerce platforms are widely accessible, which can help your B2B business be more available to relevant audiences. B2B e-commerce can pose an excellent opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell to existing buyers.
One of the best strategies to keep your potential buyers intrigued is by providing a personalized experience. In the B2B space, personalization can involve the following strategies:
- Discounts and shipping rates
- Custom quotes
- Self-service feature
- Augmented reality (AR) tours
- Personalized sales portals
- Mobile ordering feature
Great expansion potential
The best entrepreneurs understand that selling online not only means elevating the shopping experience for current buyers. It also opens new opportunities to expand into various markets and attract new clients.
With so many e-commerce sales portals, marketplaces, and digital products available, there are almost no limits for B2B sellers looking to go digital. This advantage makes it easier than ever for B2B entrepreneurs to fund their business, go global, and enter profitable product markets.
Financial Strategies for E-Commerce Businesses
Digitalization comes with hurdles that can be challenging to overcome without the right strategies. After applying for government loans to fund your startup, you need foolproof directives and a confident approach if you want the right financial strategy. Check out the methods below and see if you can use them to develop a financial plan to maximize online revenue for your B2B e-commerce business.
Offer multiple payment options
If you want your business to be as profitable as possible, you must make it easy for customers to buy from your company. The checkout process is only one of the several crucial elements you should focus on when developing an e-commerce site.
Most businesses shopping for products and services online look for a streamlined payment and checkout experience. A complicated checkout process might encourage them to abandon their carts. If they go through their purchase, they might refuse to do business with the merchant again.
You must have a flexible, easy-to-use, and flexible payment process to avoid lost sales. Prioritize accepting multiple B2B payment types to encourage buyers to complete their purchase and return as customers.
However, while offering these conveniences, you must never sacrifice reliable security. Today, cybercriminals are preying on online businesses, hijacking transactions, and compromising business and customer data. A compromised transaction can destroy your reputation and erode any goodwill you have built with the market and your existing client base.
Think of customer experience
As an entrepreneur, you worry not only about your finances but also your business savings. You might want to save for the future and open a retirement account while trying to manage your company’s cash flow and tax requirements.
With all these in mind, you might neglect how customer experience can directly impact your online revenue. Remember that your B2B e-commerce customers will need a steady stream of assistance throughout the buying journey and once they are using your product or service.
Fortunately, you can meet much of this demand through self-service tools. Depending on the scope of your offerings, you can add a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page to help users understand your product. If your business has high volumes of customer queries, you can use a chatbot that can handle simple customer interactions.
One way to be proactive is to share relevant data or industry information by publishing accessible content on your website. These include blogs or instructional videos that can drive the conversation forward with potential buyers. These materials should provide the audience with relevant decision-making materials to help them determine how your offerings will address their unique pain points.
Aside from using self-service tools, you should set up online customer service channels that allow customers and prospects to get answers to more complicated questions. Finding the right balance between these two strategies might take some time, but they can be worth it if you want to improve customer experience and boost profits.
Develop a simple and intuitive site
If you want to offer a seamless payment experience, you should first have a website that is easy to use, access, and navigate, regardless of the device the customer is using. An intuitive layout that can load quickly and effectively leads prospects to the right product page can do wonders for your online revenue.
The contents of your website should be engaging, highlighting the unique challenges your product or service can address. You should also add dynamic product images to give a clear picture of your product or service in the audience’s heads.
Moreover, you can increase engagement by providing highly personalized shopping experiences for buyers. You can make targeted product recommendations based on a client’s past purchases using digital solutions. You can also offer bundled packages with attractive price points.
Ultimately, you must remember that a plain but easy-to-navigate website can be more profitable than a fancy but slow and convoluted site.
Try third-party marketplaces
One strategy to boost online revenue is to expand your customer pool by posting your offerings in third-party marketplaces. While sales portals will take a cut of the profits, you can gain valuable market access that can potentially lead to a boost in sales beyond whatever traffic you can get from your site.
Common B2B marketplaces include the following:
- eWorldTrade
- Alibaba
- Amazon
- Rakuten
- Global Sources
Incentivize customers
To maximize online profits through repeat sales and increased buy-in from existing customers, you should create a loyalty program for regular clients. Incentivizing existing customers by offering pricing discounts and lower shipping rates can encourage them to return to your business.
Incentivizing encourages consistent sales while providing valuable data that can deliver crucial marketing potential. By monitoring the purchasing history of your customer businesses, you can gain insight into sales trends and find potential gaps in the market that your organization can fill.
Spend Your Company Budget Wisely and Boost Profits for Your Business
Despite all the obstacles you’ll face once you go digital, remember to focus on the silver linings. As the e-commerce industry’s valuation grows, you should never underestimate its potential for maximizing online revenue.
E-commerce merchants, including B2B sellers, face markets filled with profitable opportunities if they correctly address the supply chain and inflation challenges. With the right strategies, you can keep your business competitive through crucial acquisitions and easy control over your inventory.
