More and more B2B sales are happening online and these numbers are projected to increase even further over the next few years. Our partner, BigCommerce, has taken this onboard and shared their latest updates to their B2B Edition with our team at Agency51. We have implemented many of these updates in some of our recent solutions and wanted to share some key insights from the BigCommerce team to help you decide if BigCommerce is the way forward for your B2B offering.
Just like other online customers, a high-quality website matters to B2B buyers. What makes the B2B buyer stand out, however, are the unique features they require from an online retailer.
90% of B2B buyers would move to a new supplier if their current supplier’s digital channel was no longer adequate for their needs. Furthermore, 87% of B2B buyers would be willing to pay more if a supplier had a high-quality ecommerce portal. Overall, purchasing efficiency is the most important factor for B2B buyers.
This means that having a good ecommerce website for B2B is a key factor in retaining customers.
Top B2B Edition Features
Corporate Account Management
The account can be managed from a corporate level, with multiple users with different permissions. This allows the buyer’s organisation to manage their account according to internal teams and roles, thereby streamlining their experience and allowing them to customise it to suit their needs.
Invoice Portal
Customers can view and pay invoices using a variety of methods. This allows each business to choose the payment method that best integrates with their internal processes.
Sale Representative Masquerade
Enables the creation and completion of orders on behalf of the company. It also assists customers throughout their purchase journey if needed, and offers an unmatched level of customer service.
Quoting
A simple, intuitive and intelligent way to create and modify quotes.
Shared Shopping Lists
Users can create and save multiple shopping lists. These can be used again in the future to purchase saved products. This is an especially valuable tool for buyers who frequently purchase the same items.
Buy Again
Customers can see all previously purchased products by the whole company, with prices included. This allows for accurate record-keeping and consistency throughout the business.
Payment Method Visibility Control
This gives the ability to customise which payment options customers can see and select. While buyers can choose between which payment methods they would like to use, the store owner has control over which options are available. This can be customised at an account level for maximum personalisation.
Trade Professional Application
Guest and B2C users can submit an application for a B2B account to see if it would better suit their needs. This opens up the possibility of converting your customers from B2C users into recurring B2B customers.
Personalised for Consumers
A major focus of these new features is to create a personalised buying experience for the consumer. By streamlining administrative processes, the B2B Edition reduces the workload for the consumer, giving them good reason to return and purchase again.
A key part of this is removing as many barriers to transactions as possible. With the Corporate Account Management feature, customers can grant specific access points to different staff members, view a centralised list of past company orders, and take advantage of bulk ordering with the Quick Order Pad.
Everything in the B2B Edition is designed to elevate the customer experience. A mobile-friendly buyer portal simplifies self-service transactions and accelerates time-to-purchase for digitally native buyers.
The BigCommerce B2B Edition aims to optimize and enhance customer satisfaction to encourage repeat business.
Designed with Merchants in Mind
The B2B edition is not only full of great customer features, but has also been designed with merchants in mind.
Seamlessly transition your theme: The B2B Edition is compatible with any existing BigCommerce theme. This ensures a hassle-free implementation for current BigCommerce Merchants.
Endless customisation opportunities: The B2B Edition can be customised to meet your needs, allowing you to create the perfect buying experience for your customers. For example, you’ll have the option to add custom HTML to pages which require frequent modification. To help you get started, primary functions can be injected by default, or can be added directly to the theme. Hardcoded buttons will also maintain functionality logic. You can even use custom logic to personalise the site your customers interact with. All of this is designed to simplify front-end logic for most implementations.
Headless support: The Buyer Portal will be ready to use on a variety of frameworks.
Expands with your site: The B2B Edition comes with an open SaaS and a host of powerful APIs. Future releases will allow you to fully customise buyer portal pages.
Get started quick: Your online store will be ready to go in minutes, and once live the B2B Edition will be competitive with BigCommerce for speed.
Overall, the B2B Edition of BigCommerce is ready to meet the changing needs of B2B store owners and their customers. For assistance setting up your B2B site, or for help transiting an existing BigCommerce site to the B2B Edition, get in touch with our experienced marketing team.