B2B, also known as Business to Business, are websites that are out there to sell items to businesses that will then turn around and sell to consumers. These are the manufacturers, the suppliers and the importers that make the goods and get them out into the market.
For example, perhaps my company designs and imports Christmas ornaments. I then launch a website to market these Christmas ornaments and offer online ordering. I only sell these ornaments to other businesses who are the ones that ultimately complete the transaction with the customer who hands said ornament on their happy, twinkly tree. I am a business to business website.
B2B websites and businesses face a lot of interesting challenges in the online space. In many instances they can’t even post their prices openly online, so their design, pricing functionality, shipping functionality and even how they engage their customers and their own vendors is different than that of business to consumer websites.
Bulk pricing and ordering, for instance, is often a topic with these folks. B2B clients have a lot of trouble finding small business technology that can help them. I mean, if you have different pricing and even inventory for different “groups” of customers that are sorted according to how much they order, you need to have web pricing that appears according to those tiers, most likely attached to a customer record.
On top of that, if they bulk order, you don’t want to force them to create a brand new, giant order every time they come back for more – so you need logic to help them re-order according to their order history. And this is just a couple of the scenarios that come up for these folks – we haven’t even talked about establishing business accounts!
This is more often than not a way more complicated feature set than the standard out of the box eCommerce system can provide. Additionally, B2B website owners have an equally challenging time with web marketing. Traditional means of web marketing, like SEO, affiliate marketing and banner campaigns are just not that great for them. Yes, you can market to your keywords and pop in some PPC, but targeted business traffic is what a B2B business really needs to achieve measurable ROI. In many instances, hybrid models of web marketing and more traditional scenarios like tradeshows are a must.
Some B2B websites don’t use web marketing techniques at all in fact – they just use the website to facilitate ordering and reordering – like an online catalog. B2B sites have all the potential to increase their own productivity and increase their buyers by making the ordering process easier and by making themselves more accessible on the web. Although print media, trade shows, and old school sales calls and other techniques are still the norm in B2B, there is space out there in the web marketing world.
There are also innovative ERP and software providers who have their eyes trained on the business to business market because there are so many small businesses that could benefit from improved standardized B2B eCommerce products. Here at EBS, we'll discuss a lot of these challenges in depth and we'll also talk to B2B business owners who are capturing market share in new and innovative ways.
B2B on the web is growing quickly and consumer companies are starting to demand a more efficient method of ordering goods. With creative thinking and as business to business websites realize how much web technology can improve their work processes; this is a growth market with no limit!