How to create a successful B2B online store

With the expansion of eCommerce, online businesses require more efforts to generate a steady income. Today it is not enough to create an online store and start making a profit: intelligent promotion and a sophisticated marketing strategy are required.

When creating a b2b online store or a marketplace, similar to the case of retail sites, it is necessary to consider scenarios of user behavior and the corresponding interface, the functionality of the b2b store. Furthermore, you have to focus on the ways to increase sales and conversions. 

Let's discuss the ways to increase conversion rates in a B2B e-commerce store and sales.

Developing a b2b online store: what to consider before launching

The next step is to conduct customer segmentation, analyze the specifics of each customer group and determine the main behavioral patterns in a b2b online store. Based on these data, you have to develop an interface of the future b2b shop and its functionality.

This step of the development process is usually delegated to a web studio. In the case of custom development from scratch, the interface and functionality of the online store are created by a UX/UI designer jointly with the developers. The UX/UI designer investigates which steps and in what sequence should be taken by users to get the desired result and how b2b online store interface can help them.

The development from scratch of such a complex product, like a b2b e-commerce store, requires the deep involvement of many employees, starting with the CEO, top managers, and marketers, and ending with product and sales managers. The company's employees know their products well, and they understand customers, their needs, and their behavior. All these data should be considered in developing b2b shop cohered with current trends in web development, UX/UI design, etc.

Thus, the company must relieve employees of their direct responsibilities for a long time and provide the resources for the long process of developing a personal b2b store from scratch.

However, ready-to-use solutions with a sophisticated interface and functionality are much more efficient in the wholesale market. Such solutions enable a successful transition to online sales automation with optimization of business processes. That leads to significant savings on operating expenses in the first few months after launching the b2b e-commerce store.

Consider the Agora out-of-box solution, which is available by subscription.  This will help you avoid:

• wasting time and money on the development of a complex custom product;
• relieving staff of their direct responsibilities long before the launch of the b2b e-commerce stores;
• the need to get involved in all the details of development and design, creating scenarios of user behavior and the user interface;
• unpredictable results: the Agora solutions have been already tested by dozens of companies and approved on hundreds of equivalent b2b stores.

The AGORAB2B ready-to-use solution for creating b2b online store is not only cheaper, but it also enables you to launch b2b online store faster. The company also offers:

• onboarding and implementation of the product;
• period of free testing to adjust all business processes;
• sales automation based on reliable systems and optimization of business processes;
• integration of CRM and accounting systems to manage the performance of your staff and instantly show the availability of goods at the warehouse for clients;
• efficient marketing tools to work with your customers;
• the ability to quickly scale the system and business processes as the company grows.

Only 3-6 months are needed to get the first results and ensure the profitability of the chosen business model after launching an online store for b2b companies based on the ready-to-use and optimized Agora's solution.

Online b2b store: how to increase sales

Customers of b2b stores are usually procurement managers, so they make their decisions evaluating a variety of factors. They review the assortment carefully, investigate the market, analyze and compare prices, consider payment and delivery terms, order goods in large batches, and try to keep in mind the results of the deal to build long-term relationships with the supplier in the future.

Therefore, the greater number of important factors influence the deals b2b online store, and it is necessary to determine their correlations, offer more relevant information like statistics, products details, utilization, and features to improve sales.

The key factors influencing sales improvement in the b2b online stores and company profits are the following:

1. The catalog. It is believed that the quality of pictures and descriptions is less important in b2b sales than in retail, where the purchasing decision is often influenced by attractive photos. Procurement managers usually know the products and even search for them by article, making purchases by price list.

Yet many b2b-market experts emphasize the importance of a high-quality catalog with good product descriptions. According to the research, such content increases the buyer's confidence in the supplier when he makes purchases online. Additionally, more and more buyers start searching for goods not on Google or Bing, but in the supplier's store. So the importance of content, even for standard products, will grow, increasing conversion rates and giving your company a competitive advantage.

2. The usability. Internal search, detailed product and price comparison, quick matching of similar products, suggesting related products, creating accompanying documents, ability to download marketing or training materials are the details positively affecting conversion and helping the client company to save time on purchasing and get more value from your b2b online store.

The Agora company offers ready modules to simplify the purchaser's work in your store: all these details are already considered here and will work to your benefit.

3. Personalization of assortment, prices, discounts, units and batches of goods, terms of payment, shipment, and delivery. The more individual conditions take care of customers' needs, the more confidential and long-lasting your collaboration will be.

The Agora solutions have broad opportunities for personalization. You can customize your store considering all the specifics of dealing with your customers.

4. The service. Excellent customers service and a professional support team are the important factors facilitating the customers' collaboration with your b2b online store. Good service improves the supplier's reputation, becoming as important, as favorable prices, personal discounts, and terms of cooperation.

5. Marketing is one of the most important ways to improve the conversion rate of any b2b store. The Agora solutions offer a range of highly customizable marketing tools, varying from abandoned carts, special offers to sell out stocks or increase checkouts, personal discounts, and e-mail marketing to tracking customers' behavior within the b2b shop and customizing automatic system responses depending on triggers like viewed or unviewed items, order amounts, comparisons, and other activities in the b2b shop.

The main advantage of AGORAB2B solutions for b2b online stores is that all these features are already enabled, debugged, tested, verified, and improved by dozens of companies and hundreds of stores. In the case of developing a custom b2b store from scratch by web studio, the company has to "reinvent the wheel" at every step. But Agora gives the opportunity to quickly develop and launch such b2b online store and get sales and profits.