In our last iteration, we disseminated some upfront facts regarding the trends of ecommerce. However, in this version we’ll be mulling upon a suitable road-map for a seamless transition of your offline b2b sales model to online! Mentioned below are some questions which companies should ask before they begin the transition to move their sales-models online, in order for them to be fully prepared:
How important is your website in your sales process?
If your company already boasts of highly customised pricing or you are bound by a gamut of agreements with distributors, you may use your website as a catalogue of rich product content; however, we’ll recommend that you bar your buyers from purchasing online. This is because, your website will work best as a search-engine friendly online catalogue, which you can use to generate potential leads, and convert them offline. This is particularly useful if you have highly customised offline pricing, or you are already bound by agreements with distributors.
Do you know your online pricing strategy?
If your organisation uses a pricing structure that has evolved through organic growth you are likely to have customers who have negotiated specific pricing agreements. For organisations of such sort, online mirroring of such complex set of contracts demands a platform that is adept in supporting customized and specific pricing; otherwise it’ll turn out to be a terrifying experience. However, what if your platform does not support such feature? If this is the case, don’t show pricing until customers are logged in to their account. Furthermore, it is recommended that you diligently monitor your pricing strategy, as it has been witnessed that many companies fall prey to a ‘set and forget’ mechanism, which results in their online pricing, becoming completely different from the prices that are being offered by their offline sales teams.
SEO – how much does it matter to you?
You might already be having an ‘on production’ website, which might even be working when someone searches for your company name, however what about your listed products? One of the biggest reasons to build an ecommerce site in the first place is to get your product catalogue crawled and indexed by search engines like Google and Bing. SEO helps buyers find your site, but you will need content that goes beyond product descriptions, images and price.
What’s more? B2B companies must think of digital commerce as not only an opportunity, but a strategic necessity in order to guarantee their survival.
