Using the B2B eCommerce platform to create self-serve portals also reduces the need for customer service and sales staff to spend time on the phone or with email answering status inquiries. At a minimum, these portals provide customers visibility into their order history and delivery details for current orders. Fully developed, they allow customers to handle returns and re-order from order history. Workflow automation and automated eCommerce free staff to spend less time on routine tasks, and allows them to focus on providing value-added services.
Improving product visibility
A common pain point for product researchers is finding the right packaging in just the right configuration to meet their needs. With eCommerce, packaging companies can make the search process easier.
For existing customers, eCommerce as a B2B packaging solution allows you to create personalized catalogs that meet the customer’s packaging needs. Once the sales team identifies the packaging requirements, only products meeting the customer specifications populate the customer catalog.
For product researchers, guided and intelligent search makes combing through thousands of SKUs easier. Search can be configured to search by product description, SKU, or even by solution. By reducing the pain of product identification, you remove friction and increase closing rates.
Improved customer experience
Today’s packaging B2B buyers are looking for the same frictionless experience at work as they enjoy at home. As more and more millennials move into decision-making positions, it is important to understand this generation has never lived without the Internet. They use the Internet to discover products, look for company and product reviews, and make purchases.
B2B eCommerce allows you to offer an improved customer experience. From self-serve customer portals to automated configure and quote workflows, eCommerce platforms remove friction. Integration with chatbots provides a customer experience that meshes with the preferences of Millennial buyers. They get instant gratification and enjoy the convenience of getting answers when and where they want.
Unlimited personalization
B2B eCommerce allows you to serve the needs of a diverse set of customers, each with its own packaging needs.
Not only can you personalize products and prices, but you can also operate multiple websites geared to the needs of specific verticals. For example, B2B eCommerce makes it easy to create one experience for healthcare product packaging, another for food packaging, and another for beverages, perfumes, and pharmaceuticals. A flexible B2B eCommerce platform should allow you to operate unlimited, customized front-end experiences with a single backend.
Embrace complexity
B2B eCommerce platforms allow your B2B packaging company to embrace the complexity of the sales processes, not shy away from them. By allowing customers to create their own user roles and permissions, you allow them to conform your systems to their internal hierarchy. Following up with the right person at the right time is easier with visibility into your client’s purchase approval process. And with digital technology, your eCommerce system conforms on a customer-by-customer basis.
You can accept and process orders with EDI for eCommerce or use punch-out catalogs. You can support B2B and D2C business models with one instance.
