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Digital commerce for B2B

89% of decision makers in B2B believe digital commerce plays a key factor in their growth (study by CloudCraze). It is easy to see why: ecommerce allows businesses to cut costs and offer a streamlined buying experience. Let’s take a look at the added value of digital commerce in B2B.

Digital has caused a shift in B2B commerce. It has become a crucial step of the customer journey of B2B buyers and redefines the role of your sales team.

B2B businesses are embracing an omnichannel approach to commerce, spread across three areas: traditional sales, remote communications, and self-service. A win-win situation, as the self-service nature of digital commerce tends to reduce cost per sale and frees up time for your sales team. It also lowers the barrier of entry for new customers and allows you to implement cross-and upselling strategies.

(CloudCraze) Expected growth attributed to digital commerce by B2B decision makers (Gartner) Organizations with composable commerce solutions are expected to outpace competition by
89% 80%

Key differences between B2C & B2B commerce

While the advantages of digital commerce speak for themselves, there are some key differences that set B2B apart. The sales process tends to be more complex, with recurring purchases and long-term business contracts based on special negotiated prices.

One of the biggest advantages digital can bring to B2B is efficiency, achieved through four pillars: strategy, technology, team, and marketing.

Four pillars of digital commerce

1. Strategy
Always be ready for change

Digital commerce is always evolving with new trends, technologies, and capabilities. What’s new today already is ‘business as usual’ tomorrow.

However, there’s one constant: digital commerce is about efficiently fulfilling your customer’s needs. Think of the customer journey, which typically spans across multiple touchpoints, and consider the capabilities you need to facilitate this process.

Your customer’s needs won’t change, but the way in which they express themselves do. We support you in setting up a digital commerce strategy that prepares you for this. We ensure your organization remains agile and flexible to adapt to these shifts.

A growing reality for digitally mature organizations is that digital commerce does not stand alone and should no longer be a monolithic silo of engagement.

Gartner

2. Technology
A composable approach to commerce

Technology plays a vital role in successful digital commerce. It facilitates your strategy and remains flexible for shifts and changes on your path.

Unfortunately, 51% of decision makers in B2B feel their technology is too rigid to adapt to new trends (CloudCraze). In business, you need a platform that can translate your specific sales process to digital and integrate with other existing systems within your organization. It should allow B2B buyers to enter your digital buying experience through the interfaces they prefer.

A composable technology architecture helps you with this by using APIs to merge hand-selected tools and solutions into one tailor-made platform. We can design such an architecture for your organization and build it with the tools and technologies that help your business thrive in the digital landscape.

Meet our technology partners

Commercetools
VueStorefront
FluentCommerce
Shopify
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3. Team
Digital commerce driven by people

Digital commerce doesn’t stop once the right strategy and technologies are in place. It is actively managed by the right people in the right places. It involves contributions across various departments within and outside of your organization.

Set up your team to work in an efficient and agile manner and collaborate closely with platform vendors and third-party commerce partners.

Our experts can support you in designing your digital commerce team and attract the right talent for your organization. Or we can provide temporary support where necessary through our digital expert staffing offering.

4. Marketing
Fast and iterative conversion rate optimization

Digital commerce offers us more insights into customer behavior than ever before. Your digital commerce story does not stop after setting up a commerce platform and creating a multichannel sales funnel.

The fun starts when you get to analyze every step of the customer journey and start optimizing the conversion rate based on reliable insights. A composable commerce solution allows you to act quickly and finetune individual aspects of your sales funnel without having to worry about other aspects of your technology stack.

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Digital commerce cases

New revenue streams for DP World Antwerp

See how digital commerce enabled DP World Antwerp to create new revenue streams.

Integrating sales partners in the Samsonite ecosystem

Samsonite integrates external sales touchpoints like online marketplaces into their own digital commerce ecosystem.

An online booking tool for ATPS

ATPS aimed to expand their telephone service of expert dispatchers with a digital booking solution for the allocation of machinery and operators.

A commerce platform for Brady Corporation

Brady was looking for a B2B digital commerce platform that’s capable of managing huge amounts of data while remaining flexible enough to host all Brady-related brands in a variety of regions.

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