According to the official government records, Indian B2B e-commerce is expected to be worth $700 billion by 2020. As the e-commerce trend is on a consistent rise, small and medium businesses are marking their online presence. Trading on a B2B online platform is advantageous as per current scenario because it gives you an opportunity to target a larger set of potential buyers. And since products and services are traded in bulk in B2B trade, profits are always on the higher side.
So if you dream of becoming one of the top e-commerce companies in India, you should invest in a B2B e-commerce website. Keep the following factors in consideration while developing your online marketplace.
The right B2B e-commerce platform
When it comes to building a fully-fledged B2B e-commerce store, there are numerous platforms available for you. Some of the most acclaimed platforms are Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Drupal, Joomla, and BigCommerce. You can create a basic as well as an advanced B2B online store on any of these platforms.
The platforms can be classified into two categories – open source and full service. While the former renders a greater scope of customization, the latter ensures a fully operational website without delving into the technicalities. But whichever platform you choose, you can expect scalability, secure functioning, and ease of customization.
Hiring the Web Developers
To construct the website framework, you need a team of reliable web developers who are capable of handling e-commerce web development operations. Whether its e-commerce web design or simply ensuring seamless functioning; a web developer is responsible for all the operations. In addition to these, a web developer ensures seamless integration of third-party tools for tasks like accounting, order fulfillment, marketing, and customer relationship management.
B2B e-commerce website requires a lot of customization. Since most of the e-commerce platforms are biased towards B2C online stores, you need a web development company, such as ONjection Labs, that can customize a B2B website using one of the platforms. They have a dedicated team of developers who are proficient in web development, e-commerce solutions, and DevOps services. They will also ensure that your website has a responsive design and it works seamlessly on all operating systems.
Segmentation and localization
B2B operations are different from B2C operations. The buyers, who purchase from B2B websites, are from different locations, they buy in varying quantities, pay in different currencies, have varying purchasing power, and so on. Therefore, it becomes important to classify them into groups. Moreover, your B2B e-commerce website must have filters that will showcase relevant results to customers. These filters can be based on the following information:
- Geographical location
- Quantity of order
- Type of currency
- Payment option
- Product categories
If you can localize your website content according to the demographics, you can expect a higher conversion rate. The localization strategies can be listing the price in the local currency, displaying information in the local language, and so on.
Seamless order fulfillment
As B2B trading is generally meant for volume purchases, your e-commerce platform must have a robust mechanism for handling order fulfillment operations. For example, based on the number of product units selected by the customer, the pricing should change. You can also put a cap on the number of units that can be purchased by a customer if the product is in demand but the supply is low. Similarly, there are various ways to manage order fulfillment operations.
Develop your B2B e-commerce website now
The B2B e-commerce industry has an immense scope. As a new entrant, you can establish yourself in a short duration if you implement the right tactics. Keep the aforementioned factors in mind while building a B2B online marketplace, whether it is for your own business or it is for a multivendor marketplace.