Implementing a B2B store in your business is definitely a big step forward. But not the last one. After all, a business-to-business sales platform can be integrated with some interesting tools that will allow you to sell more and better. What are these tools? In the following article we present four, in our opinion, the most interesting ones.
What is worth integrating your B2B store with?
There is no universal tool in the world. Even the famous swiss army knife has its limitations. The same is true in business – launching a B2B store will not solve all your sales challenges. Yes, it will be a solution that greatly facilitates the process of placing orders by customers, but it will always leave room for further improvements. This is what makes it possible for you to enrich your B2B store with several solutions that will make selling even easier, faster and generate more profits.
Below we present the 4 best solutions that you should integrate your store with.
ERP system
A B2B store takes a lot of responsibility away from your salespeople. But if properly implemented, it can also relieve your employees responsible for order fulfillment. Thanks to integration with ERP systems you are able to effectively automate activities such as status changes, stock reservations, printing address labels or generating and sending invoices.
It’s not hard to guess that automation in sales on a B2B platform is able to unleash additional resources so that you’ll be able to increase the number of shipments you make without having to hire additional people to assist you.
You can read more about automation in e-commerce in our article titled: What does sales automation bring to e-commerce? We recommend also reading the article dedicated to the automation in B2B store, which explores the issues discussed in the paragraphs above.
PIM system
Your B2B store involves keeping your product information organized. Another tool, worth integrating with, is perfectly suited for this purpose. We are talking about PIM systems, a solution which allows you to manage data directly related to the goods you sell, such as images, descriptions and attributes.
By implementing a PIM system in your B2B store, you gain the possibility of organizing all the information related to your product offer. What impact does it have on business? It brings several possibilities, such as:
- on your store website each product is described in a comprehensive way,
- thanks to the possibility to edit descriptions in many languages, you can easily prepare the necessary information to launch foreign sales channels,
- your customers can download complete product information to use in their own stores,
- the moment you want to start selling on Allegro or Amazon, you will have a ready set of data for instant product listing.
Want to better manage product information? Check when it is worth implementing a PIM system in your store.
CRM system
Selling goods in the B2B model is not just about stock management. It also means managing customers. And such activities are best performed on the basis of dedicated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools. Thanks to them you have a complete database of information about your contractors, their payments and the most frequently selected products.
A well configured CRM in combination with a store will allow you e.g:
- collect detailed information about your customers and use it to organize advertising campaigns,
- search for customers who have stopped placing regular orders, which allows you to make attempts to activate them by your sales representatives,
- have in one place full knowledge about the terms of trade and ongoing discussions with each of your contractors.
Marketing automation systems
The last kind of tool with which you can take your B2B store to the top are marketing automation systems. You’ll ask – why do I need marketing automation for my B2B store? The answer is simple – they allow you to more easily communicate discounts and news, as well as create personalized messages that take into account a company’s most frequently purchased products.
Marketing automation tools allow you to create an effective, self-service newsletter system that sends information about changes to your offer and promotional campaigns at regular intervals. Based on the customer’s purchases, they are also able to recommend specific similar products (up-selling) or additional accessories (cross-selling) directly in the shopping cart, which in most cases increases the value of orders and brings you higher profits.
How to further develop your B2B store?
The four tools we mention above are a good start to getting your B2B store up and running relatively automatically. However, there are solutions that you can think about in further development steps. These include BI systems, which will give you access to powerful analytical tools (including predictive analytics, a kind of business crystal ball). For added convenience, you can also go for PWA, or web applications adapted to mobile devices.
Having a B2B store doesn’t mean limited growth opportunities. Most of the actions that owners of B2C stores take in their business can easily be translated into more effective sales for companies.
It is enough to implement the tools described by us above to open new opportunities for development.
Are you interested in developing a B2B store? Let’s talk about your business during a free e-commerce consultation. Sign up by clicking the button below.
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