Revolutionize Your B2B Business on BigCommerce: Essential Tools for Growth
Welcome to part one of this two-part blog series with our partner Pimberly. You can find part two over on their website for further insights.
If you’re a B2B merchant looking to get an edge in a competitive market, then BigCommerce is a powerful platform to choose. BigCommerce B2B Edition is packed with out-of-the-box features that are specifically tailored to the needs of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers.
On top of these built-in B2B features such as immediate quote generation, customized purchase experiences, advanced reporting, etc. BigCommerce’s greatest strength for B2B merchants is the flexibility of its openSaaS architecture. This means it combines the benefits of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) with an open ecosystem of partners that allows customization and integration. This means merchants can leverage the platform’s core functionality while having the flexibility to extend and tailor it to their specific needs.
Integrating the right tools into your tech stack can improve both your customer experience and your sales. But the right technology will also transform your back-end processes. Increasing efficiency and automating previously manual tasks. Saving time and resources that can be better spent on what really matters – growing your business.
In this article, we will take a look at why the right tools in your tech stack can have such a powerful impact on your business and show you which technology is an absolute must for any successful B2B store. In part two, our partner Pimberly will give you a practical guide to optimising your tech stack and streamlining your data management.
Why digital transformation matters so much for B2B merchants?
B2B ecommerce is changing. Because B2B buyers are changing. And merchants need to keep up. Nearly two-thirds of B2B buyers are now Millennials or Gen Z. These digital-native buyers have grown up with technology and they have high expectations of their shopping experiences. Even in a B2B context. In fact, 87% of B2B buyers will actually pay more for a supplier with a great online purchasing experience.
As Lance Owide, General Manager of B2B at BigCommerce says, “ask yourself if your customers would pay more for the experience you are offering? If the answer is no, or you’re not sure, then it’s time for a change.”
But there’s more to be gained from optimizing your ecommerce store than just improving the user experience and increasing sales. With the right systems integrated into your tech stack, you could also transform your back-office and admin processes. With automation and streamlined data management, you could be saving time and resources that could be better invested in other parts of your business.
Particularly in a time of economic uncertainty, when every penny counts more than ever. It’s a no-brainer to integrate tools and systems that can both make money by increasing sales, and save money by increasing efficiency.
Do these common B2B troubles sound familiar?
Before we dive into which technologies will help make improvements, you need to know which improvements your business needs. Understanding your current pain points will give you a clear benchmark against which to measure the impact of new integrations.
- Inconsistent and scattered product information across multiple platforms. Causing confusion for customers and ultimately abandoned carts.
- Inefficient inventory management, leading to overstocking or stockouts. Suffering from excessive carrying costs or missed sales opportunities.
- Frustrated buyers complaining, or simply leaving your site due to difficulty in finding relevant products. Or unable to find a clear alternative if the desired product is out of stock.
- Shipping complexities such as inaccurate shipping rates, limited delivery options, and inefficient carrier selection. Causing loss of clients or loss of revenue in compensation and admin time.
- Siloed systems and disconnected processes, leading to inefficiencies, manual errors, duplicated efforts, and delays. Issues such as selling a product on one platform that has already sold out through a different platform.
If any of the above painpoints resonate with you, don’t worry. You’ve come to the right place. So, let’s dive into five tools that will not only help solve these pain points but also improve your user experience and transform your admin systems.
5 ESSENTIAL TOOLS TO TRANSFORM YOUR B2B ECOMMERCE BUSINESS
These are five essential tools that any successful ecommerce merchant needs to have integrated into their BigCommerce store. These tools complement the native functionality of BigCommerce B2B edition. They offer solutions to common pain points, help you make the most out of your online store, and improve the efficiency of your back-office operations.
1 PIM (Product Information Management)
A Product Information Management system such as Pimberly, will completely revolutionise the way you manage your product data. Imagine having a single source of truth for everything from dimensions and materials to stock levels and customer reviews. And that source of truth feeds into every channel and every platform. So updates automatically happen across the board with no need for manual data entry. And your customers get complete and accurate information on the product, whichever channel they are using.
“As one of our most treasured partners, BigCommerce is ideal for scalability and continued digital transformation. They help many of Pimberly’s current customers easily manage multiple storefronts and bring on hundreds of thousands of SKUs with automation and AI provided by our PIM functionality. And agencies like Calashock are essential for helping retailers find the best-in-class tech to optimize their BigCommerce tech stacks”
Patrick Tully, Senior Content Marketing Manager
2 Inventory Management
Picture a world where you always have the right stock levels. You don’t have to guess how much you’re going to need, manually calculate your forecasts, or estimate how much ‘safety-stock’ you might need to keep in the warehouse in care your forecast was too low. That’s what a tool like Inventory Planner by Sage can do for your business. No more losing customers because the product they need is out or stock and no more crippling carrying costs from overstocking.
“Decent inventory planning software should easily integrate with other apps and software you use to run your business, therefore speeding up your processes multiple times over. This could involve syncing with product information apps such as Pimberly to streamline inventory, e-commerce platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce, marketing tools such as Klaviyo, or a flexible retail operations system like Brightpearl.
By connecting inventory to all departments of your business and having the means to cross-reference data in real-time, you can reduce the time and human error that comes from manually consolidating separate systems and see improvements in your business, end-to-end.”
Sara Sousa, Director of Product Marketing, Global Partnerships, Inventory Planner by Sage
3 Product Discovery
One of the biggest draw-backs of online vs in-person shopping is the lack of a sales assistant to help guide you to the product you need, or help you find the next best alternative. But with a product discovery system like Searchspring that is exactly what you can offer your customers. B2B merchants often have hundreds of SKUs that can be difficult to navigate lead to customers abandoning the website. Give the buying experience the personalized touch with recommendations and intuitive search that helps buyers find what they are looking for easily and efficiently, as well as possible upsells and additions.
“A strong site search and merchandising solution is a must for ecommerce merchants in order to create the ultimate shopping experience. When the “right” and the “best” products are displayed, it makes the buying decision that much easier for shoppers.
Searchspring’s easy-to-use merchandising tools like drag-and-drop functionality and automation rules give merchants the power to control the product discovery journey while saving their team valuable time. This also means increased conversions, cart value, and customer loyalty.”
Chantele Gibson, SVP Global Partnerships, Searchspring
4 Shipping Management
If you deal with physical products, you have to deal with shipping. But it doesn’t have to be a pain or lose you money. ShipperHQ allows you to offer a wide range of shipping options and real-time rates to your customers. This improves the customer experience as they can choose the most convenient and cost-effective shipping method. Simultaneously, ShipperHQ streamlines back-office processes by automating shipping calculations, label generation, and order fulfillment, reducing manual efforts and increasing operational efficiency.
“90% of shoppers say that the shipping experience accounts for at least half of their overall online shopping experience. Your customers expect a smooth, hassle-free experience when it comes to shipping, and delivering on this expectation is non negotiable if you want to differentiate and drive retention. With shoppers placing increased emphasis on shipping, B2Bs must ensure they have the right resources and partners in place to ensure seamless shipping experiences from pre- to post-purchase.
ShipperHQ is the only proactive shipping technology that guides you to create a personalized shopping experience that will increase revenue because we focus on merchant needs and fulfilling customer expectations. Our platform integrates seamlessly within the BigCommerce ecosystem and serves as a central hub for connecting carriers, OMS, ERP, POS, label and fulfillment solutions, enabling businesses to deliver a unified experience across all sales channels and create a purchasing experience that is optimized for fulfillment.”
Amy Avery, Marketing Manager, ShipperHQ
5 Systems Integrator
All of these fantastic tools and systems don’t help if they don’t link to each other and share
updates in real time. Jitterbit addresses the problem of siloed systems and disconnected processes by providing a robust integration solution. Improving the customer experience and enhancing back-office processes for the merchant. By seamlessly connecting your different systems and applications, you can eliminate inefficiencies, manual errors, duplicated efforts, and delays caused by disconnected processes. It enables real-time data synchronization, ensuring accurate and up-to-date information across all platforms.
“BigCommerce is an incredible tool for the modern merchant, especially in the B2B space. But a crucial aspect merchants should consider is how to leverage the valuable data in the platform throughout their business with the other key applications they use in their tech stack. Integrating and automating their CRM, shipping, ERP and other platforms with BigCommerce is really the best and most reliable way to unlock the full value and functionality of each one of these applications.
With Jitterbit’s integrations working seamlessly and automatically on the backend, merchants can run their operation in a way that delivers better and more consistent customer experiences while also taking away the headaches and long hours of manual processes for their employees. Both internally and externally, BigCommerce working with Jitterbit to create a connected tech stack drives greater success for B2B merchants.”
Emilee Swanson, Channel Partner Manager, Jitterbit
Conclusion
BigCommerce B2B Edition offers a powerful platform for B2B merchants looking to gain a competitive edge. With its tailored features and flexible openSaaS architecture, it provides the necessary tools for customization and integration.
By integrating the right tools into your BigCommerce tech stack, you can enhance the customer experience, increase sales, and transform back-office processes. Choosing the right ecosystem of tools will help you address common pain points such as scattered product information, inefficient inventory management, frustrated buyers, shipping complexities, and siloed data.
Optimizing your B2B ecommerce business with essential tools like PIM, Inventory Management, Product Discovery, Shipping Management, and Systems Integrators can streamline operations and save time and resources.
Investing in technology that meets the high expectations of digital-native buyers and improves efficiency is crucial in today’s competitive market. By leveraging these tools and optimizing your BigCommerce tech stack, you can unlock your business’s full potential and thrive in the B2B space.
The technologies listed in this blog all share one thing in common: their goal is to optimize your product data to improve customer experience – from initial search to discovery all the way to shipping. Check out part two of this series, by our partner Pimberly, to find out how to get started on optimising your tech stack and managing your data efficiently.
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About the Author
Luigi Moccia