B2B brand focus – defining the next generation of commerce experience

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Kenneth Ellis | Experience Director | Wunderman Thompson Consulting | mail me |


Consumer expectations of online commerce experiences, historically, have primarily been established by B2C interactions. In this ever-integrating arena, B2B players must increasingly look sideways at some well-entrenched B2C behaviours to gain a competitive edge.

The recently released fifth edition of the B2B e-commerce benchmarking report compiled by Gorilla gives insight on how to do just that. The report unpacks averages across the B2B sector to help organisations gauge where they stand and gain insights into how best to stand out and ride the next wave of B2B commerce leaders.

B2B ecommerce has come a long way in recent years, particularly as manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors have accepted that ecommerce is an opportunity and not a threat. The value of digital transformation became glaringly evident during 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic changed how businesses operate. As a result, and to leverage the successes of already established B2C commerce leaders, more B2B organisations are opting for commercial platforms that afford access to the latest technology, a roadmap for continuous platform improvements, and third-party support.

The 2020 Gorilla report outlines five focus areas to help ambitious B2B brands gain a competitive advantage through innovation and define the next generation of B2B commerce experiences, namely:

Digital commerce offerings

  • Marketing automation platform

Select the level of automation sophistication you need to gain relevant customer insights. Match the cost and functionality of the platform to your needs and digital maturity.

  • CMS platform

Capitalise on the uptick in the need for richer, integrated content and commerce experiences by building more robust, best-in-breed headless commerce solutions.

  • Owned B2B marketplace

Provide a wider product assortment, craft the right strategy, manage the nuances of operations, and tightly control logistics, and you’ll see how this outpaces overall ecommerce revenue growth.

  • Responsive design

If you’re not operating with a digital-first mindset, you’re losing customers.

  • Mobile apps

Although Progressive Web Apps have gained little traction, it’s one area where companies can gain a competitive advantage.

  • Site speed

Page speed is a leading indicator of user experience, and unfortunately, long page load times were the norm across industries.

Trending towards transparency 

  • Account registrations

Instant account registration activation for site visitors is becoming the norm. Vetting users through long-winded gatekeeping could lead to customers taking their business elsewhere.

  • Prices prior to log-in

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Read the full article by Kenneth Ellis, Experience Director, Wunderman Thompson Consultingas well as a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the October/November 2021 edition of BusinessBrief.


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