In the late nineties, it began as a whisper. It started as a whisper in the late nineties and has become a chatter.
Many businesses don’t do it. Although they have good reasons, technology has made those reasons less compelling.
Selling online is one of the best ways to improve customer satisfaction, increase sales, and streamline your business processes. Let’s look at 5 reasons why eCommerce should be a part of your business.
Reason 1: Expansion
Selling online allows you to offer excellent service and save time. The time saved by e-commerce can be used to grow your business through outbound sales and marketing. This will allow you to generate more long-term revenue.
Automate sales tactics
Another great thing about starting an online business is that it allows you to automate cross-selling and upselling, and implement predictive ordering. These sales strategies can be used online to quickly inform your customers about similar products and create new needs for products that they might not have previously been interested in. Research shows that cross-selling and upselling result in significantly higher order value.
Reason 2: Personalization
B2B companies that succeed provide customized product catalogs and pricing to their clients in line with their trade agreements are successful. It can be difficult to determine the best approach for this type of customer-specific pricing or assortment.
Every client deserves the best
A modern and user-friendly solution to this problem is to provide clients with access to their order history and unique pricing. Such an environment is easy to set up in an integrated web store based on your ERP. It’s a simple solution that makes a big difference in solving day-to-day challenges in an effective and innovative way.
A web store that integrates with ERP will allow you to implement customized marketing strategies. This topic is important for your business. Check out our blog posts about personalized content marketing, smart marketing and personalized email marketing.
Reason 3: Lower support cost
B2B portals for sales can save your company money and serve as information portals for customers.
All of your clients can easily find out what sizes, colors, and quantities you stock. You can also answer questions about bulk discounts.
Your ERP can help you get more from it
You can also set up your system for information about other commonly asked questions such as the availability of product parts and maintenance requests. If your web store is integrated with your ERP, you can use the logic that’s already there directly in your web store.
You can imagine how much time and money you will save by answering these types of questions via email or phone.
Reason 4: Efficiency, accuracy
Is your order still dependent on manual processing?
Your company could be spending too much time and money on a complicated process that is susceptible to human error. Launching an online store that is integrated with your ERP system takes order processing out of the hands of your sales team.
To fully unlock the potential of your sales reps, it is crucial to start an e-commerce company.
Provide key information in real-time
Your web store can seamlessly transfer data back and forth between your ERP and your web store. Orders placed in your webshop will appear in your ERP automatically.
It also works in the reverse direction. Online orders can also be made in-store via phone, fax, or at the address. It can also be available in your online store if it is in the ERP. This allows your sales representative to create and save a quote while talking to clients on the phone. Clients can view the quote, make changes, approve it and even place an order.
This not only saves your company time but also increases the reliability of order information and optimizes your sales department’s efficiency, which in turn leads to better customer service.
Reason 5: Business is available 24/7
Good businesses place their customers first. This means that clients should be able to place orders at their convenience, whether by phone, fax, or email. You also want customers to be able to order whenever is convenient for them.
A web store is the best way to offer this service. A web store will allow your company to offer customer-specific pricing and products at any hour of the day or night. It will also make your business accessible 24/7. Experiences from our B2B customers show that they actually sell more outside of office hours.
Case Study: Make Sales Around the Clock
E-commerce is a 24/7 business opportunity that benefits both clients and businesses. Pelican Rouge a Selecta brand and global coffee supplier that serves 7 million coffee lovers every day, is a great example of this. They were calling 40,000 customers each month by phone, but they were losing out on many sales because so many customers couldn’t place orders during business hours.
Soon after launching the integrated web store, they saw many benefits. Customers can place orders 24/7 and automate their order processing even when they are not available during office hours. Their ERP, Dynamics AX, supplies all of the product data and calculates costs, so order accuracy is ensured
Great Example:
We know a company in who sells t-shirts of NFL fans like Trevor Lawrence and they make a killing doing it. It’s always best to have a company that niches down. Pick specific products you want to sell & to who you want to sell. After that, it will be easier to see who your target audience is. Check them out for more good examples of how to sell professionally and successfully.