In this blog post, we dive into how a B2B e-Commerce business differs from a B2C e-Commerce business and best practices to optimize your B2B webshop.

Purpose of purchase?

The B2B customer buys from you to create (financial) value for their company. It is most often about making more money, saving money, or investing money in something that will create value in the future. The B2C customer buys to meet a personal need.

The buyer's process - logic or emotion?

The B2C customer's purchase is driven by desire, motivation, and personal feelings. The situation is different for the B2B customer who has entered a professional role before purchasing. The purchase is part of the B2B customer's job, and therefore they will hardly be emotionally involved.

To ensure that the investment in your product/service creates the intended value for the company, the B2B customer's purchase will be rational and based on concrete facts and information.

The buyer's process – carefully considered or impulsive?

The purchasing situation will more often arise impulsively for B2C customers. Their purchases are, as previously mentioned, driven by desire, motivation, and emotion, and if an emotional need suddenly arises, they will be inclined to respond to it.

For B2B customers, the purchase decision rarely arises impulsively but is instead carefully planned in accordance with the company's needs. More time and energy is often put into finding the right product at the right price and generally considering whether the investment is worth it.

The buyer's process – one or several decision makers?

In a B2C buying process, only one decision-maker buys a product to meet a single need - his own.

In a B2B buying process, several decision-makers are involved - e.g., people at the top of the company hierarchy who must approve the purchase and people from other departments who want to clarify their wishes and needs. Therefore, the product/service must meet several different needs at the same time as it must be clear why the purchase is worth the investment.

We have now clarified that the buying process differs from B2B to B2C customers. In the following, we will dive into the 5 best practices for optimizing your B2B webshop.

1. Detailed product information

In a B2B purchase, the order value is often higher, and as mentioned earlier, the purchase decision is made on a more informed basis with more decision-makers involved. To be convinced that your products/services are worth the investment, your customer needs a high level of information. Therefore, clear and in-depth product information is crucial in a B2B buying process. If your customer does not get the necessary information, they will lose confidence in you as a supplier and find it more difficult to justify the purchase and thus get it approved.

To meet your customer's need for information, you can consider producing explainer videos of your products - a survey shows that 70 percent of B2B customers watch videos during their shopping journey. With explainer videos, you can give your customers a brief and accurate insight into what they get when they buy your products/services. Thus, they get the requested information easily and clearly.

In addition to explainer videos, it may be relevant to produce blog posts and customer cases. It will give your potential customers a deeper understanding of what value your product creates in practice. A customer will often be able to see themself in another customer. They will thus get a clearer picture of why your products/services are valuable for their particular company.

2. Simple and informative website design

Your purpose is to attract companies that can become repeat customers in the long run. As previously mentioned, this requires that they have access to in-depth information about your products/services. Therefore, your webshop must provide the customer with relevant information in an easy and accessible way. The webshop should have a simple, clear, and informative design rather than being visually beautiful.

3. Customer-specific prices

When you run a B2B e-Commerce business, the quantity of what you sell is often more significant, while the price of each product is lower. Usually, the price decreases as the quantity increases. There will rarely be special offers on your products/services, as you are already selling them at a reasonable price.

In addition, your prices are rarely fixed but instead negotiable and based on an agreement between you and the individual customer. Your customers will be met with different prices depending on your future agreements, purchase history, etc. Therefore, your e-Commerce platform must support customer-specific prices and assortments.

Fiftytwo’s webshop solution 52eSELLER has a ready-made ERP-integrated B2B setup, which, i.a., supports customer-specific prices and assortments. The webshop comes with a web and mobile self-service solution, making it possible for the customer to complete an order themselves, check the order status, and see previous invoices. Read more about 52eSELLER here.

4. Minimum order size

As a B2B webshop owner, your business model, as previously mentioned, is based on you selling a larger quantity of products but at a lower price per piece. Therefore, you must address a minimum order size on your webshop. It should not be possible for your customers to exclusively buy one product at a reduced price. Let us say you sell notebooks for business use. Because you order a larger quantity of notebooks, you get a reasonable price from your supplier, allowing you to sell the notebooks at an excellent price to your customers. If your customers buy a few notebooks at the same reasonable price, you will quickly lose the foundation of your business.

5. More delivery options

On a B2B webshop, it should be possible for the customer to have their order delivered to several different delivery spots. It may, for example, be that the customer has departments in several places in the country and therefore wants half of the products to be sent to Aarhus and the other half to Copenhagen. Therefore, you must ensure that your B2B webshop supports this feature.

How can we help?

At Fiftytwo, we have many years of experience delivering webshop solutions that support B2B and B2C businesses. Whether you address a B2B or a B2C market, we can help you get a webshop that supports all the requirements for a good customer experience. If you have any questions, you are very welcome to contact me.