Stealing from B2C to make an online business buyer’s job easier

Brian Beck

There are many things that business-to-business e-commerce merchants can learn from their business-to-consumer counterparts, who have honed the art of online retailing over almost two decades of selling via the web.

B2C merchants have set B2B buyer expectations for what makes an easy-to-use e-commerce website. Modern business buyers are informed by their experiences as consumers in their personal lives, and these buyers are increasingly digital natives (yes, people, we are all getting older, and the generation soon to enter the workforce was born after e-commerce was invented—believe it or not!). B2C-like expectations of the business buyer include how to navigate, search, and check out on B2B web sites. Manufacturers, brands and distributors must meet these expectations in order to stay relevant and keep the business of the modern buyer.

It is important to note that B2B is not simply a copy of B2C e-commerce experiences. B2B merchants need to take a different, and expanded, approach to web design versus B2C merchants. The main thrust of a B2B e-commerce site needs to be focused around making the buyer’s job easier. Conversely, the typical goal of B2C e-commerce websites is to provide a rich, deep, immersive experience that engages the consumer and creates a more emotional connection, often around lifestyle content. In the highly competitive B2C world, retailers strive to use digital means to build brand and differentiate. B2C online shopping is about fun, adventure and browsing.

Not so for B2B e-commerce. B2B buyers usually know exactly what they want, and need to be able to find it quickly, easily, and with the least friction possible. B2B buyers don’t need to go on an extensive “click-fest.” They want to get in, buy their products, get out and get on with business. So what exactly can B2B learn from B2C and where do their approaches diverge? Let’s take a look.

Stealing Smart from B2C 

There are numerous elements of B2C user experience and web design that are highly applicable to B2B. These practices have been refined over the past 20+ years, and have been proven to work to drive online conversion (sales). These elements are also the foundation of your business buyer’s expectations of what comprises an acceptable online purchasing experience.

The most important components are:

• Clear and easy site navigation. Website navigation remains the most common way site visitors arrive at products, typically accounting for well over 50% of product views. Navigation incorporates the global navigation menu, normally found at the top of web pages (or via a menu icon on mobile), often delivered through a drop-down menu when online buyers scroll over or tapped on a mobile device. Major categories of interest to a website visitor are presented through the navigation, which usually include product categories on an e-commerce site. Navigation also includes product sub-categories, filters, and attributes presented for narrowing an assortment or content list to the most relevant selection for the user. Unfortunately, many B2B sellers make site navigation too complex, fail to follow best practices, and load the navigation full of internal jargon that web site users do not understand.
• Effective on-site search. Many B2B e-commerce sellers have large catalogs that feature thousands, in some cases millions, of products. A successful B2B site lets customers quickly and easily find what they are looking for. As the assortment size grows, on-site search becomes even more important to the user experience. B2C e-commerce has taught us much here in terms of best practices for implementing a successful site search experience. A well-optimized site search should convert browsers to buyers at four to five times the website average. Site visitors who use search exhibit a high degree of buying intent. A great site search experience is key to making the buyer’s job easier; it is a critical component of delivering a solid B2B e-commerce experience. Make sure you have a capable, modern on-site search software solution that is powering your search experience.
• Easy checkout. If you have ever used an e-commerce site that had a long and cumbersome shopping cart and checkout process, you know how frustrating it can be. Modern online buyers have no patience for an inefficient or confusing checkout process.  Streamlining the process is critical, eliminating barriers to purchase. B2C best practices are well established in this area, and B2B merchants should follow these practices (with some B2B-specific additions, as highlighted below). Online buyers have come to expect standard features in the cart and checkout. In general, these include a persistent shopping cart (accessible anywhere on the site), checkout steps clearly labeled and few in number, early and clear indication of shipping charges, and the display of the shopping cart contents and order totals throughout the checkout process.
• Web merchandising and compelling product presentation. Web merchandising approaches are well established in the B2C arena, and these practices can be leveraged in B2B. E-commerce provides an opportunity for sellers to make buyers aware of products they might otherwise not know the seller offers, and do so in a scalable fashion. Common web merchandising methods that work for B2B merchants include product cross-selling and upselling (on product pages and in the shopping cart), product bundling (a.k.a. kitting), promotions, automated product recommendations (based on customer click behavior on the website), and highlighting on product category pages the items you most want customers to see. This is your ‘stealing smart’ from B2C list (from a high level, at least!).  These elements are standard to delivering a well-functioning website user experience on an e-commerce site, whether B2B or B2C. B2B merchants would be well advised to adopt these approaches, and not try to re-invent these components or use a different approach than B2C best practice in these areas.

So, what is different about B2B?

Remember that B2B websites have a goal—to make the buyer’s job easier—that is different from the typical goal of a retail site to build an emotional connection with customers. As a result, B2B e-commerce sites must accommodate things that will make buyers’ workflows easier and faster. Workflow considerations have a major impact on website design.

The most critical features of a well-designed B2B e-commerce site include:

• What Buyers Need—Thorough and Accurate Product Specs. What does the buyer need from the design? In B2B, it is not just pretty product images. B2B sites typically need to contain detailed product specs, technical data, and information about one product’s compatibility with other products (information on relevant consumables like chemicals, paper, or ink, for example, that a piece of equipment needs in order to operate). B2B e-commerce sites generally require more content, and the design and underlying software solution needs to support this. Product information must be easy to find and read, but also accurate down to the product attribute level. For example, in the medical supply field, accuracy of product data could be a matter of a patient’s life and death. Life-saving equipment may not operate if a healthcare organization purchases incompatible products.
• B2B Buying Paths and Workflows. Buying paths for B2B are often quite different from B2C. In B2B, it is common that the person buying the product (a procurement manager, for instance) is not the actual user of the product. There are common administrative tasks that online sellers need to consider in B2B that do not exist in B2C.

These include: using a purchase order as a form of payment, saving shopping carts or order lists, allowing for customer pick-up of orders or customer-specific shipping methods, and workflows in the purchase process, such as sending an order for another person to review and/or authorize. Moreover, B2B purchases are often much larger and have more line items than a typical B2C purchase. This puts a premium on ease of use of the shopping cart, so that individuals can review only items that are relevant to their roles.

• Customer-Specific Pricing. The prices a B2B Ecommerce seller displays online to logged-in customers must be aligned with the prices that are being shared across other channels—such as within contracts, by the sales team, and in print catalogs. All too often, companies only present a single price or basic set of prices to customers on the web, allowing pricing discounts and customer catalogs to be handled by the sales team or through the call center. This is a guaranteed way to miss the revenue and efficiency benefits that Ecommerce can bring to your organization. Your customers do not view your company as two separate entities with different pricing depending on the selling channel, so do not present yourself this way.
• Custom Catalogs. B2B sellers often need to provide a limited set of products to specific customers. This might include products, or combinations of products, that the seller makes available only to a specific buyer. This is not a common requirement in B2C e-commerce, but is supported by a number of B2B e-commerce software platforms.

In short, B2B sites need to adopt many of the functional aspects of B2C e-commerce, but not necessarily the flashier elements. It’s more about efficiency and getting the job done. Function trumps form, and the clearer the workflow is, the more likely buyers will come back to make purchases in the future.

(Editor’s Note: The second half of this article—which will review the designs of several B2B e-commerce sites—will appear later this week.)

Brian Beck is senior vice president of e-commerce and omnichannel strategy at Guidance, an e-commerce design and development agency. Follow him on Twitter @briansalaubeck and on LinkedIn.