Insite Software Solutions Inc. is diving further into the technology manufacturers and distributors use to sell online to business customers, it said today.

The company has installed several upgrades to its InsiteCommerce software platform that are geared to the ways businesses buy and sell from one another online, says Karie Daudt, vice president of marketing.

The upgrades, available in InsiteCommerce version 4.4.4, cover these features:

• A new “will-call” checkout option lets buyers place an online order from a desktop or mobile device and arrange for pickup at a specific warehouse or other physical location. Designed especially for workers who may need to quickly pick up and bring an ordered product to a work site, it includes workflow options for routing an order to a buyer’s supervisors and purchasing managers for approval and final order placement. The buyer also could then receive an alert confirming the order and instructions on the time and location for pickup, Daudt says.
• “Dynamic, data-driven product recommendations” that use information on new and existing customers to recommend products that buyers need for the business, while avoiding suggested “impulse” buys common on retail e-commerce sites, Daudt says. She adds that InsiteCommerce also includes upgraded analytics that can help online sellers better understand and act on customers’ cart abandonment. In many cases, she notes, B2B buyers will start a purchase online, then switch to conversing with a sales rep for assistance in placing what can be a highly complex order. The analytics in InsiteCommerce are geared to help sellers better understand such buyer journeys.
• A/B testing in marketing projects, which is addressing an increasing need expressed by manufacturers and distributors to improve their automated online marketing efforts as they reach more mature levels of digital commerce, Daudt says.

InsiteCommerce is available as licensed on-premise software and under the software-as-a-service model. The cost to deploy it typically runs “under $70,000” for a full-year SaaS subscription, plus an initial implementation fee that usually starts at about $110,000, Daudt says.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to B2BecNews, a twice-weekly newsletter that covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B e-commerce industry. B2BecNews is published by Vertical Web Media LLC, which also publishes DigitalCommerce360.com, Internet Retailer and Internet Health Management. Contact B2BecNews editor Paul Demery at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new B2BecNews content is published.