‘Annoying but obvious’ questions about B2B ecommerce
“We don’t really want a shopping cart, can’t we just use your Customer Portal for B2B commerce?” Surely your software can be configured to do this? I heard this question so many times during the launch of our ecommerce integration solution, I couldn’t resist heading over to Engineering to ask a few searching questions…
Ahah moment
After just ten minutes of outlining the ‘ideal B2B ecommerce software solution’, followed by a very short debate, we were scratching our heads as to why we hadn’t thought of this before – takes a woman to point out the obvious 
. Reflecting on the conversations I’ve had with prospects and customers, the key requirements are:
- Customer Login
- Ability to view items and availability
- Customer specific prices lists
- Ability for the customer to place and track the status of their Orders.
- Ability to view and pay Invoices
The benefits would be:
- No need to select and integrate a shopping cart
- Significant reduction in administration and costs
- A better customer experience
- More frequent sales
Do you need this?
So is there a strong case for B2B ecommerce? I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether or not your want it, what you think it should do and what would be the benefit of a B2B ecommerce extension to our Customer Portal. The thing is I reckon Engineering could have this done in a week (but don’t tell them I said it).
You can tell me what you’re thinking right here….
NOV