Managing Product Content for B2B Retail Ecommerce 2023
B2B eCommerce business in 2023 remains competitive and it keeps on evolving. Over the past few years, B2B retail Ecommerce experiencing remarkable growth. To be specific, during the COVID-19 pandemic the B2B Ecommerce business has seen a significant hike.
A study report by Forrester points out US-based B2B Ecommerce business transactions likely to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023. This indicates the growth of B2B eCommerce. Businesses around the world adapting to digital processes is nothing new, B2B retail business is not an exception. By understanding the importance and the benefits of digitalization, companies should perform strategic investments and leverage their digital commerce to keep up their competitive edge.
Last year’s disruption caused by the COVID-19 virus triggers the importance of boosting the eCommerce industry among business people around the world. As more and more businesses start stepping into digital channels, businesses need to leverage their digital commerce experience to meet and satisfy their customer needs.
Here, this article elaborates on how to manage product content for B2B retail eCommerce to leverage its digital commerce experience.
Importance of High-Quality Product Content
Streamlining high-quality product content through advanced & modern product content management plays a major part in the success of the eCommerce business. Here are the few vital benefits the eCommerce industry can gain through high-quality product content.
The positive impact of having good product content will be seen in these areas.
Increases Brand Reputation
Good product content will eliminate the negative experiences among the buyers and it helps them to engage with the brand in the long term. By providing the right & accurate product information, buyers can repeat purchasing products of yours.
Decreases Carts Abandoning
Providing good and accurate product information to buyers will trigger them to take strong purchasing decisions. This will significantly decrease carts abandoning activities by the buyers.
Reduces Product Return From Buyers
Majority of the product returned by the consumers happens mainly because of providing inaccurate product information/description. Reports suggest more than 40% of product return happens due to poor product information. This can be avoided by providing good product information/description.
B2B Retail Ecommerce & Product Content
B2B buyers are similar to the normal buyers who shop online for consumer products. B2B vendors who do business online through digitalization need to keep an eye on the B2B buyer’s experience to force B2B buyers to make a quick purchase decision.
To achieve a high-scale B2B buyer’s experience, B2B vendors should give importance to their online product content.
Study reports suggest high-quality online product content results in around 47% of purchases. The information like retailers & distributors, manufacturer, product availability, product manufacturing, product’s source components, buyer’s tutorials, reference guide, and so on will trigger a positive buyer experience.
In addition, B2B buyers seek more sophisticated tools that can offer advanced interactive visualization capabilities over the products.
The balance between price models and e-commerce offerings is a vital thing that every business owner needs to know, here are the three ways to get this balance:
Know your key value items
Products that are loved by the customers and have the greatest effect on your business and business income can build your reputation. And also the customer reviews will provide product loyalty.
Observe the market and your opponents
It is necessary to check out the price of the product you have set against the market at large. Internal and external effects anyways will have a part in the price levels you have set. But as you do this you will also have to keep an eye on what your opponent is doing. What they are doing and how they are doing will give you a better idea and view of how you should do it
Elasticity at some point is important
Sometimes the price that you have set does not match the market prices so you will have to bend and change the price according to the market. You will have to keep in mind whether the price customers are saying affects your pricing model or not. Keep these things always clear.
Do you want to develop a B2B eCommerce platform for your retail business that delivers tremendous value to your business?
Strategic Product Information Management for B2B Retail Ecommerce
Managing products in ERP, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), Spreadsheets, and so on are the most common & old fashion of maintaining product content for B2B companies/businesses. If you are keen on leaping your firm’s product content to the next level then adopting a PIM system would be the best and wisest option.
Having a good PIM system will provide necessary governance and control on maintaining & creating product content. By doing so, you are able to create product codes, manage supply chain data, and also your digital marketers will have the option to create high-quality product content.
How does PIM Work?
Before elaborating how the PIM system works for an eCommerce business, let us explain some basic things about Product Information Management which is known as PIM.
What do you mean by product information management?
Software-based management of data related to seller’s products and their provider’s products is called product information management.
What does this product information management solution provide?
Product information management solution gives us a single center to improve product information and management structure to form product, manage, form product catalogs, collect and share data to sales and e-commerce channels.
For your business ecosystem to be updated with every new kind of information make sure the solution manages differing data around all channels of statements.
Investing in the PIM system will increase the quality of product content above the bar. A PIM system delivers syndicated content as its output. Those contents can be used for eCommerce websites, to print business catalogs, marketers to promote products, distributors, retailers, and so on.
These points will elaborate the PIM System workflow in detail.
- A PIM system gets input data from external ERP or PLM systems.
- Input data processed through a data quality engine and make sure all data input rules are enforced.
- The system will assign and get the right approval of content from the right people.
- The data quality check conducted by the PIM system will ensure input data matches with the appropriate format required by respective fields/channels.
- Apart from that, other content creation tasks like translation, copywriting, conversions, and so are carried right inside the PIM system.
Creating a Unified Process to Manage Product Content for B2B Retail E-commerce Business
Just as the name suggests in B2B products and services are delivered from one business to another. B2B marketing can seem to be complex at times, but with development in data sciences, it isn’t that difficult.
Let’s check out the steps that you should create to make a unique e-commerce set-up.
Do you want to develop a tailored product information management solution for your B2B eCommerce retail store?
4 steps to create a unified e-commerce strategy
1. Initially find out how the problem gets indulges into it
From the customer’s point of view, how you interact or engage is how your brand is. Having good communication across the channels is the key. Not your websites, apps, stores, or even business units can make them trust. Only communication is the way they see your business.
2. Consider integration to tame the moving parts
- Mobile app
- Commerce platform
- Barcode readers
- Personalization engine
- Website
- CRM system
- Content management system
- Wifi beacons
No single company offers all these components in one go.
Customer involvement and commerce scheme that gives satisfaction and even sometimes redefines buyers outlooks.
3. A Unified Cross-Channel Journey Looks Like to Your Customers
Make a unified cross-channel journey for your customer. Provide a platform for your customer, where they can shop, research, buy and pay on the same platform. This way they won’t have to navigate from one app to another.
4. API-based platform
By adopting a trustworthy and flexible API-based platform, you can unite present and future systems. This will future-proof your eCommerce.
Key B2B Retail Ecommerce Trends of 2023 & Beyond
More Cloud Adoption
Relying on cloud technology will provide future-proof aspects to B2B retail business and more flexibility by offering streamlined operations, drive efficiency, and so.
Increased Personalization
As of the year 2023, B2B buyers are no different to B2C buyers. B2B buyers are willing to do interactions to make lives easier for them. Offering a personalized experience to B2B buyers will trigger them to pay more for their needed products.
AI & Chatbots
AI (Artificial Intelligence) has the potential of changing the way of shopping people do these days. The introduction of AI & Chatbots will increase data streaming and boost analytics infrastructure significantly.
Emerging Security Threats
Adapting to cloud-based eCommerce and detection-focused security solutions will play a big role in easing B2B retail business operational efficiency in the coming years.
Omnichannel Selling
Omnichannel offers a seamless experience to the buyers especially in social media, eCommerce sites, and several online stores. Now, this trend is slowly making its way towards B2B retails eCommerce.
Do you want to build a robust product information management for your B2B solution following the latest eCommerce trends?
Bottom Line
PIM is a very important solution to many problems faced by eCommerce owners. It makes your work easy and saves a lot of money by future-proofing your business. Moreover, the PIM system provides better management of product content which plays a key role in succeeding B2B retail eCommerce business.
Tags: