B2B Order Portal: 3 Key Essential Features Every B2B Order Portal Must Have
A B2B order portal is the heart (and perhaps also soul) of any B2B eCommerce solution. It’s where you display your products (both existing and new ones) to your B2B customers. It’s where your customers find the information they need (such as pricing, RRP, and stock levels). And most importantly, it’s where your customers order your products. This portal serves as the crucial bridge between your business and your clients, facilitating seamless transactions and efficient communication. Its functionality and user experience can significantly impact customer satisfaction and, consequently, your sales performance.
Choosing the best B2B order portal
Since a B2B portal is such an essential part of your business and sales process, it’s also important that you use an adequate solution. Using a mediocre B2B eCommerce software could cost your business customers and sales.
So how do you select the B2B eCommerce that’s best for your brand? With multiple vendors of B2B and wholesale eCommerce software, it’s difficult to choose.
Fortunately, we are here to help you in your quest for the best B2B order portal, you can also read more indepth information on a previous post – The Comprehensive Guide to B2B Platforms. Specifically, we are going to share 3 features that we believe are essential when it comes to B2B order portals.
Mobile-friendly
When deciding on B2B eCommerce software, you should make sure that it’s mobile-friendly. Typically, B2B-buyers order from your B2B portal via a laptop. In most cases, this is just a bit more convenient and practical when putting in a large wholesale order. For the users of our B2B eCommerce platform, Turis, 77% of the buyers visit via desktop, while 21% are mobile.
So why should you make sure that your order portal is mobile-friendly? Well, as you might have noticed, the use of mobile for a variety of daily tasks is becoming increasingly popular. This trend is seen in B2B and wholesale ordering as well. It’s actually one of 5 eCommerce trends that we covered in one of our earlier blog posts.
Smartphones are taking over
Techjury notes that in 2020 there are 3,5 billion smartphone users around the world and that 62% of these have made a purchase on their smartphone. These figures are B2C statistics, but B2B tends to follow in the footsteps of B2C, meaning that it probably wouldn’t belong, until we see the same trend in B2B eCommerce.
So even though having a mobile-friendly order portal is not strictly necessary at this moment, it is becoming increasingly important. Especially if you want to stay relevant to your B2B customers in the future.
Multi-language and multi-currency in a B2B order portal
Another central feature to look for in a B2B order portal is that it’s multilingual and offers the possibility to sell in multiple currencies. This way, you personalize the order portal and ordering process for each individual customer. They will be greeted and guided in a language that is easy for them to understand and get to pay using a currency that is familiar to them.
A personalized B2B order portal increases sales
Having a multilingual and multi-currency B2B order portal is important, simply because it increases sales. Countless studies show that buyers prefer to shop in their own language and local currency. In fact, they prefer, to the point that they tend to increase their order size and frequency. The reason is that it’s simpler and more convenient because they won’t have to convert prices or translate words they don’t understand.
Easy B2B Store navigation
Last but not least, an online B2B store should be intuitive to navigate and user-friendly. You want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to order. If it’s not easy, there is a risk that your customers might not order anything at all. Instead, they will find a supplier that lets them order simply and efficiently.
So while a personalized order portal increases sales, easy-to-understand and intuitive navigation ensures that your customers are content and stay on board.
How to help improve navigation in eCommerce
In most cases, the ease of navigation for the buyer is predetermined by the creator of the eCommerce software. However, there are still certain things you, as the supplier, can do to improve on-site user-friendliness.
First of all, if your B2B eCommerce software supplier allows you to customize your B2B webshop, you can improve navigation by choosing an appropriate color scheme. (Some eCommerce solutions will even let you redesign and customize the B2B login page).
Second, it’s a good idea to be aware of the structure of your products and product categories. You don’t want to have too many as this can be very confusing to your customers. But you don’t want to have too few categories either, as this will mean that all your products are bundled together in one category. If you have the option to use sub-categories, this will improve the navigation flow even more.
These two small steps alone are sure to improve the experience of your B2B and wholesale customers significantly.
Get your own B2B order portal
When selecting your B2B eCommerce with an incorporated order portal, make sure that it supports each of the three features outlined above. That way, you get a solution that is up-to-date, will make your B2B customers happy, and increase your sales.
If you want to be 100% certain that your new B2B webshop and order portal includes what you need, you should use Turis. Turis is a B2B eCommerce solution with a B2B ordering platform including all of the above-mentioned-functionality. And best of all, it’s free to get started – you only need to sign up using the button below.
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