Worldwide ecommerce sales are expected to increase by over 246% and to be worth $4.5 trillion by 2021. Business to business (B2B) ecommerce is overtaking consumer ecommerce, so there’s a lot at stake.
Even if you are in the early stages of your B2B ecommerce journey it’s important to recognize ecommerce as an essential part of your overall strategy.
Buyers increasingly value the quality of their purchasing experience, so the choice of ecommerce platform is becoming a business-critical decision.
Here we take a look at some of our customers’ favorite Cloudfy features and why they like them so much.
Created for B2B ecommerce
Online shopping experiences certainly influence the expectations of B2B buyers. However, the B2B process is often longer, more complex and involves several decision makers. Behind the scenes there might be hundreds or even thousands of products and configurations.
Cloudfy was designed from the start with exactly these challenges in mind, so buying cycles, purchase approval, budget availability, high volume ordering, and easy reordering can all be accommodated as standard.
It’s a software as a service (SaaS) solution, so all these essential B2B functions are available straight out of the box and a site can be live in weeks rather than months.
Extensive integration
Whether your business is growing or well-established, integration can save time, reduce costs, improve efficiency and deliver excellent customer service.
Cloudfy offers standard integrations for all of the major business systems, so seamless processes can be created that include stock control, ordering, product information, finance, and customer records.
For specialized requirements, there is also a transparent application programming interface (API) and flat file integration options.
Responsive design
Your buyers want to place orders online anytime, anywhere, so your site needs to look good and work well on the desktop and mobile devices.
Cloudfy’s choice of responsive design templates is constantly enhanced, along with the flexibility to use your brand colors, fonts, and styles. Content can be managed from the intuitive dashboard, so your administration, sales and marketing teams don’t have to be specialists to keep all your information up to date.
You even have the option of an ultrawide 1600-pixel design using the latest responsive technology so you can make use of the full potential of large screens to showcase up to five product categories at a time.
Product search
Buyers want a straightforward, user friendly experience that makes it easy for them to serve themselves, so Cloudfy’s strength in predictive search is a firm favorite.
Helping buyers to find what they want using product titles, stock keeping units (SKUs), descriptions, or article numbers simply makes their job easier. You can even see what search terms buyers use frequently to fine-tune your results.
Cloudfy also offers faceted navigation and product filtering on category pages to make choices of brand, size, or price really easy. The results can also become part of the page address which can be indexed by Google to improve your site’s search performance. There’s even a multi-filter option.
Personalization
Customer specific pricing and personalized product catalogs have become essential requirements for B2B ecommerce. The key to success is user registration, which allows customers access to their ordering histories, special pricing and payment arrangements.
Cloudfy can offer bespoke menus so that each customer can see their most frequently bought products. Regular purchases can even be added, ready for immediate re-ordering. Add the fast and effective predictive search option to help them when they’re looking for something new.
When several people are involved in the purchasing process, they can quickly and easily access the information they need to play their part efficiently.
Configure, price, quote
If you offer specialized products, services or combinations of product bundles and price breaks then Cloudfy’s configure, price, quote (CPQ) feature can help you to streamline your sales processes.
CPQ, integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, allows you to automate quotes based on rules that you can set.
You can quickly generate accurate pricing that takes into account your customer’s buying history, their customization requirements, quantities, discounts, and any other optional features.
They can even add and change requirements and see how their costs change in real time. When your prices change, CPQ can immediately use the new figures.
Easy payment
When buyers have completed their orders, they can be sent to the basket quickly and efficiently where payment arrangements are already set up for them.
Some B2B merchants still prefer to use purchase orders and even this be streamlined in an email process. Some like to ‘punchout’ to their own procurement system so that the order is returned once all their internal processes are complete. Increasingly businesses are favoring credit card payments and virtual wallets. Whatever your buyer’s preference, it’s easy to accommodate with Cloudfy.
Customers can have easy access to all their shipping information, order tracking, and purchasing approvals to make managing their account more straightforward. There’s even a Cloudfy B2B ordering app for your registered customers. As a Cloud based solution, you can also be confident that all the security requirements and PCI compliance have been taken care of as well.
Maintenance
An in-house ecommerce system gives you complete control, but one of the challenges is that all the hardware, software, security arrangements and upgrades must also be handled in house.
Because Cloudfy is a SaaS solution it can be implemented without the initial capital investment. It’s regularly enhanced and upgraded, and it’s all deployed in the Cloud, so there aren’t any concerns about downtime or roll backs. This gives you confidence that your platform is always secure and right up to date.
Importantly, Cloudfy can scale at times of high demand and when your business grows, so you don’t need to pay for capacity that you don’t need.
Choosing a B2B ecommerce platform for your business
The ecommerce platform that you choose for your business is an investment in long-term growth. Making sure that you can easily access all the features you need and that you have flexibility for the future are essential requirements.
Contact us for a free demonstration to find out more about these favorite Cloudfy features.
