B2B companies are looking for ways to develop their ecommerce experience to meet the demands and expectations of today’s customer. The B2B buyers of today have become accustomed to buying products through the mature online marketplaces, and as a result, have started to expect more from B2B websites. To meet these expectations, unified commerce should not be looked at as just a function – but an extension of your business. Failing to embrace the unified approach will make it difficult to achieve the experience B2B buyers expect today.

Now’s the time to create a unified commerce mindset that’ll ultimately benefit your customers. Here’s what you need to consider when building your strategy:

  • Creating a customer experience that builds loyalty – B2B online purchasing is changing because of a behavioral change in today’s customer. B2B buyers now have less tolerance for an ambiguous and disconnected experience. They will come back to a genuine unified experience that provides quick and easy ordering while having all the leading B2C features.
  • With increased competition, B2B must become a revenue stream – Ecommerce can present a massive opportunity for informed manufacturers and distributors. A unified approach ensures that you have the ability to track ROI as well as provide visibility to all business impacts to adapt your commerce strategy and investment accordingly.
  • Tackling the marketplace question – Ecommerce marketplaces already have the advantage of having the means to understand their customers and their customer behavior. It’s good to keep in mind that many of these companies already have platforms in place that have been collecting insights on the buying process. Start today to understand how to keep your customers for tomorrow. A unified approach provides a streamlined means to gather this information about your customers.

The first step on the path to unified commerce is having good unified data. Unleashing your ecommerce potential with unified data will be the focus of our session at B2B Online (opens in new tab), May 8-10 in Chicago.

I will be joined by Eric McGregor, COO of Tacoma Screw Products (opens in new tab) who will discuss how his company applied unified data to optimize its ecommerce business. We’ll dive into the common pitfalls and challenges, along with best practices for getting good data from your own internal systems as well as external sources.

B2B Online is a conference specifically for manufacturers and distributors to discuss some of the biggest developments in technology and strategy for digital success. Register (opens in new tab) with our exclusive promo code B2B17NETSUITE to save 25% on your event pass.