Common Problems of B2B eCommerce Apps and How to Solve Them
Due to industry and technological changes, B2B eCommerce has grown to surpass B2C eCommerce. B2B eCommerce is growing rapidly and thanks to this growth, there’s been a significant shift in the way companies manage their processes. This huge development has also created several challenges for the industry.
Messy data
Clean data is essential when it comes to B2B eCommerce. Even if you have a great site, the resulting experience will be poor if your data is messy. Here are some examples: category pages contain items with the same name; product names and descriptions are in uppercase characters and cryptically written because that’s how they are stored in the backend system; missing product photos; info to filter searches isn’t structured well in your database, therefore your site search is limited.
Simply put, your data is all over the place. Don’t worry, many companies are in the same situation. Getting your data prepared may seem like an overwhelming task, but it doesn’t have to be like that. A great B2B eCommerce app can help you organize your data into a consistent, centralized repository. As a result, you will be able to filter, categorize, search, and display your information in a way that easily helps prospects search and purchase your products.
Inventory control
Inventory control has always had a fair amount of challenges. To add to the complexity, due to the shift toward multichannel businesses, these challenges have become even more complex. In today’s competitive business environment, companies need full visibility and real-time inventory data. They need a single view of all orders from all sources to easily manage different processes.
Moreover, companies need to have an accurate view of their stock inventory to ensure that customers can’t order products that are not in stock. They need real-time inventory, so they always know where they stand. This way companies can be confident that a particular product is in stock, available, and ready for shipment.
If companies are doing all these things manually, it can be very difficult to keep up with the inventory. Not to mention that there is a high chance of human error. To help mitigate these problems companies should start using new technologies such as Naologic’s B2B eCommerce app that will allow them to make the processes automated and free of errors.
Product information
Product information imports, updates, and maintenance are probably one of the most important problems faced by companies. In a brick-and-mortar store, customers can see the products, feel them, and ask for information. In order to provide the same experience online for the customers, the company has to offer a product photo, a short description, and a list of product specifications. Now take a moment to imagine how much time it takes to do these things for multiple products - it’s really time consuming and inefficient.
What is the solution? Choose an enterprise eCommerce platform that comes with its own import/export feature and an API (application programming interface). This way there will be no need for any manual data input.
Product listing
The process of product listing can be a daunting task. Many companies have to constantly update their listings because of price changes, newly available products, etc. This is a significant amount of time taken away from other important tasks.
However, companies can easily manage this process and maintain data quality if they implement a software where they can centrally manage all the data.
ERP integration
If a business is growing but hasn’t yet implemented ERP integration, it may be at risk. Every time a company manually enters sales orders on its ERP, adjusts its inventory, or uploads updated product data onto its website, it is spending more time and energy than necessary.
There is also a higher possibility of errors: missing orders, incorrect product information, outdated product prices, etc. These issues can negatively impact any business, so why not streamline processes and enhance business processes through a platform that takes care of both the stock and inventory in the back as well as the customer store-front for your customers to purchase goods?
Keep in mind that platforms like Shopify or Magento may not fit well enough to the specific business requirements and that companies tend to outgrow them as they reach scale, leading daunting migrations away from them and onto systems capable of dealing with their more complex requirements.
How can Naologic’s B2B eCommerce app help you?
First of all, this app has a very complex back-office. Everything can be managed from the back-office and is then automatically fed through to a user-facing website where the end-users of companies using Naologic can go to purchase products.
With this app, you can easily connect your product listings directly to websites from where your users can shop, check out, and create profiles. The app is compatible with both web and mobile and can be launched in seconds. Also, payments and accounting are fully integrated.
It provides a minimalist and modern template, therefore you can easily create beautiful and efficient sections with your flagship products and maintain full synchronization across your sales orders, product inventory, and accounting at the same time.
In addition, you can list your products in minutes. The app offers you the possibility to control your product pages and filter options to make sure that your product information is always up to date with your back office inventory.
The last thing worth mentioning is the ability to easily control website content. With Naologic’s B2B eCommerce app you can enjoy fully automated updates between your eCommerce platform, inventory, stock adjustments, and reporting. It allows your users to sign in, track orders, download receipts and invoices.
As you can see, in an increasingly eCommerce environment, the necessity for companies to efficiently manage their processes is of primary concern for managers. The good news is that with modern technologies such as Naologic, you can run even the most mission-critical and complex processes.
