Like the B2C business, B2B business conduction has its own shortcomings. Though it brings massively profitable deals for businesses, B2B involves stronger competition over B2C because of price negotiations for bulk quantities. When you are dealing with other industry experts from your business niche, you will have negative as well as positive challenges for your business.
B2B businesses are more complex in the perspective of sales, and here, we are listing the common challenges that you will be facing while dealing with other companies on the B2B business platforms.
-
Quantity discounts that fit the needs of customers
If you are starting the B2B business from your web store, you must create two distinct stores or put the inquiry box for an on-demand quotation for bulk quantities. Either you have an individual as a customer or a brand; both are similar for you, so treat them equally. When B2C customers can shop directly, B2B customers will ask for more details because of the considerable quantity that they are seeking to purchase. While conducting B2B business, you have to be more active as the leads are time-bound, and if you don’t respond, there are higher chances that the company connecting with you may take it from elsewhere. Based on the inquiries made, you have to share a customized quote to your customer. Also, be persistent in seeking the follow-up, else you may lose a good prospect and probably long time customer.
-
Managing strict delivery schedules:
Business customers are looking for the products from your store to sell and market via their platform. That’s why you may miss a deal if you are not able to offer expedited delivery of the products. This is the crucial reason that you have to streamline your business supply chain to manage the flow of inventory, especially in your seasonal business days. If you are dealing in the wholesale market, you have to manage your network and connections with the other buyers. However, if you a manufacturer, either you must have the set quantity prepared, or you must have a team of artisans to assist you in the order completion stage.
To deliver on-time, you have to use logistics tools as well as API integration of shipping service providers to streamline order processing by showing live shipping delivery rates and tenure to deliver products and meet the stated delivery schedule.
-
Thrive the giants like Amazon or be with them
After the success of your B2C business, if you are leveraging Amazon’s business to flourish as a B2B business, it can be challenging for you. It will surely look cool in the beginning, as it will be easier for you find businesses that are interested in taking your products and place the bulk orders, but there is no option for you to interact with the businesses directly unless they want to. Also, when dealing via Amazon, your margins will be reduced because of the commission charges that you’ve to pay on your sales. That’s the reason the B2B suppliers instantly start hating Amazon and look for the competitive options to win the race.
-
Offering umbrella services for multiple brands:
As a wholesaler business, you may or may not be dealing with the products and services of a single brand. When you have varying products from different brands, you will similar products of varying range but similar utility. In such a case, you will have to bear with the overhead costs for managing an eCommerce site for different brands. To address this problem, you can opt for the option of a microsite for each of the brands that you are dealing with. In this way, it will be trouble-free for you to manage products as well as inquiries from different brands. Also, by treating these micro-sites or sub-domains as a unique entity, you can improvise your marketing strategies distinctly.
-
Manage and maintain customer relationship:
Managing the customer relationship is equally crucial for B2C as well as B2B businesses. By leveraging CRM software solutions, you can manage the database of your end-customers and can utilize it from the marketing prospects. When you are seeking for the web development software or eCommerce platform, count on the ones that have CRM integrated with the content and database. This will make it a lot easier for the sales team to manage the customer relationships and maintain inbound as well as outbound business leads.
However, keep in mind that B2B business customers have more chances to convert to your repeat customers when compared with your individuals buying products for personal usage. If a business is happy with your quoted price, quality of the product, and hit the bestseller, you can count them as your repeat customers.
-
Management of additional sales bills for taxation:
If you are dealing in B2C as well as B2B market, you will be not only taking care of invoices but of credit and debit notes issued as well. Maintain all of your transaction details in the accounting software, and it would be great if you could get its API integrated to your store. This can minimize your tasks as well as the duties of managing taxes over the month. Along with debit/credit notes, you have to keep a database of export and import invoices, nil-rated supplied, and advanced payment made to any of your suppliers. All of this information is way too important for your tax consultant and can aid in their work.
-
Risk of managing heavy transactions:
When you are dealing in the B2B market, greater are the chances of having huge business transactions in your store. Thus, you must keep your site secure with all the security badges, as you can’t use the transaction budget cap here to avoid the business frauds. Be stringent with your business conduction policies to avoid frauds from any business customer. For heavy budget orders, you can ask for the proof of business registration to keep yourself secure against any fake order. You can automate the pre-transaction activities to ease the interactions further.
-
Managing different warehouses:
Management of the warehouse location is not a worry for the startup or mid-sized companies. But, it adds worry for the large B2B eCommerce companies, especially when your warehouses are in different locations. You can take the help of inventory management software to streamline your inventory across the platforms and automate the process the reduce your worries of managing such massive inventory.
You want to be the next Amazon, and we get it, but that won’t happen just in a day. So, please don’t be in a hurry and concentrate on satisfying each of your clients rather than growing the inventory options. Take your B2C best selling products to your B2B business inventory. As per the ongoing market requirements, you already know that there are business needs for the product you are launching in the B2B market. Thus, there are higher chances of getting B2B buyers for those products. There is always an opportunity to explore further and grow to a more valuable brand. Develop your understanding of the trends online, start small, and plan for bigger goals then.
Grow with time; don’t take it in a hurry!
