B2B eCommerce is experiencing the same rapid growth as e-retail/B2C commerce according to leading analysts such as Forrester Research. Gartner estimates that the digital commerce platform market will grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of over 15% beginning in 2015 through 2020, including revenue from SaaS, licenses, and maintenance.
According to a market survey, more than half (57%) of business buyers have purchased goods for their companies online, and 37% said they expect to spend a bigger proportion of their annual procurement budgets online next year.
B2B products have a unique and different set of characteristics than B2C ones. Your site search, navigation and merchandising solutions need to understand these differences in order to help deliver a superior B2B purchasing experience. Gartner predicts that by 2018, 40% of B2B digital commerce sites will use price optimization algorithms to calculate and deliver product pricing dynamically.
EasyAsk has long served the B2B customer segment and has developed numerous features that specifically aid B2B commerce sites, including some of the “must-haves” as identified by the Gartner Group:
- Providing personalized catalogues – EasyAsk offers the ability for B2B providers to offer their customers customized catalogues based on negotiated product assortments, warehouse locations and pricing.
- Alleviating catalogue number confusion – Many organizations struggle with multiple versions and formats of catalogue numbers resulting in failed searches and lost revenue. EasyAsk has advanced functionality that allows all formats and alternatives of catalogue/part numbers to be associated with products, meaning that however a user searches – they find the correct product.
- Handling dynamic pricing – EasyAsk provides multiple ways in which complex B2B pricing can be handled in the context of search.
- Understanding weights and measures – EasyAsk implicitly understands prices, sizes, lengths and more, allowing customers to search using alternative forms of input such as 6”, six-inch or 6 inch.
- Providing intelligent SKU handling – EasyAsk understands how to organize SKUs into parent products to reduce search result overload and make it easier for customers to find the right product on the first page.
- Offering dynamic facets/filters – EasyAsk allows the business to define rule-based navigational facets that do not exist in the product catalogue. This allows the shopper to find what they are looking for in a way that suits them rather than the way the data is structured.
- Handling huge/complex catalogues – EasyAsk provides high speed indexing of large and complex product catalogues typical of B2B businesses.
- Providing advanced search capabilities – EasyAsk natural language search allows users to query the catalogue using their own terminology, which is especially important for B2B customers.
- Supporting the move to mobile – With over 60% of B2B customer research happening on mobile devices, EasyAsk is a logical fit with its ability to understand more verbose, natural language queries.
EasyAsk offers the only merchandising tool designed exclusively for the rigors and challenges of B2B eCommerce. EasyAsk can be configured for any platform, either commercial or built in-house. Over 200 B2B distributors have chosen EasyAsk to power their B2B eCommerce sites, including: Juno Lighting, Aramark, Alphabroder, Demco, Kaman Industries, Tacoma Screw, and Crown Packaging.
Request a demo the EasyAsk team to see our unique features for B2B Commerce and see a number of sites using EaskAsk to make their B2B Commerce site a clear differentiator.
