eCommerce sales is quickly augmenting, and in many cases, replacing traditional B2C and B2B sales channels as the preferred choice of customers. Sites like Amazon, AirBnB, Walmart.com have conditioned people to first look, research and purchase online because it is faster, easier, and more convenient. Today’s customers will forgo personalized service for the convenience of shopping online. So if you sell products or services, you need to have a way for new and current customers to purchase online.
Look at what WalMart is doing right now. They have billions invested their physical stores but their primary focus right now is to make it even more convenient for customers to shop online, even at the expense of the same shoppers not going to their local WalMart stores. Target and other retail stores are doing the exact same thing. This is because they are responding to what their customers want -convenience. Most Millennial and X-Gens buy online and don’t even think about going physically shopping.
Think about your business products and services. Could they be sold online also? Many companies think “our products are too complicated” or “..we rely on our sales distributors to sell..”. My questions back are “How many sales are your missing because there are buyers out there who are only looking to purchase online?” and “Are your distributors selling online?”
The reality is that you can sell online any complicated product with the right software. And you can protect your B2B sales channels with the right software.
Check out BCA Technologies eRep CPQ+ software for selling products that require options and choices for B2B sales.
Check out BCA Technologies SalesPop eCommerce software for simplier product and part sales (similar to a Amazon-like shopping experience).
B2C Customization Example:
Premiere Shows Group is a trade show company that had an outdated web platform. They needed a modern solution to sell trade show passes and classes but only to licensed, verified professionals in their industry.
BCA Technologies customized the SalesPop eCommerce platform to handle 4 different customer types and perform automated professional license verification process and validation prior to purchasing.
Premiere Shows is now using SalesPop to sell over 100,000 tickets a year for 5 trade shows.
Customers can buy tickets on their phones, computers, from sales reps, or call in. For their distributors who promote the trade shows, Excel uploads from SAP and SalesForce automate bulk sales.
Customers can also verify their professional licenses with state license boards using automatic uploads of data from external license databases.
By automating the process using eCommerce, Premiere Shows has increased its attendence, sales and added additional trade shows.