Launching an online store is relatively easy. You build a site, add some plug-ins and find your customers. However, at some point, you’ll realize that the solutions you are using no longer serve your goals. As you grow, you’ll want to develop more heavily branded solutions, more flexible options, and more secure services so you can expand.
Off-the-shelf solutions are convenient, but they aren’t yours. As your business develops, you’ll discover what it is that your customers want, and this information should form the basis of what you need to start developing when you choose a custom software solution.
Whether your eCommerce is B2B or B2C will also determine your unique needs. Data gathering and analysis, systems automation, networks and communications, site architecture, as well as security and security protocols, are all aspects of your software that need to be taken into consideration. For some businesses, processing international purchases will rate highly, while for others, automated logistics will play a key role in improving operations. Custom solutions will address these issues and create room for your business to grow.
There is no single eCommerce software that can answer the needs of all businesses. While many plug-ins can be meshed together to give you a good base to launch, over time such solutions will wear on your site speed, security, and reliability. As your business grows, so too must your website and its processing power. Custom-built software can provide your business with this power, which can take your business to the next level.
B2B Software – What you’ll need
B2B customers go through a very different decision-making process than B2C customers. Most research indicates that B2B buyers base purchasing decisions on logic, taking time to consider pertinent information such as quality, price, demand, delivery logistics, adaptability, and other pragmatic indicators.
Decision-making in business often involves more than one person, and at times escalates to high levels as the sales cycle progresses. The cycle can be very long and requires careful nurturing. There is little impulsive or emotional decision-making in B2B sales. While that doesn’t exclude the importance of relationship development, it simply highlights the focus of product superiority.
Business clients are often less interested in ‘deals’ offered to all customers and expect a more nuanced approach. Each business customer has their own needs to be met, so more important than cost is what your product or service offers and how it addresses pain points. The focus for most B2B merchants is connecting with clients to meet the needs of their niche market, not catering to the masses.
Customer service matters
One aspect of B2B sales that some people forget is online customer service access. As a provider for businesses, you are working with people who are often in various time locations around the world, who want fast and responsive solutions, and who want minimal fuss when dealing with standard repeat orders. Your levels of customer care need to be far higher and more responsive than in a retail environment.
The questions asked by your B2B clients are often of a sensitive nature, can be complex, and might require attention from people in your company who have greater expertise than a chatbot or outsourced call center operator. While you cannot be at hand 24/7 you can be responsive 24/7. Equipping your website with chatbots, instant messaging, detailed FAQs and clear contact information give your clients greater confidence in your services.
Lifetime value
Some B2B clients will be long-term customers that you need to nurture for the lifetime of your business and theirs. This is less common in retail, but in many B2B environments, business relationships are long and need to be understood for their value.
These long connections can be a joiner between you and other businesses. The client could make or break your reputation. The client could become part of your business one day, or you a part of theirs. Business relationships must be cared for, and having the right software for your front-end users can help to make this happen. For example, your customer care team has access to immediate information on the client when they call so that the agent knows who they are talking to, the size of the account, and where they are on the sales cycle. This valuable information at the fingertips of your sales team can make your reputation in your industry.
Transaction Sizes
B2B clients often make large purchases or repeat orders, so payment security is a priority. Businesses want their data to be protected, transactions to be fast and accurate, and for the storage of any data to be held confidential. To achieve that you need to be prepared to have software that can work to the highest security protocols, send information to be stored offline, and detect weaknesses and alter your IT team immediately.
Aside from security, you’ll require powerful analytics. Your B2B eCommerce software should be equipped with an automated pricing calculator, repeat customer login, autofill, and other front-end functions that make your site user-friendly. On the back end, you will want your team to have fast access to orders, delivery information, analytics, and other information that make reporting, calculating, allocating, and overall functioning as a business faster and easier.
The most important eCommerce features
So what do you need for your eCommerce platform? Whether it is in B2B or B2C there are some common elements that should be part of your basic demands when discussing custom software design.
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Secured payments
Companies usually pay with business debit/credit cards or traditional transfers handled by their accountants.
Individual customers prefer to have many options, such as card payment, transfer, e-wallets, cryptocurrencies, and mobile payments. When a customer cannot pay using their preferred payment method it often results in cart abandonment.
Your site and software developers need to make sure that the whole payment process is secure for your company and customers. You must follow the laws and regulations of the markets you are operating in, such as adding VAT or other taxes and retaining data in secured locations. If you fail to comply with regulations or you lose the trust of your customers, your brand is unlikely to recover.
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SEO optimization tools
Building an online shopping platform with advanced SEO tools is crucial to your brand. When you choose off-the-shelf options, many SEO tools come as standard. These features also need to be built into any customized software package so that your marketing campaigns are successful.
- Blog tools
You need a functional and intuitive content management system (CMS) to create engaging blog articles. While your writers produce original content, your system needs to showcase the content in ways that are attractive, accessible, and highly targeted. Linked to your SEO, your blog content should be easy to categorize, format, and add images, video, or sound to so that people can experience your blog. As often people in your marketing team are taking care of content management, the custom software should be very user friendly and intuitive, as many such people are not skilled in coding and need fast access to back-end functionality.
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Social media integration
Social media platforms have opened themselves as sales platforms. For many brands, they represent a highly targeted and engaged audience and offer lucrative opportunities for sales in mostly B2C sales. Your eCommerce software solution should support social media integration. This will give you better access to statistics, product management, customer engagement opportunities, and marketing analysis.
Other features you can customize
Your website needs to be attractive, intuitive, and engaging. The pandemic has pushed more people into relying on online shopping, and people have gravitated towards the sites that are easy to navigate, beautiful to browse and instill confidence in customers. These things are achieved by building a website that is tailored to your brand and answers the needs of your customers.
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Recommendations
Apply a powerful recommendation system to your custom eCommerce software using advanced analytical solutions. Simply, you can guide your customers when they are online by showing other items that they might like as they are selecting items for their cart. Such a system can present a list of “related items” to customers based on the history of other customers who have bought the same product. The recommendation can also be created after analyzing a particular client activity on your platform to recommend a product they were interested in earlier.
Recommendation systems help increase the average minimal sale and can even improve UX and client satisfaction as it makes shopping easier, such as when a person selects a handbag and the matching belt and shoes are recommended.
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Mobile-friendly
According to data, in the second quarter of 2020, 31% of all digital eCommerce sales in the US were made via mobile devices, while 57% of mobile device owners in the US claimed that they had used mobile retail apps to search for products and services, and 51% had made a purchase using a mobile device. Your website needs to be mobile responsive.
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User-Generated Reviews
Allowing your customers to leave reviews online is a great way to show who you are as a brand. ECommerce merchants who are confident will not shy away from customers posting reviews, and will be active in responding to both positive and negative customer reviews. Your platform should make leaving reviews easy and even prompt responses, but it should also protect users from visibility by protecting any pertinent privacy information, such as their last name or location.
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“Favorite” product lists
Wish lists are a useful way for your customers to store items that they’d like to purchase, and it gives you a way to collect vital marketing data. Wish lists generally require the customer to log in, so if they start adding things to a list, they need to register. Then, you are able to apply automated emailing to remind people of items in their wish list at set intervals. This is a great way for businesses to retain customers and access their marketing data. It is especially useful for retailers who have high-level repeat customers, like book stores where people will often have a monthly spend and store books on a wish list for future purchases.
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Delivery tracking
Your website should have automated tracking information notifications after purchase and be linked to your partners so customers can access delivery information fast. People want to know where their items are when to expect them and who to contact at what point in the process should there be any issues. You can make it easy by automating your logistics systems so emails are sent and the relevant parties are contacted immediately after purchase, including the warehouse, delivery contractor, and customer.
Benefits of investing in customized eCommerce solutions
Customized eCommerce software should be made for your business. It should answer your pain points in ways that plugs cannot. When you have a customized solution, it can:
- Provide more accurate data
- Streamline services
- Improve customer satisfaction
- Improve UX
- Increase cart value
- Increase overall profits of the company
It might take time for some of these benefits to be realized, and investing in custom software is a large and time-consuming undertaking, however, if you want to take your eCommerce to the next level and expand your business, custom software can help you by working through the pain points that hold your business back.
