Most of us are aware of Magento as a popular open-source ecommerce platform. Various versions of the platform have been implemented, and most widely used by online retailers with a B2C model. But have you heard of Magento / Adobe Commerce?
Magento Commerce is an ecommerce Platform-as-a-service. In 2021, it was rebranded as Adobe Commerce. It has become recognized not only just for creating B2C shopping experiences, but also B2B capabilities with interesting out-of-the-box features.
In this article, we look at how Magento could be a viable ecommerce platform for B2B brands. First, we investigate some of the common challenges faced by B2B companies, and how Adobe Commerce could address these challenges and more.
What are the Challenges faced by B2B brands?
In the past, B2B companies have enjoyed success due to the strong relationships established within its distribution network or with its downstream partners. Nevertheless, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic shift in the B2B landscape.
Many B2B players are coming to realize the importance of a digital sales platform not only to reach new customers, but also to better manage its value chain.
Here are some of the additional challenges:
- Current B2B buying trends vs traditional sales processes
Existing and prospective clients were already looking for a digital purchase experience outside of the traditional sales processes via phone, email and visits. - Lack of real-time visibility to product and inventory changes
Legacy systems often meant that customers often did not have up-to-date information regarding product changes and available stock. - Manual ERP order processing
There are B2B companies are still entering and managing orders via its ERP, where order changes and returns are processed manually. - Limitations in personalization
With the lack of price customizations, B2B players are finding it difficult to react quickly to burgeoning customer demands for competitive product offers. - Lack of Analytics
There are a number of B2B companies still left behind when it comes to gathering data related to customer engagement and purchase behaviour.
What does Adobe Commerce offer for B2B brands?
Adobe Commerce is widely known for its ability to build multi-channel commerce experiences for B2B and B2C customers on a single platform.
B2B business transactions are often complex and highly personalized according to the needs of the business customer and order. In contrast to the B2C sector, a service is not sold to an individual person but to a purchasing team.
With the trend in B2B buying behavior moving more strongly towards self-service and personalization, Adobe Commerce allows for the implementation of B2B-centric features on an ecommerce platform, such as:
- Sales Representative Quoting and Management
Sales representatives can log in on behalf of their respective distributor to create and place orders. They also have the ability to create and manage custom sales quotes and discounts. - Simplified Order Fulfillment and Purchase Experience
B2B players can enable recurring / fast checkout purchases on their online store. This allows their customers to directly add familiar products to their shopping cart without having to go through the entire catalog. - Greater Control of Price Customizations and Promotions
B2B ecommerce sites can offer customized catalogs and price lists for customers. This shows each customer prices and products specific to them and distinct to what are viewed by other customers.
There are also some other aspects that B2B merchants should consider for their ecommerce, which we have talked about back in 2021 - it never gets old.
Enhanced CX with PWA Studio
There is one special selling point that is unique to the Adobe Commerce platform, which is PWA Studio. (PWA stands for Progressive Web Apps, if you were wondering)
PWA Studio is a fully decoupled frontend that is optimized for the Adobe Commerce backend. Equipped with modern tooling, B2B merchants can efficiently build high performing and dynamic user experiences for their online stores.
Summary of its key advantages:
- Ability to create Responsive UI that offers optimized shopping experiences, accessibility and functionality across multiple screen sizes and devices.
- The headless architecture of PWA Studio and a robust API layer (such as GraphQL) provides the flexibility to build a completely custom front-end, while working seamlessly with the Adobe / Magento back-end.
- PWA benefits of navigating offline / with limited connectivity, push notifications, and native app-like features, altogether enabling B2B mobile commerce.
I’m interested in building my B2B ecommerce with Magento. Where do I start?
Magento / Adobe Commerce offers a world of possibilities in terms of creating a high performance and scalable online B2B sales platform.
Of course, once you have decided that you are ready to implement a brand new online B2B store for your business, it is advisable to take the following steps in your initial due diligence:
- Seek out the platform that best fits your company profile, scale, and business objectives. Check out our article about the different payment methods that are available for B2B ecommerce as well..
- nvestigate how your peers or market leaders are finding success with B2B ecommerce, and find out the successful aspects of their online stores.
- Last but not least, don’t go at it alone. Make sure you seek a technology partner that has both the expertise and the experience to smoothly implement the platform that you want.
If you are interested in implementing Adobe Commerce for your ecommerce, or if you want to learn about other high performance and scalable B2B ecommerce platforms, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
