Ecommerce Solutions Specialists UK

purchaser’s ordering system (e.g. Ariba, SAP, Oracle) allowing them to automatically generate a requisition, purchase order and facilitate payment. Opportunities for companies able to support a Punchout standard for a customer include being able to gain a more permanent presence and foothold on their customers purchasing screen. It can also generate opportunities for the supplier to win contracts with new customers who use the same Punchout standard.

Portals are online trading platforms whose objective is to connect relevant buyers to relevant suppliers there by increasing choice and reducing the costs of trading. Government bodies including health and education in the UK all have stretching targets to purchase online and marketplaces can offer them low risk opportunities to meet their obligations. Most suppliers to big businesses and in particular the public sector will already know the importance of being able to collaborate with industry and government backed procurement portals (e.g. @UK, UNITY, PECOS, IDeA, Zanzibar). From a suppliers perspective involvement with marketplaces is critical if their key customer is using one. It can also offer a direct route to new and relevant customers. In a similar way to Punchout standards, marketplace integration typically i involves incorporating various data exchange standards into the online catalogue.

If the sellers prices varies from one customer to another it is vital to make sure this sensitive price information does not fall into the hands of the wrong person or a competing company. For most companies a customer login consisting of a username, password and CAPTCHA key is typically sufficient to offer sufficient protection although some companies will implement additional controls to restrict customer access to their web site from pre-identified PC workstation (i.e. by automatically obtaining and validating their IP address).

Business customers need maximum assurance that an item they wish to order is in stock and will be delivered at a specified time. Many online b2b sellers will often validate stock availability against real-time inventory data when an item is added to the basket, others will choose to publish the total number of items in stock to select customers. The decision to publish stock levels should of course be taken carefully, particularly in competitive sectors where such decisions could work against the vendor. Being able to distinguish between items that are on back order can also be important for business users.

Before being able to accept an order online many selling companies will first need to overcome the obstacle of being able to accept a request for quote (or RFQ) online. Some of the best b2b web sites will allow their customers to select products they wish to be quoted on from an electronic catalogue or alternatively allow them to enter their own product descriptions. Many will also allow the customer to upload a specification document of their choice. It is important before implementing an online RFQ facility to determine just how complex the process will be for the customer to follow. It is also important for the selling company to accurately gauge just how important the role their sales people are to the equation. If the answer to the latter is "very important" then the RFQ facility may benefit from being developed into a more of a lead generation feature where members of the sales team follow up the online sales leads manually. Alternatively the RFQ facility can be used as a means of batting RFQ’s back and fore until the customer is happy enough to covert the quotation to an online order.

Whilst some very large clients may have their own e-procurement systems which support punch out there are many companies and organisations that do not have their own e-procurement system but nonetheless would like to obtain the same associated benefits and savings. By being able to offer the growing number of mid to large sized companies the capability of setting up their own departments, budgets, authorised buyers, approvers, spend limits, purchase rules, authorised products and financial reporting through your web site this gives an immediate competitive edge. With the typical percentage savings attributed to e-procurement being in double figures many customers would instantly factor this into the supplier selection procedures in terms of total overall value to choose the supplier that can assist them in lowering the transactional cost of doing business.

Fast navigation, high quality searching tools, rich product information and a quick checkout process remain the must have qualities and cornerstones of all successful business to business transaction web sites. With time saving features such as allowing customers to customise their own catalogue by choosing their favourite sections, favourite products, pro forma order pads and product bundles there is an added advantage to using the web to place orders over traditional mechanisms. Providing time saving features is the best way to improve your order conversion rate to the web. Accessibility is also an important consideration and having a site which is friendly to customers who may have disabilities can also be a big plus point in ensuring your site can be used by the widest possible audience and can also improve how your company is perceived by potential customers.

Reward and incentive schemes can be just as important a means of lifting sales for b2b web site operators as they are for consumer orientated sites. Many business web sites will choose to give their customers reward points for every pound spent which can be redeemed against specific gifts or products in their catalogue. As an alternative charities could benefit from a donation that is linked to the expenditure of the customer. One of the easiest ways to offer a loyalty incentive is to distribute vouchers which can be redeemed when certain conditions are met against new orders. This method in particular works very well for multi-channel companies who wish to add a time limited incentive to their direct mailers or email marketing initiatives.

For businesses who sell through multiple channels it can be vital to ensure parity exists with the product and price information their customers see. This is usually best achieved by integrating the web site with the same back office data sources that are used for telesales or sales counter systems. Once integration links are in place many companies either request real-time updates or alternatively regular staged updates. Important considerations when integrating web sites with legacy systems should include data link speeds and the security of the links. A key benefit of achieving parity with back office systems is that web customers are able to view and repeat orders regardless of whether they were placed online or offline.