10 Steps to Launch Your Online B2B Business with BigCommerce

Launching a successful online B2B business requires a strategic approach and the right tools. 

In this blog, “10 Steps to Launch Your Online B2B Business with BigCommerce,” we will guide you through the essential phases of establishing your digital storefront. 

BigCommerce offers a robust platform tailored for B2B needs, providing features that enhance user experience and streamline operations.

From selecting the right ecommerce solution to optimizing your marketing strategies, each step in this guide equips you with actionable insights. 

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or new to the B2B landscape, these steps will help you navigate the complexities of online commerce and position your business for growth. 

Read Also: BigCommerce B2B Trends & Roadmaps: An Expert Interview with Lance Owide

Let’s dive in and explore how to effectively leverage BigCommerce to launch your B2B venture.

Align Business Vision with E-commerce Goals

Every successful business operates with a strong vision, knowing where it wants to be and planning to get there. 

How does a business align its vision with e-commerce goals? It divides its planning in two ways:

Having Clear Objectives 

The business must prioritize three key areas:

• Making procurement processes more efficient and replacing manual tasks with automation.
• Expanding the customer base and sales volume, prepping the store whenever it inevitably scales.
• Offering a personalized and intuitive shopping experience for B2B buyers that is dealt with differently than B2C or D2C stores.

Knowing Your Target Audience 

Identifying the target audience is a three-step process:

• Segment the buyers based on company size, industry, and past purchasing behavior.
• Effective persona development by creating detailed profiles of the ideal B2B customer 
• Conducting pain point analysis to understand the target audience’s challenges and how your product offering helps them.

Pick The Right BigCommerce Solution For Your Needs

Brands have various BigCommerce plans, each targeting a different customer base. B2B businesses pick the right BigCommerce plan based on a few essential findings.

Proper Plan Evaluation

The first step involves evaluating BigCommerce plans based on business-specific needs such as store performance, features, and pricing. 

Forecast what bandwidth and storage you need and weigh them against the product limits that come with each plan. 

Look into which plan offers a custom storefront, advanced reporting, API access, and other features. 

Pricing is the final piece of the puzzle, and here are BigCommerce pricing plans:

Including Essential BigCommerce B2B Features

Three important BigCommerce features include:

• Custom Pricing includes tiered pricing, volume discounts, and negotiated pricing.
• Creating and managing customer accounts with specific permissions and pricing.
• Letting customers submit purchase orders for streamlined processing.

Creating A Strong Product Strategy

Simply having a great product isnt enough; it must be displayed and organized correctly to make it accessible to the target customer.

A robust product strategy relies on product catalog organization and accurate product data.

Catalog Organization

The product catalog must be structured and organized logically with clear categories and subcategories. 

Every product listing needs detailed descriptions, specifications, and relevant technical data information. 

Combine this with high-quality media (images and videos) that properly showcase the products. Using clear photos helps the customer decide whether or not the product is the right fit for them/

Accurate Product Data

The three main aspects of product data accuracy include:

• Consistent and accurate product information across all channels.
• Using rich content such as detailed product descriptions, technical specifications, and case studies.
• Using the latest SEO optimization practices to optimize product titles, descriptions, and meta tags for search engines.

Building A Customer-Centric Online Storefront 

Any business that prioritizes the customer and tries to deliver the best value to them will be successful because it is taking care of its most important pillar.

A customer-centric online storefront accounts for what customers will enjoy the most and find easiest to navigate. 

The two components of a customer-centric online storefront include:

• Picking a theme appropriately emulates a brand’s identity and delivers a solid user experience. 
• Proper customizations include branding (logo, color, fonts), a clear and intuitive layout, and mobile optimization. 

Thorough research into high-performing stores in your niche and customer feedback helps businesses build their customer-centric online storefront. 

Every business must prioritize what the customer wants to improve its chances of getting the best results.

Incorporate Essential B2B Features 

Business-to-business e-commerce stores operate differently than D2C or B2C online businesses and require unique features to succeed.

The most essential B2B features include the following:

• Creating various customer groups using tailored pricing plans and permissions 
• Using tiered pricing to offer discounts based on large orders or customer tier
• Offering customers bulk discounts to incentivize larger orders 
• Incorporating ERP, CRM, and accounting integrations ensures the store has the necessary tools to run.

Modern e-commerce has access to various essential features and integrations that offer businesses everything they need.

Incorporating the right B2B features helps e-commerce stores sell a great product or service to their clientele and scale their business. 

Make Navigation Easier For Buyers

Every e-commerce store needs smooth and straightforward navigation features to ensure customers don’t have to sift through long, confusing menus to find what they need.

Optimizing store navigation is seen in three different areas, including the following:

• Advanced search that uses autocomplete and filters to make recommendations more specific.
• Add a quick reorder feature that helps customers reorder previous purchases and save precious time.
• Optimizing the store for mobile usage to capitalize on millions of on-the-go buyers who purchase items on mobile devices. 

Implement Payments and Logistics Tailored To B2B

B2B e-commerce payments and logistics are a no-compromise area that needs to run effortlessly. 

Here’s how a B2B e-commerce business can configure payments and logistics and make purchasing more straightforward.

Two essential focus areas must be improved for B2B e-commerce businesses to easily convert customers.

Payment Options:

• Use purchase orders as a payment method.
• Offer flexible payment terms, such as net 30 or net 60.
• Generate quick and professional invoices and track payments.

Shipping and Logistics:

• Offer volume-based discounts on shipping rates for bulk orders.
• Priority Shipping for urgent orders.
• Real-time shipping rates are calculated based on carrier rates.

Use BigCommerce Marketing Tools

BigCommerce stores come with various marketing tools that are right out of the box and help B2B businesses get the right eyes on their business. 

If you want to use BigCommerce marketing tools, here’s how to make it happen:

• Use email marketing to send personalized offers and promotions and benefit from targeted marketing.
• Implement a content marketing strategy to create valuable content, such as blog posts, whitepapers, and case studies.
• Use the latest SEO practices to optimize your website for search engines to attract organic traffic.
• Use social media marketing to build brand awareness and engage with your audience.

Run Pre-Launch Testing and Fix Potential Hiccups

Once everything is designed and developed, it must be tested before the store goes live. 

A pre-launch test helps find potential issues before the store is accessible to the general public, allowing store owners to iron them out before launch.

The four pre-launch tests include the following:

• Functional testing to test all features, including checkout, search, and product pages.
• Performance Testing to ensure your site loads quickly and performs efficiently.
• Security testing to protect the site and customer data with robust security measures.
• User testing by gathering feedback from real users to identify areas for improvement.

Track Changes and Improve Where Necessary 

BigCommerce stores come loaded with various essential features that improve B2B e-commerce.

However, these stores are not invincible and require oversight to operate correctly. 

E-commerce businesses need to track store performance and use the insights to determine where the store excels or needs improvement. 

These are the different ways to track BigCommerce store performance: 

• Using BigCommerce’s built-in analytics to monitor key metrics, such as traffic, conversions, and average order value.
• Gather feedback from customers to identify opportunities for improvement.
• A/B Testing with different website elements to optimize conversions.
• Continuous optimization to update and improve your B2B storefront to stay ahead of the competition.

Conclusion