While the business-to-consumer (B2C) eCommerce boom has arguably already occurred, the global pandemic is introducing a second wave of digital commerce adoption. Thanks to social distancing and stay-at-home requirements, foot traffic at brick-and-mortar stores remains slumped, leaving businesses to embrace the eCommerce model like never before.
But this isn’t a trend reserved for the B2C space anymore. Indeed, business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce is a thriving market that, today, is growing even more quickly as a result of the coronavirus crisis. Estimates from from Frost & Sullivan earlier this year forecast the B2B eCommerce market to hit more than $6.6 trillion worth of sales — significantly more than the estimated $3.2 trillion generated in the business-to-consumer market.
Yet the shift from manual procurement workflows that occur on paper and over the phone, to the digital ecosystem, is not always an easy one to make.
According to Björn Widerström, co-founder and CEO of new B2B eCommerce technology firm Briqpay, the friction points can be spotted from the very beginning of the purchasing process, through to checkout.
“One size doesn’t fit all in B2B sales,” he recently told PYMNTS, pointing to the challenges of manual customer onboarding and account creation, as well as the pain points of checkout.
Unlike the world of B2C, business customers must be vetted before they can properly transact with their vendors on a digital platform. Sellers need to not only be sure that a potential buyer is authorized to make purchases on behalf of their organization, but also must conduct checks to determine eligibility for credit and payment terms.
There is also a slew of manual work typically linked to other processes including administrative tasks like invoicing and reconciliation. With so many workflows involved, there are plenty of opportunities for the customer experience to go awry.
Tailoring For Unique Needs
Not only do B2B sellers have to embrace automation to streamline these workflows, but, as Widerström noted, they must also tailor to the specific needs of buyers depending on their vertical and other unique characteristics. Payments are one example of a customer-facing process that must be flexible enough to meet the needs of a variety of buyers.
“To create a good customer experience, merchants need to adjust their checkout experience to match the specific needs and requests of that market,” he said. “That could, for example, be to offer local payment methods to give the customer the option to pay with their preferred method.”
Offering a tailored payment experience is even more critical for B2B merchants selling across borders. Not only do sellers need to support local payment methods, but they must also adhere to local tax requirements.
This is just one of the challenges Briqpay aims to address. The company, which formally launched last week, also secured seed funding led by Keith Richman’s fund 31 Atlantic, while other investors also participated. Widerström told PYMNTS that the company automates a range of workflows, from collecting customer addresses to credit checks, while integrating with a range of payment methods to ensure sellers can flex to meet their buyers’ needs – then aggregating settlements into a single report for the seller.
Offering customers payment options is vital in today’s market as demands for a consumer-like user experience grow. What’s important to remember, noted Widerström, is that the corporate buyers on a B2B eCommerce platform are also more than likely making purchases as individual consumers. In order for a B2B merchant to be successful in such a competitive market, suppliers must go beyond offering a digital-first experience.
“A vast majority of the buyers for companies are millennials, who come with demands on not just digitalization, but also personalization,” he said.
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