Shopware – we are partners!

Shopware was developed more than 20 years ago in Germany and is a proven technology that today drives over 100,000 efficiently operating online shops.

Shopware 6 implementations are characterized by clear development and maintenance costs. The license price is a one-time fee, regardless of the turnover and the number of products in the store. On the other hand, modern solutions and well-known popular technologies (e.g. PHP Symfony framework, Vue.js, etc.) make Shopware highly valued by developers working with it. This significantly shortens the implementation time and considerably reduces the financial outlay.

The implementation of Shopware offers measurable benefits

The same applies to the ongoing maintenance and administration of the eCommerce system. Shopware has an intuitive interface that simplifies the daily management of products and sales processes. It saves time and effort.

On a par with the popular platform – Magento 2, Shopware is open-source software. It gives a global community of developers access to the platform’s source code, which ensures the constant and rapid development of the system. It also allows individual functions to be tailored to the needs of a specific implementation.

Every business is different – Shopware lets you implement these differences into your eCommerce. Online environment will reflect the nature and management style of your organization’s processes. Also, open code gives you the flexibility you need to stay ahead of trends and the demands of a changing market.

Shopware 6 also includes over 3,500 applications, templates, and interfaces available in Shopware Store. It offers standard interfaces for the most popular payment providers (including PayPal, Klarna, credit cards, etc.) and interfaces for popular systems such as ERP, PIM, newsletters, marketplaces, etc. All controlled through an intuitive manager that allows for simple management, installation and updating of extensions. The platform also has technical support available for the teams working with it.

The Shopware 6 functionalities meet all the needs of your customers and your business

The core functions of Shopware 6 include customer and order management mechanisms, including the possibility of individual price configurations (i.e. rule-based price lists based on specific customer characteristics). The system offers multichannel features and special B2B features are available in the Enterprise Edition. SEO options and optimization for mobile-first indexing are already integrated as standard. All this is held together by comprehensive analysis and statistical tools.

Omnichannel

The platform allows you to conveniently manage sales across multiple channels. A single CMS gives you the ability to unify the customer experience regardless of where they are: whether it be your online shop (stationary or mobile), marketplace, POS, or any other space where the customer is looking for your products. Multi-channel support allows us to adjust content, languages and payment methods to each channel individually.

API-first and headless solutions

Scaling and flexible adaptation to the tools preferred by customers and users is the strength of eCommerce solutions, which are to deliver stable and long-term benefits. Implementation of this eCommerce platform results in a limitless number and type of front-ends used in our sales system. Building eCommerce based on Shopware 6 technology, we can address our customers’ needs, freely adjusting the design, language and communication depending on the target group and channel of reaching.

Customers are different, but we always maintain full and easy control over the experience in our online store environment.

The multi-channel service is also supported by the available PWA (Progressive Web App) solutions. The PWA works like an app, with following benefits: sending notifications, functioning without an Internet connection, creating an icon on desktop, constantly accompanying the customer, as well as increasing security and speeding up the service.

Implementation of the B2B eCommerce platform based on Shopware 6

Extensive B2B functions allow you to replicate the specifics of even the most complex business models in organizations focusing on B2B relationships. Creating an offer tailored to the specific B2B customer greatly accelerates the ordering process. Shopware 6 for B2B means:

• flexible management of offers adapted to a specific customer
• convenient management of roles and permissions to reproduce the decision-making process on the customer’s side
• Sales representatives: due to the fact that the B2B market is based on relations with customers, the system includes functionalities that allow quick customer service by the sales representative “in the field” and convenient contact between the customer and his account manager in the eCommerce platform environment.

Take advantage of a comprehensive service for the implementation of Shopware 6

The long-standing presence in the market and the open-source model give the Shopware platform excellent flexibility in adapting to business needs. The key to success is the experienced team responsible for the implementation. As a Shopware partner, we have the competence and many years of experience in implementing eCommerce systems.

As a Shopware Business Partner, our team is familiar with the specifics of the Shopware tool.

With over 10 years of experience in developing successful eCommerce solutions, we can guarantee the highest level of implementation – feel free to contact us!

Key features of B2B eCommerce platforms | What to look for in eCommerce software?

According to recent projections, eCommerce sales are to grow by over 14% only in the United States in 2022, reaching nearly $1.8 trillion. Retail sales are also projected to grow with an astonishing 16% rise in sales, crossing $1 trillion for the first time ever. If you’re running a B2B model company, now is the best time to make the switch from traditional commerce to B2B eCommerce.

To ensure a smooth and profitable transition, it’s extremely important to use an efficient B2B eCommerce platform to host your business. Technology is developing at an alarming rate – make sure you choose software that won’t become obsolete in a year, with proper functionality in place that guarantees scaling.

What exactly to look for in a B2B eCommerce system? There are so many variables it can get dizzying trying to keep up!

We’ve prepared this easy-to-read guide to the key features of B2B eCommerce platforms to help you get a better understanding of how such software works and what you should expect of it. Let’s delve in!

Key concepts of B2B eCommerce

How to work with business clients online? Before we begin our search for the most effective B2B eCommerce software, we need to first explore the subject of B2B eCommerce in itself. If you’re not yet familiar with online B2B commerce, here are some of the most important characteristics:

1. Prevalence of large-scale orders
   One of the most important features of B2B eCommerce, and B2B business models in general, is the so-called AOV – Average Order Value. In contrast to B2C, B2B clients tend to order a much larger volume of your product. Instead of selling one or two products to each client, B2B businesses often sell hundreds, if not thousands, of products to their buyers. On the other hand, B2B eCommerce features much fewer buyers than B2C, on average.
   
   
2. Building a relationship with your client
   Since you’ll be dealing with much fewer clients than a B2C eCommerce company would, you’re going to have to keep them returning somehow – building a good relationship between your company and your clients is a very significant aspect of B2B commerce. Keep in mind that more than one person may be involved in each purchase, and you want good relations with the brand – not only the representative.
   
   
3. Different purchasing methods to B2C
   The purchasing process is much more complex in B2B eCommerce than in B2C. Evaluation and negotiation are crucial parts of almost every B2B transaction, where in B2C they are virtually nonexistent. Remember that your customers won’t be mindless buyers, and you need to really show them why your business is the most optimal solution to their problems. There’s also a good chance they’ll be making repeat purchases regularly, making it worth it to keep each and every customer.
   
   
4. Cost-saving is often the utmost priority
   When working in the B2B sector, your clients are operating on a set budget – a budget that needs to be managed appropriately to limit excess spending. If you want to make it as a B2B eCommerce company, you need to offer your clients a better deal than your competitors. Keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean that your price needs to be directly lower, but instead that what you offer needs to match that price.
   

Now that we know a little about the main features of B2B eCommerce, let’s move onto the key characteristics of B2B eCommerce software that you need to be on the lookout for:

The main elements of B2B eCommerce systems: functions that stimulate business growth

When making a switch to eCommerce from traditional commerce, or founding a brand new eCommerce business, the choice of software is extremely important. Most companies decide to go with a ready-made software solution that fits their business needs, as building one from the ground up is a very time-consuming and resource-heavy task.

But what to look for in a B2B eCommerce software? What features will guarantee a smooth transition and allow you to maximize profits?

Here are some basic features that your B2B platform absolutely needs:

1. Restricted access and customer verification
   Security is the basis of B2B eCommerce – your clients want to make sure that their data is kept safe and confidential. They also want to avoid unauthorized access, as should you when running an eCommerce business. Customer verification by ID or other credentials should be necessary to gain access to your system.
   
   
2. Customized pricing plans
   While B2C platforms tend to feature a single price for each of their products or services, B2B systems offer flexible pricing to match the specific client. Depending on the quantity of products bought, as well as other factors, you can set up prices however you wish. Quantity discounts and set prices for specific product groups are the absolute essentials.
   
   
3. Credit management
   Making orders on credit is a common custom in B2B commerce – the same goes for its online equivalent. Some of your clients may want to pay for their order at a later date, but still need to receive the products as early as possible. Credit management allows such customers to receive a line of credit, up to the limit of which they can order products. You have full freedom in setting these limits: the bigger the client, the bigger the limit.
   
   
4. Pricing negotiation
   Depending on their order size and buying frequency, some clients might not feel like paying the full price every single time – and rightly so! The heart of the B2B model is negotiation, which is why a built-in negotiation functionality is key for B2B eCommerce systems.
   
   
5. Logistics management
   Can your client buy a pallet of products that’s only partially full? How many pallets can fit in a truck? Are they stackable or not? These questions are the bread and butter of B2B companies, and a good eCommerce platform for such companies should implement efficient and intuitive logistics management.
   
   
6. Customizable delivery methods
   Depending on the size and needs of your client’s company, they might order a smaller package that can be delivered by courier service – but what if they need an entire truckload of goods? Choosing the appropriate delivery method to each order is crucial for successful management, and it’s important for eCommerce systems to handle that functionality.
   
   
7. Order history
   Business clients want to keep a close eye on every process going on in their companies – including the details of each order, both past and present. By giving your client access to an expansive order history, you’re building their trust and keeping their reservations at bay. It’s also an easy way of tracking inventory for your clients, letting them know when to repeat their order.
   
   
8. Dashboard
   Good B2B eCommerce system won’t waste your time with deeply-hidden statistics and basic functionalities – instead, a proper dashboard will contain all of the most commonly used features, giving you quick access to the latest orders, popular products, saved orders, and so on. Even better – some platforms give you the option to customize your dashboard to make it suit your needs better!

There’s quite a number of these functionalities – and they are only the most basic ones, which should only be natural for every B2B eCommerce system to implement. However, if you’re looking for a business-class experience, choosing a premium platform might be more beneficial.

Unique features that’ll take your B2B eCommerce to the next level!

Apart from the standard features, there’s a variety of extra features that companies implement when creating proprietary B2B eCommerce systems. Some of these features are:

1. A detailed demo
   Many B2B companies who are new to the eCommerce model of doing business are not familiar with the technicalities and how to operate such a complicated system. For them, an introductory demo would be extremely useful, showing them in an approachable way how to operate the software in an effective way.
   
   
2. Order fulfillment checklist
   Managing each order individually can get confusing, especially if you’re dealing with a large number of orders every day. Instead, an order fulfillment checklist can make the whole process easier, giving you digital tools that make the whole process quicker and more fool-proof.
   
   
3. Advanced search engine
   If you want your potential clients to land orders, they need to be able to find the products they want – without the endless searching and trying to somehow find what they’re looking for. An advanced search engine should implement searching not only by product name, but also product code and even its fragments. Whether your client knows what they’re looking for or not, your search engine should help them find it.
   
   
4. Delivery scheduling tools
   Business clients often need a very precise delivery date set up, down to the hour the products are going to arrive. For that, your order needs to be prepared in a timely manner and scheduled for delivery ahead of time. Proper scheduling tools make that a lot easier – and cheaper – to handle.
   
   
5. Private assistant / Panic button!
   In B2B eCommerce, the individual approach is extremely important. Assigning a designated sales rep to each client gives them comfort and easy access to guidance in case of problems or questions. A premium eCommerce platform can implement sales rep contact as part of its functionality, making the whole process streamlined and easy for your clients.
   
   
6. Recommended products / market insights
   With smart predictions based on your client’s search and purchase history, a professional B2B eCommerce system will provide recommended products for each of your clients individually. This gives you easy access to cross-selling, boosting your revenue and satisfying client needs at the same time.
   
   
7. Importing an order from a file
   Considering that B2B sales are often associated with orders for a large number of goods, customers may appreciate the possibility of importing an order from files they work on.
   
   

These – and more – are the features of a well-designed B2B eCommerce platform. When searching for software to use, look for ones with such features in store – here you can find the ones designed by ORBA.

We have over 10 years of experience in the professional design and deployment of complex B2B eCommerce systems. Depending on your business needs, we’ll provide you with a personalized platform that’ll more than do the job –

contact us for more details!

10 ideas to boost your BLACK FRIDAY eCommerce marketing strategy!

Because of the ongoing pandemic, to a large extent, digital shopping is taking over offline sales at an extremely rapid rate. According to studies, eCommerce sales in the United States increased from ~16% to ~20% between 2019 and 2020, compared to an only 1,5% difference between 2018 and 2019.

To make the most out of the Black Friday season and maximize your eCommerce profits, you need a proper plan. Building the right strategy for Black Friday is the key to success, saving you the headache of brainstorming and implementing ideas at the last moment. It is also an exceptional moment to introduce a digital aspect to your brick and mortar store, which is only a small investment compared to the potential increase in sales!

Black Friday eCommerce strategy | Marketing tips

However, how exactly do you prepare a Black Friday eCommerce strategy? What are the best ideas to increase your revenue and help your company grow? To help you answer those questions, we have prepared this guide of the 10 best ideas to build your eCommerce strategy for the Black Friday season!

Step 1: Start with the basics – setting up your platform, advertising, and UX

Let’s start with the fundamentals – if you have no clue what to do to prepare your eCommerce business for the upcoming Black Friday shopping rage, these ideas will be perfect to begin with.

• Consider your business approach when setting up an eCommerce platform

Whether your company specializes in B2B or B2C products/services matters significantly when launching an eCommerce platform. The two types of clients each have their own buying behaviors that need to be considered and often look for distinct features first.

B2B eCommerce platforms might prefer a more streamlined design, while B2C platforms can benefit from visible customer reviews and transparent product highlights.

• Expand your advertising channels

Are you utilizing your social media channels optimally when reaching customers? Going deep with your target research might bring you valuable information on how to better target your Facebook and Instagram ads, so make sure you do it right – or get a team of experienced analysts to do it for you!

You can also think about diversifying your outreach channels – transferring some of your advertising budget into paid advertisements might pay out in the future, as statistics show it is one of the most effective ways of reaching new customers, especially close to Black Friday.

• Perform a thorough UX analysis

Are your customers suddenly leaving your website in the middle of the buying process and you can’t figure out why? It just might be an UX flaw that’s turning your clients away!

Conducting a deep UX analysis will give you valuable insight into how your eCommerce platform performs from the user’s point of view. Taking action appropriate to the results is the key to guaranteeing a smooth user experience and is one of the best eCommerce marketing ideas for you to implement.

Step 2: consider branching out your eCommerce marketing strategy efforts | Remarketing, SEO, and ERPs

Now we’re getting into details – if you haven’t looked at these when devising your eCommerce marketing strategy, it is the best time to do so if you want solid results for Black Friday!

• Try out Remarketing

Returning clients can be just as important as new ones – even more so for B2B businesses! With an ever-increasing saturation of varying client types, clinging on to your customer base is the key to increasing sales. Remarketing is a feature of Google Ads that will allow you to retain more clients after Black Friday ends, in a simple and easy way.

• Search Engine Optimization – boost your visibility

SEO has been proven times and times again to be an effective tool in increasing website outreach, and through this boosting revenue. Google’s algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated with every update, so making sure your SEO features fit in organically with the content is a fool-proof approach to positioning.

• A one-in-all solution to business management with ERPs

Making sure your eCommerce platform works without hicks and allows scalability are the keys to growth. An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is an extensive software, which when properly integrated with your eCommerce platform, gives you an easy way to manage all vital processes of your company using a unified system. Proper ERP integration is crucial to making sure every piece fits together in a perfect harmony.

Step 3: specific tools to use – specialized copy, newsletters, and automation

Here, we want to give you some specific ideas to implement in your eCommerce marketing strategy for Black Friday, which can immediately improve your turnover for the upcoming holidays.

• Publish Black Friday oriented copy

Taking advantage of your content is crucial to reaching out more customers before, during, and after Black Friday. Think about publishing posts, stories, or articles that are relevant to the Black Friday shopping spree – sharing shopping tips and best deals are great ways of reaching out to customers.

• Implement newsletter segmentation

As research shows, it is much more effective to send out personalized newsletters to each segment of your audience, instead of just bombarding them all with the same emails. This way, you’ll be able to meet the specific needs of each customer segment and actually get through to them instead of just annoying them.

• Increase order values with automated rewards

Loyalty rewards are a classic strategy for increasing retention rate and purchase frequency. Giving your customers automatic access to these rewards during checkout has been shown to increase order values – after all, clients prefer such simple solutions to browsing the Internet in search of coupon codes for hours.

Black Friday eCommerce marketing strategy – final thoughts | Always keep experimenting!

The best way of staying ahead of your competition is constant experimentation – never stop developing new ideas and trying them out, as it will give you a wider perspective on which strategies are effective.

Now that you know how to prepare an effective Black Friday eCommerce marketing strategy, nothing is stopping you from maximizing your sales for the holiday season. However, if you need a pair of extra hands to bring your online store to the next level, contact us at ORBA – we help clients with everything eCommerce related, from UX design, eCommerce development and implementation, to service & maintenance!

eCommerce for MANUFACTURERS | Post-COVID challenges and how eCommerce can help

eCommerce for manufacturers | What changed with Covid-19? Well, for a start, steps one and two were made worse due to the presence of technology, social media and fresh uncertainty.

In the past, word of mouth was the prevailing way of sharing news. These days, we can take to the web and learn about things while they are actually happening. As a result, a lot of false news was put out there that took its toll on businesses of all shapes and sizes – especially those that suddenly found themselves unable to let physical customers into their stores.

Worrying Challenges Faced by Manufacturers

Early on, an alarm was sounded and it just so happened to be one that stopped many producers and manufacturers in their tracks. All of a sudden employees couldn’t congregate, which put a halt on production, and this on-again-off-again relationship with Covid has been happening right through to 2021.

To make matters worse, shipping systems began to shut down as restrictions were made on an international level and as a result, consumers couldn’t get what they wanted and products sat in warehouses gathering dust. Many manufacturers began to struggle when attempting to reach retail businesses that had to reduce staff, slow productivity, lower their budget, or even shut down entirely. For entities that had the capability to continue their manufacture, they faced a new issue – the inability to find someone to sell their products to.

Countless manufacturers have found it increasingly difficult to shift their goods and without knowing about the potential of eCommerce, plenty have been forced into closure.

Did You Know…?

eCommerce DTC (Direct to consumer) brings consumers straight to the manufacturer, cutting out the middle man, negating the need for expensive overheads and allowing a producer to thrive online instead of relying on retail stores to buy their goods?

For a solid 6 months in 2020, activities slowed and as you might imagine, this cost a multitude of professional industries billions in losses, with this number still being calculated.

Perhaps the most terrifying notion is that even 18 months later, many countries still don’t know if they will suddenly be locked down, forcing physical stores to close, open and close again.

What Did This Mean for Businesses?

To put it simply, businesses wanting to continue making a profit had to evolve, usually with a dedicated digital transformation strategy to survive. They had to find a way to reach their existing market in a ‘new normal’. This led to many closures between mid-2020 and early 2021 (over 200,000 in the US alone according to data).

But as apocalyptic as this might sound, the reality is that where there is a will, there is a way. As more and more companies had to close their doors for months at a time, a certain percentage of new and existing organizations turned to the one source of provision that even a dreadful virus couldn’t stop – digital transformation via the internet.

According to a survey detailed on unctad.org, 2020 saw one of the biggest rises in the formation of online retail businesses. And this doesn’t appear to be a temporary rise either; in fact, experts have predicted that Covid-19 will change the way that people purchase their goods forever.

For producers and manufacturers of goods, this unsavory situation could go on to become somewhat of a blessing in disguise – especially where eCommerce is concerned.

eCommerce for manufacturers | What Does This Mean in 2021?

Due to the extreme nature of Covid-19 and the rapid way in which it has affected the entire world, a new precedent has been set for online shopping – one that could provide a way forward for internet retailers.
As people step away from their usual method of shopping, i.e. visiting a brick-and-mortar store, they are finding a newer solution. Google searches for online shopping and eCommerce stores are at an all-time high and this trend looks set to continue well beyond 2021.

This spells that eCommerce for manufacturers makes an incredible range of potential for the following types of enterprises:

• Businesses that would like to take advantage of the growing popularity of online sales and develop a new digital branch in their organization
• Existing manufacturers that found themselves struggling to sell their goods during the height of Covid and could benefit from new distribution channels
• Previously active businesses that had physical stores affected by the virus and had to shut down temporarily or permanently
• New companies looking to cash in on the increased interest in online-sales; these may be start-ups, or evolving physical stores fed up with being told when they can and can’t be open

Of the three types of company above, they all share one thing in common: they can be ideal for working within the B2B setting.

With eCommerce solutions also providing tools to help with managing and processing business data, there’s never been a better time for producers and manufacturers to consider dropping the previous need for a sales representative, in favor of opening new distribution channels. Additionally, businesses that sell goods (as well as online retailers), can offer direct-to-consumer solutions (D2C) with minimal fuss when doing so online.

How Can B2B eCommerce Help?

B2B eCommerce works by taking each of these possibilities and tying them together on a B2B eCommerce platform that works seamlessly.

As briefly mentioned above, the potential to take advantage of streamlined solutions and tools for processing business data becomes a possibility as well. This includes options to monitor sales data, overhead costs, expenses and even productivity – all at the click of a button when using an eCommerce solution. With these digital tools at their disposal, businesses at the start of the product chain (manufacturers) can enjoy access to dedicated distribution channels that negate the need for a sales rep, and take their products directly to the customer; minimizing their costs in the process.

This method takes full advantage of a situation that has been destroying businesses due to lack of engagement, by allowing them to co-exist within a digital setting to meet all levels of supply and demand.

eCommerce for manufacturers | Benefiting from eCommerce

According to NetComm Suisse, almost every single product category available online has seen an increase in their demand; including cosmetics, fashion, education and digital entertainment.
Although popular before COVID-19, this fresh drive of consumers is now the biggest market to have ever existed.

Manufacturers:
For those creating products and goods, establishing a presence online can allow a way to reach countless businesses in need of items to sell. There’s genuinely no better way to do so than via an eCommerce platform; all but eliminating the middle-man and enhancing profitability in the process of direct-to-consumer sales (DTC).

Suppliers:
From personal care to clothing; suppliers can locate their ideal manufacturers, source products in bulk (typically at a reduced rate), and then distribute their goods via B2B sales.

Producers:
Ecommerce for manufacturers with options for eCommerce order management, a production company could offer an incredible variety of goods and materials via a website, blog, or even social media page, and then enjoy new distribution channels afforded by eCommerce platforms to take products straight to market (B2C / DTC).

If all of the above wasn’t appealing enough, there’s also the ability to save the cost of overheads by running an eCommerce site instead of a physical store.

eCommerce for manufacturers | Summary

E-commerce (especially DTC / direct to consumer) provides a way for manufacturers, producers and consumers to benefit from one another in a safe, comfortable environment with minimal risk and maximum profitability. Throw in the added benefits that come with eCommerce platforms, including the ability to process vital business data and track sales, eliminate sales representatives (plus their commissions), and more – and you have a very convincing way of conducting business in these uncertain times.

An Accelerated idea for an easy and Accelerated path to selling online through an Accelerated pandemic.

The conversation started along the lines of a request for help. There was surplus inventory, food that is going bad, restaurants were closed, fine dining had all but disappeared. The surplus inventory was sitting in a warehouse, manufacturers were still churning out more and more goods, but no one was buying. It had to go somewhere, and it couldn’t be the trash.

This sounds like the start of a post-apocalyptic novel, but unfortunately it is part of the harsh reality we lived through during the first 6 months of this year. Even as businesses start to reopen and states kick the economy back into high gear, the reality of things, is that we may be faced with the same scenario yet again, likely before the year is over.

The food had to be sent somewhere, someone was likely to buy it, after all, who would want to see a beautiful tuna steak or marbled cheesecake go to waste? Enter the idea – how can perishable gourmet food be connected with those who want to continue experiencing fine dining quality meals at home?

It needed to be sold online, to a different audience than the manufacturers usually sold to.

A B2B bulk sales distributor had to find a way to get smaller quantities of the products to a consumer crowd – and fast. B2B sales done offline now had to be transformed into B2C sales done online.

Halfway across the Atlantic, a similar situation was playing out: local grocery stores which relied heavily on foot traffic were now closed, with tens of thousands of pounds of food which would go to waste within days if they weren’t consumed. Somehow, grocery items had to get to the consumers. People were forced to stay indoors. Surely, there had to be a way to distribute this food to the crowd somehow. Large grocery chains forced to close their doors were being faced with a looming challenge: start selling online or face losing money on wasted goods. The option? Find a way let local consumers place orders online and engage drivers to deliver the goods door to door. Fast.

Back in America, a cleaning supplies shop and small distributor was facing yet another, albeit similar challenge.

Amazon had banned the 3^rd party sale of sanitizing products to prevent price gouging and the brick and mortar location was closed.

Consumers were desperately looking for these products, there was inventory to be distributed to these consumers, but there was no channel for distribution.

Again and again, businesses have faced a similar challenge over the past months, if they wanted to reopen their doors once the health crisis settled, business had to continue one way or another. The need to sell their goods and the consumer’s need to purchase the goods didn’t dissipate through closures, people were, and still are, looking to buy things they need. The shift from brick and mortar to online channels was already gaining traction, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic only sped up the inevitable: Businesses had to get online, start selling online and retain their customer base to prevent future financial damage – and fast.

There was only one small problem: most people were not prepared to pivot to online sales in the blink of an eye and worst yet, it was unlikely they could find a developer who could deploy an online store in less than a few weeks at best.

Sometime between late 2019 and early 2020, before the pandemic was on anyone’s radar, a few people across multiple teams had an idea to start developing some solution which could shave time off custom eCommerce application development, some Accelerator program.

Having mainly worked with Magento as a platform, teams were no strangers to complicated deployment scripts and commands creation.

By design, every new environment required some configuration file creation, some set of commands for data, code, configuration, theme, design, graphics and static content installation. DevOps engineers could spend anywhere from 3-4 days per environment up to 17, yes, 17. For anyone keeping track, that is nearly a full month of work for one environment. Now, if an application had multiple collaborators, multiple testing environments to support multiple stakeholder changes and version stacking, creating any type of automation was not even remotely possible. A normal project on Magento could take a minimum of 3-4 months at best to get to production and quite likely, upwards of $50,000 or more, often times reaching 6-digit figures for MVP was, well, normal.

Enter the crazy idea to bring some time savings to the environment creation.  There was no sponsor, this had to be done internally and internally financed. When everyone is an indispensable resource, finding time for innovation outside of customer projects’ work is never easy. Eventually, little by little, the DevOps engineering team was coming together with some few hours here and there to get a less-than-ready-to-pilot solution.

All of a sudden, it was March 8^th, 2020 and our CEO was visiting our office in the US, planning meetings throughout the week with customers Stateside. On the morning news all that was being said was how Italy was about to close their borders and fear eventually set in, he may not be able to return home to Poland if Europe announced border closures. In less than 7 days half of the many eCommerce stores our company was supporting in Development or Service Level Maintenance lifecycles halted the projects. New businesses were screaming for help, phones off the hooks in the US and Europe.

Was the Accelerator ready? Could it actually be possible to use in a real scenario for a billable project? We were about to find out.

The food distributor with surplus inventory was begging for help. It had to be fast, it had to be cheap and it had to sell. From a Friday call to a Monday Customer agreement signed with a Work Order in place, by Tuesday there was a store which only needed a catalog, images and to connect payment gateways to collect money for good sold.

The grocery store with local delivery was able to collect the first order within 2 weeks including a legal battle to prevent impact to potential competitors. Somehow, miraculously, within a short time, even custom logic for no payment collection and sending messages to drivers for order pickup was developed. And it worked.

A sanitizing products company was able to bypass Amazon’s restrictions. A day to deploy, a few hours to add some images, get a catalog up. Another day for testing. It was done. Less than a week.

The Accelerator worked. It was a solid foundation.

Built on Azure with a containerized setup and deployed through with Docker Image, it was proving to have way more value than saving 17 days off of an environment deployment script. It was a new way of working, it proved that there was a way to help customers not only get online fast but save valuable dollars when it mattered the most.

Remember those 3-4 months? Now it was less than 2 weeks. Those $50,000 to more than $100,000? Now it was less than $20,000 in the worst-case scenario. Business owners had to worry about not letting their employees go and how to make the next payroll, not about paying a steep development bill as part of their Digitization Program. With a global pandemic ravaging every corner of the world with no end in sight, digitization was inevitable. At least it doesn’t have to be as expensive and time consuming as it has been believed to be, and it is no longer only for the big guys. We have to get used to living in our new normal, we don’t know what this will be, but one thing is for sure, eCommerce is here to stay whether business owners are ready for it or not.

If you would like to more about projects such as this – please contact us at [email protected] (no “m” at the end 😊). ORBA has been featured as one of the top Near Shore Development Agencies of 2020, for additional ranking details visit Design Rush’s post here.

B2B E-commerce is much more than order acquisition.

They provide self-service capabilities for customers, allow merchants to execute sales strategy and provide data to understand market needs.

B2B platform self-service modules

Self-service capabilities result in less time used on addressing repetitive requests for information such as: “What is my credit limit?” or “What is the expected delivery time for my last order?”

Limiting these types of interactions generates time savings which can be instead used to run activities related to relationship building and direct sales.

Self-service modules examples:

• New customer registration (may include automated verification of legal entity, cross-checked with existing CRM data etc..)
• Access management
• Order tracking
• Shipping tracking
• Access to account receivables (credit limit vs used limit, payment history, invoices overdue, etc..)
• Contract information (allocated products vs ordered products, discounts, trade terms, logistics terms)
• Dedicated pricelists and discount rules
• Access to documents (invoices, shipping slips, customs etc.)
• Product information (basic product info, detailed product documentation, certificates, high-resolution photos to be used in consumer channel, substitutions, product lifecycle information, etc..)
• Marketing and sales information (ability to order display products, coming soon products, promotion information)
• Claims and support workflow
• Offer generator for customers of the ordering customer (B2B2B model)
• Custom reporting module

In most of our implementations, the B2B platform is also used by Sales Representatives to act on behalf of their customers. The limitation of a number of tools boosts efficiency and allows for a closer interaction with a customer.

B2B e-commerce driving sales

A proper B2B platform can as boost sales thanks to mechanisms like:

• Whitespace customer registration (may include automated verification of legal entity, cross-checked with existing CRM data, etc..)
• Recommendation engines
• Subscription based ordering
• AI powered order maximization engine (maximize order while maintaining the same logistics cost)
• Dynamic promotions based on current stock levels

B2B e-commerce as a data-gathering tool

Not to be under-estimated B2B platform is also a great source of data on customer behavior and needs (for example analysis of search queries can reveal gaps in the offering).  

Summary

A proper B2B platform is much more than an order acquisition tool.  It allows any business to acquire and grow customers from the areas that are not served by any on-ground salesperson.