10 IDEAS FOR B2B MARKETPLACE
8 min
Dec 18 2020
Evgeniy BBusiness analyst
Danil LWeb Developer
The Internet is full of ideas for a rapidly growing B2B business. However, these ideas are often similar and promote the tools and marketing solutions, which are already used in the B2B Marketplace.
Our article describes unique ideas and reveals possible updates for already working features in B2B applications. Many of them can provide a B2B application with an individual offer for customers to come and stay on the site.
Table of contents
1. FULL ACCOUNTABILITY AND DISCRETION
B2B sellers need to understand their performance across multiple criteria. Collecting and analyzing data from the platform is an additional source of income for many B2B applications. However, these applications often provide information on customer behavior in the application, general industry trends, and a modest sales report.
The more detailed and better the report for a B2B seller is, the more confident he feels in the application.
Get complete reporting by integrating not only AI into your application to collect personalized customer data but also:
- Integrate with accounting and logistics programs;
- Provide sellers with access to free price changes for their products;
- Integrate the "warehouse" system, reflecting not only the remaining stocks but also what goods customers buy more or less often;
- Ensure transparency of operations with money and document flow.
2. ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
Many of the actions listed in the first paragraph are feasible with the integration of electronic documents. Such a function will speed up a B2B seller process and make it protected from fraud. After all, if both parties interacted within the application, all documents will be visible and quickly understand the question: “who is right, who is wrong” in case of problems. Especially the new wave of entrepreneurs will be glad to see:
- Electronic invoices;
- Electronic supply contracts;
- Electronic checks (it has been used for a long time);
- Automatically generated accounting notes;
- Logistic reports;
- Statistics of changes in income and other indicators for the month/half-year/year.
If you think about it, you can transfer many more reporting documents into electronic document flow. You can create templates or integrate the capabilities of Google Docs to maintain and correctly fill them. This will ensure the speed and reduce the time spent in the app for a B2B seller.
3. FACILITATION OF REPEATED GOODS ORDERING
Faced with a suitable provider, a B2B customer wants to work with him again.
Let this process happen easier with the following tools:
- The ability to increase the number of goods directly in the consumer's basket
- Add a seller or a product to the “favorites” section and report changes in its price and quantity, when the product is available for purchase again, change the description in the partner's profile, etc.
- A system for storing your payment data. It allows you to quickly set up purchases and not enter the same data every time.
4. MINI OFFICE INSIDE THE APPLICATION
There is often a team of people behind B2B customers. Suppose you enable a B2B account to create additional profiles and a chat in your profile. In that case, your team takes the necessary statistics for analysis at any time or helps the seller with emerging tasks.
A mini-office provides such a function. In the working chat, the manager can set tasks; each worker can take statistics and continuously communicate with clients.
If this idea seems attractive to you, immediately think about security. For example, the main merchant account can restrict some actions of other accounts created on its basis. This will allow you not to be afraid of information leakage and maintain the company’s hierarchy with B2B application.
5. BUSINESS PLAN
Business development is important. Many entrepreneurs often worry about the future. To avoid this problem, you can integrate a program into the application that automatically writes a business plan. Uploading a report from the app to this system, a B2B seller can understand in detail the trend of his business and find ideas for improving efficiency.
The development of such a function would be expensive. However, there is a way out - cooperation with existing companies that support programs for writing a business plan. For both you and your partner, it can become an additional income and a distinctive feature.
6. SAFETY
B2B sellers must be confident in the application’s security to feel comfortable with electronic document management, business plan writing, and other functions that require the use of corporate data.
It is worth working out the levels of accessibility to information within the account and several methods for determining the user. The topic of security for many applications raises some problems. Every year there is an update from hacker attacks. Perhaps technology can provide a better security system. We are talking about such technological solutions as:
- Facial biometrics;
- Electronic signature;
- Voice confirmation.
And many other security technology solutions. However, for all of these technologies to work, the application needs to maintain the service. Otherwise, the load will cause many bugs. So, the B2B Marketplace must be in constant development and consolidation.
7. MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR A PRODUCT DEMONSTRATION
For B2B sellers, like B2C sellers, it is essential to show their product in the best possible way. In addition to photos, videos, and reviews that demonstrate the product’s design and quality, you can integrate augmented reality (AR) technology.
This feature allows B2B buyers to see the product from all angles, try it on an existing location, and create a positive impression. After all, the more detailed and more a client can learn about a product, the higher the possibility of purchasing.
Also, don't forget about 3D technologies. Using this technology allows you to "twist" the product from all sides inside the application. It excludes the possibility of seeing how the product will look indoors, but it also gives the user a sense of the forethoughtful site.
8. B2B SELLERS COLLABORATION
Increasingly, one can notice a tendency that the consumer wants to order a product and immediately buy all additional materials. Two sellers who produce different products usually used with each other (for example, a phone and a case, a printer and paper, flour and a baking dish, etc.) can combine such products into one set. Thus, by paying the full amount for the set, the buyer distributes the profit among the sellers. It allows you to increase sales efficiency and is already used in the B2C trading system.
If we consider this idea globally, we can offer sellers from one location (or nearby territories) to use one logistics center to store, sort, and send goods. This allows sending such goods in sets together, providing comfort to the buyer and taking the B2B business’s logistics load.
9. MORE FEATURES FOR LANDING PAGES
The landing page in B2B market calls buyers to action. Its design and appearance are extremely important.
To customize the landing page in the best way possible, B2B providers need to be proficient with a wide range of tools.
Modern sites and applications use such tools for landing page design:
- Video;
- Animation.
These tools help your B2B seller brand stand out from the competition and make your landing page more exciting and memorable.
- The video helps you better tell about the company and establish branding;
- The animation gives an interesting interaction.
Before using this toolkit, you need to understand that the design must be done. The animation on a platform similar in design to sites from the early 2010s is a strange phenomenon.
10. EDUCATION
Many B2B customers may be afraid to move their work to an app because they don't understand how it works, and people are afraid of the uncertainty.
The training feature turns on at the user’s request helps to solve this problem and shows how to interact with the application. This function is used by social networks so that new users quickly understand the mechanics and start working with their network.
Studies have shown that people find it tedious to read instructions for use, which are often written in technical language. However, if you take advantage of the experience of the social network, the appeal of your B2B Marketplace will increase.
So far, you can also read the more comprehensive and complete article on how to find a loyal and competent development team in the article: All You Need to Know to Hire Dedicated Web Developers
All these ideas can provide your B2B Marketplace with competitiveness and customer base growth. Don't be intimidated by the volume of the technology stack you will have to apply. After all, the face of the company and the convenience of customers will provide your B2B Marketplace with an excellent reputation and new sources of income.
LET'S DISCUSS YOUR IDEA
Exceed Team hopes to give confidence to many entrepreneurs and people who don't understand where the modern sales market is moving. If you have an idea of how to make your app unique and distinctive, which will help your brand to express itself – write to us.
Popular articles
GOT AN IDEA? LET'S DISCUSS!
Share your project’s scope, time scales, technical requirements, business challenges, and other details you consider necessary. Our team will study them and contact you soon.
Let’s make an exciting product together!
