Setting an agenda to your e-commerce business

Setting an agenda to your
e-commerce business
A primer to help you take your first steps
towards your online store

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Table of Content
E-commerce for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
Three initial steps to ride the B2B e-commerce wave
Making your B2B e-commerce customer feel at home
E-catalog software – Opting for the foremost choice

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E-commerce for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are incubators for the growth
of innovation and of employment. They not only play an important
role in the United States where they account for 99% of all business
establishments, and have generated 9.8 Million jobs between 1993 and
2009, but also contribute a chunk of profit to the global economy. In spite
of this, SMEs face umpteen challenges like non-availability of suitable
technologies, small production capacities, non-availability of skilled
labour at affordable costs, and inability to compete with the marketing
muscle of larger organizations.
On the other hand, SMEs are the biggest beneficiaries in the following
ways:
• They now have opportunities to overcome geographical barriers.
ability to reach new markets, improved after-sales service capabilities,
reduction in communication costs, and improved lead time and sales,
have only nurtured this confidence.
A recent research report states that ‘the potential to grow international
transactions as an additional revenue stream is driving SMEs to extend
or upgrade their e-commerce services to enable easier cross-border
transactions.’ As a note, although e-commerce is turning effective for
SMEs, it may not be a blanket solution for all SMEs.
Now, to determine whether or not an SME is ready to initiate e-commerce,
there are few criteria that need to be considered under strict priority, as
these may not be applicable to all.
• Wherever they can eliminate middlemen, they can cash in on reduced
business costs and incremental profit margins.
• They are able to create added value by producing innovative products
and flexibly adapting to new markets and products.
Businesses are now adopting e-commerce due to citeable reasons such
as increasing levels of competition, incessant pressure from partners/
suppliers, etc. There seems to be an observed growth in adopting this
mode of trade which is reflected by an increase in SME confidence
with regards to e-commerce benefits. New age adoption drivers such
as direct/ indirect marketing, strategic relationship building ventures,

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Internal Criteria
Financial resources
Organizational culture
Skilled IT personnel
Appetite for risk
Management support
Organization related:
• Business model
• Impact on the operations
• Integration with enterprise systems
• Key performance metrics
• Change management initiatives
Technology related:
• Solutions available in the market and their assessment parameters
• Procedure for handling payments
• Privacy and security features
Legal related:
• Contracts (new or revised) with various parties in the ecosystem
• Rules and regulations applicable
External Criteria
Infrastructure for conducting business
Government policies and incentives
The next step is to choose the appropriate e-commerce solution.
Businesses need to look into the following:
• The solution should be sophisticated enough to monitor customer
activity on the site and take action based on the customer behaviour.
• The solution should be technically and architecturally sound so as to
provide the business managers with tools such as categorization of
products, development of promotions and campaigns, targeted email
campaigns etc.
• The product catalogue should be able to handle different kinds of
products as well the peaks and troughs in demand.
• The solution should be strong and flexible in order to integrate
seamlessly with other enterprise systems in order to deliver a dynamic
buying experience.
• The site should not only be able to capture historical and behavioural
data but also support a compelling and personal search experience.
Considering that many SMEs will not have an in-house capacity to
coordinate e-commerce projects, they would do well to look for a trusted
partner who can expertly guide them through key imperatives for the
organization and external criteria while investing in an e-commerce
platform.

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Three initial steps to ride the B2B e-commerce wave
With much of the action in the e-commerce space happening in the B2C
area, little attention is paid to how B2B e-commerce has fared and what
is the next big thing in this segment?
In the past couple of years, analysts have predicted tremendous growth
in B2B e-commerce and the sector did perform well. A survey last year
revealed about 57% of the business buyers purchased goods online
and about half of them spent over $5000 for their purchase. According
to Forrester, the B2B market size is estimated to be $599 billion in 2013.
And with more business buyers willing to spend more for their online
purchases, it is poised to grow in line with expectations. In fact, if the
strategies of B2B vendors are aligned with the trend, it may even exceed
the estimate.
Though the market size of B2B is almost double that of the B2C
space, it is not mature. There are a few big name entrants in the B2B
e-commerce space such as Amazon with their “Amazon Supply” and
Google with their “Shopping for Suppliers” who draw their expertise from
their successful B2C e-commerce implementations.
So how can your business compete in this space? Here are three ways
to ensure your B2B e-commerce initiative is on the right path:
• Multichannel and Mobile
Enable your online content across various devices and platforms.
Some of the examples are mobile, tablets and computers spread
across operating platforms like Windows, Apple or Android etc. This
will improve availability to your customers and they will be more likely
to spend on your online platform.
This multichannel enablement must not just stop with your customers
and your e-commerce platform, but should be extended to your field
personnel as well, so that their mobility is ensured and the data
available to them at real-time.
• Self care
Reduce the phone calls by providing online self-help for your
customers. You should also enable chat, email or call back options so
that they can communicate with your sales and service teams in case
of difficulties while ordering.
This over time will improve your customer’s experience and will also
enable them to be familiar with your online portal.

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• B2B Merchandising tactics:
The B2C segment is more mature in providing personalization and
offers to attract customers. Provide product recommendations based
on customer’s buying patterns, search and viewing history. Keep
your content clean and categorized so that products can be grouped.
Sometimes, even unrelated products can be grouped based on the
order trends you notice on your system.
Providing bundled deals to your customer will also improve your
engagement with them as well as revenues through cross and upselling.
While all these may entail technology and data driven initiatives in
your business which can sometimes be off-putting, the rewards are
enticing enough to invest time and money in these initiatives.
Some of the other steps you can take for your e-commerce store front
are explained in our whitepapers ZMOT and Omni channel.

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Making your B2B e-commerce customer feel at home
B2B E-commerce Must-haves: Improve the Customer Experience
B2B e-commerce is the buzz today, but not every vendor knows what
he’s doing. While some vendors have adapted their stores to the modern
B2B customer, however, there are others who remain woefully behind.
The following are some of the key pointers to make sure that your store
is all that it can and should be:
Personalized
B2B e-commerce stores need to be highly personalized for each
customer. Here are some ways personalization can be brought in:
• Pricing and contracts
Make your online pricing and contract customizable, just as you would
when dealing with physical B2B customers.
• User groups
Let organization create user groups so that their entire purchases
department can have access to their specific needs.
• Engage
Interact with the customers through social media or your own forum.
Make it simple for them to reach you.
• Purchase support
Let customers interact with your sales staff, just as they would at your
physical location. Make your sales representatives available through
live chat.
• Payment options
Your customers can come in any size, a small run-from-a-garage startup
or a global conglomerate, make sure you have payment options
that suit all of them.

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Intuitive
In making an e-commerce site intuitive, a vendor makes it simple for a
customer do what they need to. Here’s what should be done:
• Call-to-action
When the customers are on the website, the call to action buttons
should catch their action. They should know they can find similar
products, compare, add-to-cart, and purchase at the click of a button.
• Interaction
Interaction buttons are those that either help the customer contact
you or the supplier of the product (if you’re the distributor), and get
their queries answered. There should be a contact supplier button for
every product, and a button to contact you, the vendor on every page.
Easy
B2B customers are people in organizations doing their jobs, and as the
person who wants to do business with them, it becomes your job to
make it easy for them to work with you. The easier you make it for them
to do their job, the more they’ll love working with you:
• Search
When a customer starts searching for a product, your auto-complete
feature should save them the effort of typing things out. When they
type in the name of a product, you need to start selling with the search
results – provide images/listing of variations, types, same-brand
products, similar products, and related products. Of course don’t flood
their search results either, strike a balance between at least three of
these elements.
• Tools
Provide the customer with tools to make their product searches easy.
Tools include comparison features and filters. Remember that your
customers have almostas much technical knowledge of the product
as the manufacturer, so give them many more filters to work with.
• Navigation
Your customer wants to search, find, evaluate and order as soon
as possible, so make it easy for them to move around. Make your
website’s user interface simple and clean, and let customers move
from category to information to comparisons seamlessly. Try to follow
the three-level site architecture rule, i.e., no more than three clicks to
reach anywhere on the site.
• Product visualizations
With organizations wishing to look up to date with the latest trends in
both technology and design, there will be customers who will value
the aesthetic appeal of a product on par with its functionality. Give the
customers plenty of product pictures to work with, and have at least
one video for each product.
Innovation is still the name of the game, at least partly, so think like
your customer would and you could come up with your own ideas to
improve your customer’s experience. Make your B2B store as easy to
love as a B2C store.

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E-catalog software – Opting for the foremost choice
As a shopper, turning over printed catalogs is tiring and cumbersome,
isn’t it? But then, technology ensures that we don’t have to anymore with
online catalogs. E-cataloging is revolutionizing the e-commerce sphere;
with organizations universally incorporating e-catalogs as part of their
selling and marketing strategies.
But again, with a heap of options available on the e-catalog software
front, companies must be able to pick and choose the most optimal
fit. How does one do that? Here are some points to ponder when
contemplating an e-catalog solution:
• Of course, it must be easy to implement and easy to use and supple
and resourceful enough to help customers find products quicker and
in real-time and able to channelize customers to marketers, adding
value to both sects in doing so.
• Shoppers must be able to download product brochures and specification
sheets from web links and have access to detailed information pages
on items. They must be able to control the number of items that they
see in one view to avoid clutter and segregate products by best match
and price differentiators.
• Options must be there to put items in a shopping cart for future
references, have access to a recently viewed toolbar, make filtered
searches with product drill downs and access to the closest marketer
in the vicinity.
• Sales and marketing should be supported with website branding with
images, colors and descriptions, incorporated price descriptions,
detailed information pages on items and product brochures and
specification sheets.

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• There must be seamless integration with ERP, MRP, CRM and SCM
applications, security from encroachment and theft, data enrichment
and cleansing options to erase obsolete data, and a supplier portal to
have a real-time picture on the suppliers.
• Ultimately, it must embrace web-enabled and cost-effective
deployment technologies like the Cloud for ubiquitous presence due
to the increasing mobility of customers.
If this checklist has all ticks marked in the right hand column, do not
hesitate, buy immediately!

About Unilog
Unilog is a global technology and services company that specializes in Big Data Analytics and Product Data Management for e-commerce.
Headquartered in Bangalore, Unilog is an ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 8000 certified company that employs over 300 people in its local offices at
Mysore and Philadelphia. Unilog’s comprehensive, end-to-end data management services cater to the requirements of leading brands across
industry verticals including Retail, Telecom, IT, Manufacturing, MRO and Electrical & Electronics among others.
For more information, visit us at www.unilogcorp.com
Contact Us
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Tel: +1-412-663-0083