Module 2

1.1 B2B Channels - Which is the One for You?

B2B Channels - Which is the One for You?

1.2 Objectives

VIDEO SCRIPT:
Welcome to the 2nd module in this course.
In the first module, you learnt that B2B e-commerce is a fast growing market, and that business customers
increasingly want to do business with their suppliers via online channels. You assessed how ready your
business was to embrace B2B e-commerce, and worked out how to actually get it ready to move in that
direction.
According to Google “By 2020, customers will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without
interacting with humans.” This means that, if you hope to continue being successful in your B2B activities, the
reality is that you need to embrace e-commerce.
So, in this module, you’re going to work out how best to build your B2B e-commerce route - also called
“channel,”- to the market. We’re going to take you through the process of capitalizing on all the preparation
you did in module 1, and we’re going to explore the different channels through which you can sell to your
business customers online.
First, we’ll look at selling via your own website, and how to make sure you build the right website for your
business.
Then, we’ll move on to look at the potential of B2B Marketplaces, and how to find the right ones for your
business.
Finally, you’ll learn how to evaluate what the best channel is for your business to sell online - whether it’s your
own website, or a marketplace.
Remember: choosing your channel is the most important decision you are going to make here.
Get it right and you’ll quickly be selling to ever increasing numbers of customers online, get it wrong and
you’ll have invested a lot of time and money into something that will provide you with little or no return.

By the end of this module you will be able to:

• Grasp the different options available to you to open a B2B e-commerce channel;
• Decide which channel is right for your business; and
• Implement a 3-step process to prioritize the channels that your business will use to sell online.

1.3 Should You Build Your Own B2B E-commerce Website?

1.4 Answer the question

Creating your own B2B e-commerce website is the most obvious way to start selling your products online.

However, there are some potential downsides with this approach. You will probably feel these most at the
beginning, since they are mostly related to the difficulties involved in actually launching your site.

First of all, creating a great B2B e-commerce website is a slow way to get started. It usually takes a minimum
of 6 to8 weeks to build the site after you’ve signed all the relevant contracts.

What’s more, you have to pay a fair bit of money to create a good B2B e-commerce website. So you’ll
probably be investing tens of thousands of dollars into it, before any customer can even place their first order.

Finally, even launching your B2B e-commerce website online won’t bring you a single new customer. Until
you invest time and money in marketing the website no one will know it’s there, and if they don’t know it’s
there they can’t use it.

But let’s not get carried away with the negatives. There are actually a lot of good reasons why, despite these
drawbacks, you might want to opt to create your own B2B e-commerce website.

In the textbox, list at least 3 advantages of building your own B2B e-commerce website, particularly when
compared to operating on an online marketplace.

Feedback:

Creating your own B2B e-commerce website has several advantages.

First of all, it puts you in total control of how your online visitors see your business and products. You’re in
charge of the branding, how the information is displayed, and how your customers are treated. Secondly, you
are also in control of the costs, and can scale up or down as your resources shift. Finally, you are in full
control of the design, and can set everything up to perfectly integrate with your existing systems and your
existing team.

1.5 The pros and cons of selling on your own B2B e-commerce website

As we have just seen, selling on your own B2B e-commerce website has a number of pros and cons.

Pros
- Total control of how your visitors see your business and products (branding, information display, etc.)
- Full control of how you treat your customers
- (Mostly) in control of the costs
- Full control of the design
- More easily integrated within your existing systems and your existing team

Cons
- Time consuming (minimum of 6-8 weeks after signing the contracts)
- Expensive (expect to potentially pay tens of thousands of dollars, all told)
- Need to market your website, or no one will see it
1.6 Making your own B2B e-commerce website a reality

In Module 1 we learned that there are different types of B2B e-commerce websites that you can adopt.

The process of actually getting your website off the ground, however, is the same regardless of the type that
you have chosen for our business. It may seem long, but the more time you put in at the start to get your brief
right and choose the correct individual/company to build your website for you, the greater the rewards you will
reap once your website finally goes live, and the simpler things will be during the process as a whole.

The process is as follows:

1: Research
Research to work out exactly what your site needs to do.
What functionality is going to be important for your target customers? How will your site need to integrate with
your existing software systems? How do you want your products to be displayed?

2. Create the brief

Pull everything you’ve identified during the research phase together into a brief to send to your shortlist of
website builders.

3. Decide who to send the tender to

This involves setting up criteria to look for skilled, affordable and dependable programmers or programming
companies to help you build your website. This can be quite an involved process, and we will cover it in more
detail in the next slide.

4. Running the tender process

Be thorough, and make sure you understand everything you need to do in order to run the tender process in
an orderly and effective manner.
5. Signing and kicking off
Once you are absolutely sure that you made the right decision, confirm that all the details in the contract are
accurate (pay special attention to timescales, the process to take the website live, and payment modalities).
Then, sign the contract and get the process started!

6. The build
Once you’ve signed the contract, make sure that your team is ready to manage the website building process
and provide proper oversight. Keep in mind that the individual(s)/company you have hired to build your site
are likely to ask you for a lot of information throughout the process. They will likely ask you to sign off on
various designs, prototypes and website themes, and may also ask you to perform (lots!) of testing! Making
errors or providing improper oversight at this point will cost you a lot further down the line - so make sure to
be thorough. Remember: the earlier you can detect problems with the way the work is progressing, the more
easily you can solve them and avoid unexpected delays and expenses.

7. Putting your new site online

Once you are fully happy with the results, it’s time to bring your website live online. But that’s only the start of
your journey - you now have to get the traffic to it. It’s time to do some marketing!

1.7 Important website functionalities

Building your own website means that you get to decide which functionalities you will offer your
customers. In short, you get to say how your website is going to work. While this offers you a lot of
freedom, it also places important responsibilities on you when it comes to considering what precisely
you will want your website to do.

On the right-hand side are some of the most important website functionalities for B2B enterprises, as
well as the questions that you will need to ask yourself or the person/company building your website
when considering them.
 Use this spreadsheet to help identify the functionality you need.

Pricing & payments

Do you need to offer different prices to different customers? How should you manage these?

Do you offer volume discounts?

What currencies do your customers want to pay in?

What payments do your customers need - cheque, cash on delivery, invoices, purchase orders?

Account management

Do your customers need to be able to access their past orders? How about managing their invoice payments
online?

Do you have products that are unique to a specific customer?

Does a visitor to your site need an account before they can order, or see prices?

Product information

How many photos of each product will you need online?

Should customers be able to download a CAD file, or other technical specifications?

What descriptive information about each product needs to be on the page?

Site navigation

How will your products be allocated to categories? What should the categories be?

Do you need a quick order functionality (useful if customers know their product codes)?

Is on-site search important?

1.8 Choosing the right software, individual and/or organization to build your website

Building your B2B e-commerce website will require two things: you will need to find an appropriate software
on which to base the website, and you will need to hire an individual or organization to help you tailor it and
customize it to your needs.

Finding the right B2B e-commerce software

There is no perfect B2B e-commerce website builder or B2B e-commerce software. Given the fact that each
project is unique, this means that you will have to invest some time in finding the builder/software that best fits
your needs.

There are a few B2B e-commerce specialist providers, such as Oro and Aspidistra. These can provide you
with “out-of-the-box” B2B e-commerce platforms that you can then tailor to your needs.

However, there are far more e-commerce software systems and builders that have a B2B offering alongside
their B2B e-commerce packages. ShopifyPlus, Magento, and WooCommerce are e-commerce software
systems that can all be adapted to work as B2B e-commerce sites.

Finding the right freelancer or agency

You’re almost certainly going to need to hire someone (either a freelancer or an agency) to build your B2B e-
commerce site for you. This means that, in addition to finding the right software, you need to be on the
lookout for somebody dependable with whom you can partner on your B2B e-commerce journey.

A good place to start is to look for agencies/freelancers that have a proven track record of building websites
similar to the one you want to build. By “similar,” we mean:

- Targeting the same customer groups (geographical, industry, etc.)

- Presenting the products in a similar way
- Integrated with similar existing systems
- Providing similar functionality and payment options

Before you send your brief, it would probably be a good idea for you to give any prospective agency or
freelancer a call or e-mail in order to find out more about their capabilities.

Remember: you’ll be working with the company and software you choose for several years, and they are key
to the success of your B2B e-commerce project - so spend the time you need to make the right decision.

1.9 Video

• Magento’s 6 Best Practices for B2B e-commerce Websites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9zihwyh8Hc
1.10 Answer the question

This exercise is not available in the PDF version of this module.

1.11 Should You Sell Via an Online Marketplace?

Should You Sell Via an Online Marketplace?

1.12 Answer the question

Watch the video and answer the question using the text box provided on the right.

In Module 1, we learned that it’s possible to build a B2B e-commerce business without a website. Instead of
creating your own site, this involves selling your products via other people’s websites - channels we call
“marketplaces.”

Now, you’ve probably heard of some of consumer-targeted marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay. But
perhaps you didn’t know that businesses, just like consumers, are now also making their purchases online on
similar marketplaces. In fact, while B2B-specific marketplaces exist today, many of the originally consumer-
focused marketplaces have now expanded their activities to facilitate B2B sales.

The right decision for your business might be to only sell via marketplaces, to never sell via marketplaces and
only use your own website, or to do both.

That said, there are some downsides to using a marketplace. All of them have to do with the fact that you
don’t own the platform on which you are operating. For example, if you operate on a marketplace, you have to
obey its rules, which may be more or less onerous. If you don’t you will be kicked off, and your sales will go to
zero.

Your competitors may start using the same marketplace, which would also impact your sales.

Often (but not always) your relationship with your customers on a marketplace will be more diffuse. Your
customers will feel like they are buying the product/service that you are selling from the marketplace itself,
and not from you directly.

This is probably fine if you’re just interested in increasing your turnover, but if you want to start doing some
detailed after-sales services to your online customers, or if you want to upsell to your customers after a first
purchase, then you are going to need your own site.
But all of this said, it’s not all negative. There are actually a lot of good reasons why, despite these drawbacks,
you might want to opt to sell on an online marketplace.

In the textbox, list at least 3 advantages of selling on an online marketplace, particularly when compared to
selling on your own website.

ANSWER FEEDBACK

The main benefits of selling on online marketplaces are that they perform many the required activities for you,
so you won’t have to worry about them.

Most obviously, the company operating the marketplace has already built a website! This means that it will
take care of the site security and hosting matters, so you can focus on selling your products. This can make it
a lot quicker for you to get up and running.

What’s more, a marketplace will do your marketing for you. The larger marketplaces already have many
businesses that use their sites to make purchases, and once you become listed on them, your offering will
start appearing in front of these customers without you needing to do anything else.

That said, if you want to make the most of your marketplace presence, you will need to learn how to market
your business on that platform. There are still some marketing techniques that you should keep in mind when
looking at how best to display your offering. It may also be possible for you to use advertising to further
increase your visibility. This means that selling on an online marketplace is not a way for you to completely
avoid marketing.
1.13 The pros and cons of selling on an online marketplace

As we have just seen, selling on an online marketplace has a number of pros and cons.

Pros
- You can concentrate on selling, as most of the ancillary activities are already done for you
- You don’t need to build a website, worry about its security, or handle its maintenance
- To a certain extent, marketing becomes more focused

Cons
- You need to obey the marketplace’s rules
- Your competitors can join the same marketplace, negatively affecting your sales
- Your relationship with your customers will be more diffuse; many customers will have less of a direct
relationship with you and the customer information sits with the marketplace

1.14 Defining product e-commerce content

Just as choosing the right website builder and software is crucial to your success if you want to sell on your
own B2B e-commerce website, choosing the right online marketplace is crucial if that is the path you choose
to follow.

While the process to select the right online marketplace is a little simpler than that of creating your own
website, it is still not something that you should rush.
The process is as follows:

1: Research
In this step, you need to figure out exactly what you will need your marketplace to do for you. What
products/services do you want to sell? What information do you want to display on the marketplace? Do you
need it to integrate into your existing systems? How do you want to deal with shipping and delivery ? What
customers do you want to access? Do your target customers use the marketplace in question?

2. Create a list of “must-have” and “nice-to-haves”

Pull everything you’ve identified during the research step together into two lists - the “must-haves” and the
“nice-to-haves.” This will give you a quick reference guide against which you can measure each of your
marketplace candidates.

3. Researching the marketplaces

Now that you have a shortlist of marketplace candidates, research them in-depth and get as much information
as you can from their websites. Then, speak to the sales representative from the ones that still interest you.
Find out how much joining the marketplace would cost, whether you’ll need to invest in marketing, how much
help they will give you, and how much their customers want to buy your products.
Be thorough, and make sure that you understand everything you need to in order to make the right decision.

4. Making your decision

Don’t try to do everything at once. Either pick one marketplace on which to do all of your activities, or chose
to test a few of them for select parts of your offering. Note that each marketplace has its own systems and
optimization processes to learn, so it’s almost always best to master one before moving on to a second.

5. Signing and kicking off

Once you’re 100% sure you’ve made the right decision, make sure that all the details in the contract are
accurate and create your account.

6. The build
Once you’ve created an account on your online marketplace of choice, it should be “all hands on deck” to get
your team trained, your product listed and the sales coming in. One of the nice things about marketplaces is
that you can start selling as soon as you have your first product listed - you don’t need to get your entire
offering ready in order to “go live.”

1.15 Some tips to find the right online marketplace for you

Finding the right online marketplace for your business can be a long process.
While there are many marketplaces out there, it may sometimes not be possible to find one that is both used
by your target customers and that operates in the right geographical areas for your business to use it. The
famous marketplace Amazon, for example, doesn’t operate in some countries, such as Tunisia.
If you can’t find any suitable marketplaces for your products, you might not immediately need to cancel your
company’s B2B e-commerce plans. Rather, wait 6 months and see if new opportunities crop up. New
marketplaces keep emerging, and existing marketplaces often expand their customer base and product
categories - so think of it like a delay, rather than a full stop.

Here are three major global B2B e-commerce marketplaces to get you started: Alibaba, Tradekey, EC21

If you are looking for something a little specialized, consider looking at marketplaces that focus on specific
regions, such as TradeIndia, or product categories, such as Joor, for fashion.
WHEN LOOKING AT EACH OF THESE MARKETPLACES, ASK YOURSELF:
• Do customers from my target geographic region use it?
• Are customers buying similar products to mine on it?
• What are the marketplace’s expectations of me (i.e. customer service requirements, tax information, product
information standards, etc.)

1.16 Being accepted by a marketplace can be tricky

Every virtual marketplace wants to provide their customers with great products and a great service. This
means that they often have many criteria that you must meet in order to become one of their merchants and
list your products.

Key things to check on each marketplace include:

- Do they allow merchants from your country to sell?

- What information do they need from you to create your account? This could include bank statements,
company accounts, trademark registrations, proof of business registration and ID checks on the main people
involved.

- Will all this need to be verified by a third party?

- What additional information might you need to provide? If you distribute goods you buy from someone else
(i.e. not your own products) then many marketplaces will need you to provide additional information,
including proof the goods are genuine.
- What information will the marketplace need about your products? This can vary by product category - so
check all those you intend to sell in. Look for specific codes (like GTINs and EANs) and any other pieces of
information required by the marketplace. Do you have these? And are they in a format you can easily provide?

- What are the marketplace’s image standards? Here, consider the required image resolution, size, as well as
permitted photo contents.

1.17 Video

Electronic commerce giant Amazon explains how an online B2B marketplace can work for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcASA54MudA

1.18 Answer the question

1.19 Evaluating the Best Channel to Sell Online

Evaluating the Best Channel to Sell Online

1.20 Answer the question

You’ve now learned selling via your own B2B e-commerce website or on B2B e-commerce marketplaces
involves.

What’s more, you’ve probably made some decision about the best path to follow for your business. But are
you sure that your conclusions are right? Working out the best channel for you will take some serious
consideration.

This process is less about choosing “one over the other” than it is about prioritization. In fact, over the coming
years, your business will probably end up trading both via its own website and one or more marketplaces, so
working out the order in which you should tackle them is really important.

So, here, take a few moments to think: what process would you follow to work out which channel your
business should prioritize to sell online? Write your own 3-step process in bullet points in the text box, then
click on “submit.”

ANSWER FEEDBACK

The first thing for you to do is to go back and look at what you wanted your e-commerce venture to achieve.
Have another look at your initial objectives, your budget, and how much time and skill you have to dedicate to
this endeavour.

Then, use this to create a checklist detailing what you need your B2B e-commerce channel to deliver for your
business.

Finally, evaluate each channel option (your website, any marketplaces that you are considering) against that
checklist.
This should make it clear which channel(s) are the best option for you.
Then, it’s a case of prioritising them - which one will you go for first?
We will look at this 3-step process in more detail in the coming slides.

1.21 Creating a checklist from your objectives

Throughout this course you’ve been considering both what B2B e-commerce could do for your business, and
how ready your business is for it.
Now, it’s time to work out how much effort you are ready to put into this project, and what your business
would need a B2B e-commerce project to achieve to make these efforts worth it.
That means it’s time to identify:
• Your objectives
• Your budget
• The people, time and skills that you can invest in your e-commerce venture
Turn this information into a checklist against which you can measure each channel option.
If you find out that your checklist is very long, you might find it useful to divide the items on it into “must-have”
and “nice-to-have” categories.

Make sure to include the following in your checklist:

• The geographic areas you want to target
• The legal restrictions for your e-commerce venture
• Compliance restrictions
• Integrations with your existing systems
• Payment methods
• Languages that your target customers use
• Delivery methods
1.22 Evaluating and choosing your e-commerce channel options

Only you can work out whether your own website or a marketplace is going to be the right way for your
business to meet your objectives.

Evaluating against your checklist

Evaluate each of your channel options (the marketplaces you’re considering, and the possibility of having
your own website) against the checklist that you created in the previous slide.
If there are things you don’t know about one of your channel options, do more research to find out the
answers.
This extra research might include making some phone calls or speaking to others who are already using the
channel you are considering to find out more about their experiences.
If you find more channel options while you’re doing this, then evaluate them against your checklist too.

Making your choice

Once you’ve fully evaluated each channel option against your checklist, there will probably be one or two that
clearly stand out as priority choices for your business.
If it’s just one, then great - it’s time to get on with building that.
However, if there are more than one that look like they would be good at meeting your objectives, you need to
decide which one you should start with.
Working on launching more than one channel at a time is a lot of work. We strongly recommend starting with
a single channel, and only moving on to a second one once you have mastered it. The channel that you pick
to start with should ideally be the easier one, or the one that will allow you to market your product/services
faster.
1.23 2 case examples of successful B2B e-commerce projects

If you need some inspiration, or simply want to see what’s possible, take some time to read the following case
examples of successful B2B e-commerce projects, one of which used an online marketplace and the other
which developed its own website. Who knows? Perhaps similar articles might be written about your own
company some day.

DharaJyot Stone Art: Signing up as a premium member on Alibaba.com was one of the best decisions I’ve
ever made.
https://media.featuredcustomers.com/CustomerCaseStudy.document/DharaJyot_Stone_Art.pdf
https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/dharajyot-stone-art.html

World’s largest glass manufacturer, Arc Intl., launches B2B webstore out-of-the-box with OroCommerce
https://oroinc.com/b2b-e-commerce/customers/arc-international
1.24 Activity

This activity is not available in the PDF version of this module.

1.25 Thank you for completing the lecture