Category: eCommerce Shopping Carts
Opportunities for B2B Companies Using eCommerce
Do you know who all your customers are? If you said yes and you don’t have an eCommerce store, then how do you know you’re not missing out on opportunities to grow your business? How do you really know you’re reaching everyone you can? In addition to their traditional customer bases, B2B companies with eCommerce stores can attract new customers in surprising ways.
Anyone browsing the internet could find your eCommerce store. If, for example, he or she happens to work for a small company that can use your services or products, you’ve reached a potential customer! And, in many cases, consumers are also creating an entirely new market for B2B companies.
An article by Paul Demery, “B2B Leaps Onto the Web” in the November 2013 issue of the Internet Retailer magazine, discusses new skills and technologies B2B companies are using for these new opportunities. From managing inventory and pricing, to redesigning eCommerce stores to accommodating additional customer types, to connecting with the new customer markets, B2B companies are taking advantage of these opportunities to grow their businesses.
Some statistics cited in the article from B2B respondents of surveys:
- 44% said average order values are higher through their eCommerce sites than orders placed by phone, fax, or in person. 11% said their average order values decreased.
- 24% said they remain the same, and 20% said they don’t know.
- 52% said their customer support costs decreased for customers who place orders through eCommerce sites.
- 56% said they profit only if customers use the eCommerce sites without their assistance.
- 44% said they expect to improve their order sizes through eCommerce, and 43% expect eCommerce to result in more returning customers.
As the article shows, managing and keeping product information accurate and consistent for multiple customer bases, such as other businesses and direct consumers, possibly in multiple countries, is a big challenge.
If you are a B2B company considering an eCommerce store, you could be taking the first step in attracting new business. A system with a central database is crucial. When thinking about your ERP system, keep these capabilities in mind:
- Recommend related products for more selling opportunities.
- Make sure customers can search for products and get results quickly.
- Help your customers help themselves. Let them maintain their own account information, and let them tell you how often they want to hear from you.
- Provide pictures of your products where possible.
- If items are backordered, tell your customers when to expect them.
- Offer personalization.
- Automatically send reminders when items are left in carts but not purchased.
- Establish B2B accounts separate from consumer accounts.
- Keep your pricing structure appropriate for the customer type. For example, don’t sell an item to a consumer for less than what you charge your wholesale customers. Make sure your system accommodates multiple customer types.
- Personalize your website for each type of customer, presenting information appropriately about your items.
- Use a single database system with integrated inventory and order management and real-time inventory data.
- Keep your system flexible and configurable by appropriate management.
- Provide your customer service reps with the information they need to engage with all your customers.
- Make reordering easy.
- Make sure you keep enough inventory for consumers when offering the same items to your wholesale customers.
- Use reports to monitor your performance.
What are other capabilities needed for B2B companies serving multiple customer bases? What challenges have you met? What opportunities?
Track More Email Campaigns and Show Customer Service Reps More Detail
Tracking Email has always been a part of the InOrder Email Marketing Enhancement. Now it’s also part of Digital Delivery and Email Communications. In addition to Email Blasts, users of these Enhancements can also track activity resulting from sending Emails to customers for various order and promotional messages.
The functionality uses keycodes, tracking pixels, and URL references to record when a message is sent, the type of message sent, when the message is opened (open rates), and the number of visits to the web site resulting from the message (click-through rate) to measure conversions. This data can also be used to monitor when Email is not being opened, or when it results in a new recipient from a forwarded message. This is helpful for keeping mailing lists current, which is important for maintaining sender reputation. Used with InOrder’s capacity to enable shoppers to choose which Email they receive, this function can help increase the effectiveness of selected messages.
When a message has been sent, it is logged on the customer’s timeline, providing customer service reps more opportunity to enhance the service experience when a customer calls.
For more information about how this feature can help you measure your Email ROI, contact us at 888-667-7332 or sales@morsedata.com.
New Report for Web Customer Feedback Program
If you are using the Web Customer Feedback Program Module, you’ll be interested in the new report to see your statistics for a date range. The links in blue in the report allow one or more levels of drill-down that can be used to view and analyze your customer feedback. 
InOrder’s Web Cart Delivers Fast and Accurate Search Results with Solr Search and Facet Filtering
We’ve done it again. Just when you think it doesn’t get much better – we make it better. Our Web Cart, that is. Now InOrder Web Cart users can give their customers top-of-the-line search capabilities with Solr Search and Facet Filtering.
Solr is a search platform from the Apache LuceneTM project. Its many advanced search capabilities include distinguishing between plural and singular search, recognizing common typos and finding results. And it can be used with Facet Filtering.
Facet Filtering is a powerful capability that helps customers fine tune their search results. It enables shoppers to make additional selections within search results based on their individual interests, eliminating the need to sift through many search results. Setup is minimal, and shoppers expect it.
These features provide shoppers with faster and more accurate search results, adding to our commitment to help our customers improve the shopping experience they deliver, while lowering costs and increasing sales.
New Custom Shopping Cart Upgrade Service
We are excited to be offering a custom shopping cart upgrade service to our clients who have InOrder eCommerce full .Net Module Software Support, along with a recent version of the InOrder real-time eCommerce Web shopping cart that has been customized.
This new service includes the following and is tailored to each client’s specific needs:
- Registration of custom web cart changes when submitted to Morse Data Corporation
- Periodic upgrades to the customized InOrder web cart with the latest InOrder updates provided by Morse Data web cart experts who know the InOrder software and ensure nothing has been missed
This benefit allows in-house staff, third party developers, or Morse Data developers to continue making changes to customized shopping cart content with personalized look and feel. At the same time, web customers receive new InOrder eCommerce capabilities as they become available with the InOrder platform upgrades.
Pricing is based a website’s level of customization and options selected. Clients who are interested are encouraged to contact Morse Data Corporation’s Technical Office for details at 1-800-860-9515 and request a free cart analysis to determine pricing. If sign up occurs before October 31, 2013, the one-time startup fee will be reduced by 50%.
Increase Web Traffic and Search Results with the Right Content
It’s no secret that content increases search results and traffic to your website, but how does that happen?
It happens by adding content so useful that readers turn to you for information. Content such as blog articles, videos, product reviews, whitepapers, industry articles, and advice. Here are some ideas:
- If customers call with questions, put the most frequently asked questions and answers on your website.
- Make a video giving your customers a tour of your facility, or showing how to use one of your products. We show you how in this article.
- Implement reviews, ratings, comments, etc. for your products and services. This can create an abundance of relevant and useful content! Read more about the benefits of Customer Feedback on your website.
- Be an expert. If you have advice you can share about your industry, publish a whitepaper.
- Can you offer tips and tricks to your customers? If so, post them on your blog, and invite your customers to add their tips.
All of this adds relevant and helpful content to your website. Do you have more to add to this list? Leave your comments here.
Recover Up to 30% of Abandoned Carts with Email Reminders
I’m sure this has happened to all of us: You’re shopping online and something distracts you. Before long, you’ve forgotten all about your shopping cart and the items you put in it. Or maybe you lost your Internet connection just as you were about to checkout. Or you decided not to complete your purchase but want to return to your cart at a later date.
How often are online shopping carts abandoned? Seven out of every ten website visitors don’t complete their transactions. And that results in lost revenue.
Wouldn’t an email reminder be helpful? Rather than having customers re-do their shopping carts completely, an abandoned cart email reminder is a great way to encourage them to come back and complete the checkout process. Your reminder can include a link to their abandoned cart, so your customer can simply pick up where they left off. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
Recover up to 30% of abandoned carts
Instead of sending just one reminder, there are options for tiered approaches where you send a series of email reminders at set intervals. A robust email reminder system, such as InOrder, will allow you to specify your email series by time (e.g., two hours after abandonment, 12 hours, 48 hours, etc.) or based on minimum and maximum delay settings.
You know your customers best, so you can choose the option that will bring you the best results. Carefully timed email reminders recover approximately 10-30% of customers who’ve abandoned their carts.
You can use various options for your email reminders:
- You can thank customers for visiting your site and include a list of the items they’ve placed in their cart.
- Adding a cart expiration date is a nice feature and provides customers with a deadline to make a decision.
- A promotion code provides extra incentive for customers to return to your site and perhaps add a few more items to the cart before checkout.
Regardless of what you include in your reminder, keep it short, clear and to the point.
Here’s one example:
Have abandoned cart emails helped your business grow? We’d like to hear your success stories.
If you’d like to learn more about abandoned cart emails and all that InOrder has to offer, please contact sales@morsedata.com.