Optimum7 has worked with over 100 industrial and B2B businesses in eCommerce. Some of them already had an existing operation and others required building from scratch. Each structure and entity is also different.

Some B2B manufacturers or suppliers have wanted to start selling directly to consumers. Other industrial businesses were actually going through a manufacturing process or building customs products from scratch and they needed help with that type of automation and lead time.

Functionalities For B2B eCommerce Platforms

Many different functionalities exist on the front-end and back-end when a manufacturer earns at least $30 million in revenue and specializes in B2B, B2G, and D2C. Knowing them can help boost your business.

Talk about a structure where it gets so complicated. How do you organize automating eCommerce processes?

The first objective is to be more efficient. After that, the second is to sell more and to be able to be more profitable.

What is a good starting place?

Understand the business. Then you need to approach two different aspects in parallel with one another. One is on the very front-end, the end-user.

What is the core objective? What are they looking for as a customer? Then in parallel, you also look at what the existing back-end operation looks like.

Little by little, come and meet back in the middle. Reach your optimal back-end operation while at the same time, optimizing your front-end for your end-user. Meeting in the middle will give you the most optimal solution for your business.

Understand how the business operates today. Based on your conversations, have an objective. Determine how the business wants to operate in the near future within ninety to 120 days.

From a financial objective, set a scaling goal, say increasing from $30 million to $50 million. What needs to happen? Break the solution down in terms of the web platform or website structure needs, the functionalities on the website’s front-end, back-end, and integrations. Tie that into their current operation, ERP, or whatever automation software they might be using.

B2B eCommerce Automation Examples

To give a specific example, consider a manufacturer that wants to have thousands of resellers. They want to drop ship for the resellers.

This goal requires a very specific execution where you need to have your ERP integrated, you need to have the capability to ship from multiple locations, with white-label products, white-label packaging, or no label packaging.

You need integrated flows that go into your ERP from your resellers. When they send you a PO for a hundred orders, you’re able to send it automatically or in a fast manner to a hundred different shipping addresses. Amazon does a great job at this. Wayfair does a great job at this.

Another example would be if you’re a manufacturer and you need to make a custom order from a customer. The customer can be B2B or B2C. Suppose the production is going to take 90 days, but you don’t want them to wait for 90 days. You want to give them step-by-step processes in terms of which level of the production the product is so that your customers don’t flood your support lines.

The right functionality all comes down to having a plan, creating an execution, setting an objective, and tying your back-end operations, front-end marketing, and functionalities together. Optimum7 marketers do this frequently.

Common Pitfalls With Inexperienced Marketing Automation Services

Few companies understand this concept at the industrial, business, marketing, functionality, back-end coding, and high-level architecture level. Optimum7 provides this value.

Some clients come to Optimum7 after nightmare experiences. The previous company didn’t understand what they needed to do or lacked the expertise to execute.

Four or five clients have come from consultants that had three to five employees. What do you say to that?

These consultants can provide advice, but they don’t really know the intricacies or details of this level of execution. What do you say to CEOs, CFOs, COOs, business owners that are looking for this when they’re dealing with these three to five employee consultants?

If You’re working on a deal that’s anywhere between 30,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can’t trust a five-person team to handle that. You’re going to need an army: QA engineers, business analysts, back-end, and front-end.

An entire development team must be dedicated to this project. One or two people on a five-person team can’t handle the content on their own. The other three members are not developers but rather salespeople.

Such a team has two developers that are overloaded, overworked. This project is not their only priority. Nurture a dedicated team in order to execute something like this because it is a huge undertaking.

If you have a specific automation flow or are looking for deep consulting in terms of your B2B, industrial, or manufacturing B2B eCommerce operations, Optimum7 can help. If you have any questions, let the marketers or developers know. The team will talk to you guys next week.