Mobile commerce, according to various industry reports, is growing at phenomenal rates. Read our earlier blog on this topic – here. While mobile commerce no doubt holds promise, what is the impact on B2B eCommerce business? Will it play a significant role or is it applicable only to the B2C businesses?
A recent Forrester report estimates that traffic to B2B commerce sites from mobiles (currently at about 7%) will soon match the mobile traffic of that of B2C sites (~22%). It also suggests the rise of B2B eCommerce in niche sectors like HVAC distributors, aircraft MRO products, semiconductors and so on. With businesses like AmazonSupply almost mirroring the B2C offers and convenience, the competition in the B2B space is heating up. So what can you do for your business to ride this wave?
With over 30% of the decision makers in the US reading content on their mobile devices and about 67% of the users are more likely to buy products from sites optimized for the mobile, the first thing you can do is to follow suit and make your site mobile-ready.
Think about what you want to provide on your mobile optimized site. The best way to do this would be to review your B2B sales process and to check where your purchasers spend most of their time. If you can ease their decision making process, they would remain loyal to your business. For example, if your purchasers spend significant time in searching for products and understanding more about them, providing your mobile app with intuitive search features will trigger more sales closures.
This approach is likely to yield two kinds of results – one is more satisfied customers as their requirements are instantly gratified and two, this leads to higher sales. Another area which we feel is a must is, to keep your mobile and web versions of your site in sync. This will provide your customers a smooth user experience across the various platforms they might use. Optimizing your site for mobile will also give a fillip to your omni-channel strategy, which is the direction the industry is taking and is a sure way to profitability.
At Unilog, we are well-versed in providing superior mobile shopping experiences. CIMM2’s responsive storefront is optimized to various form factors such as desktop, tablets and mobiles and provides a uniform view of data across the platforms hence improving the user experience. With its intuitive search and clear categorization of SKUs, the path from discovery to checkout is short. Managing your web content is so easy with CIMM2 that it reduces maintenance stress on your internal IT team. With mobile becoming ubiquitous even across the B2B world, mobile optimization is not really an option in today’s world, it is a necessity.
Please contact us at [email protected] to get to know more about how we can help you to optimize your eCommerce site for mobile devices.