If you are a business that sells wholesale goods and services in the digital age, it’s important to find a good wholesale eCommerce platform to help your company grow. It is estimated that there are more than 400,000 wholesale businesses in the US alone, with sales over $7 trillion. With these kinds of numbers, it’s easy to understand why having eCommerce capabilities is a must.
Here are some elements of a good wholesale eCommerce site to keep in mind.
Streamlined, Automated Process
When it comes to eCommerce for wholesale, having a process that’s automated and streamlined from start to finish is crucial. When people show up on your site, they want to perform the fewest actions possible in the most straightforward way possible, to place orders and get what they need. Elements such as a simple reordering process, and the ability to review, modify and confirm orders makes the whole process easy to use, which often results in long-term customers.
Custom Pricing Options
When you’re able to create custom pricing based on a number of different variables, it gives you quite a bit of freedom and flexibility in your business. Features like tiered pricing based on the customer’s account level or purchase volume and percentage discounts enable you to reward certain customers for placing orders with you. As an example, you can set up different discounts for ordering various quantities, with the discounts becoming deeper the more they order.
Account Management
Since wholesale eCommerce sites consist of customers making recurring purchases, being able to manage their accounts within the platform adds an element of convenience. It also helps you keep all of the account information organized and easy to retrieve should the need arise.
Purchase Orders as Payment Options
Utilizing purchase order numbers as the method of payment benefits the supplier in a few different ways. Some of the most notable include:
- Avoiding duplicate orders
- Keeping track of incoming orders
- Helps with budgeting and planning
- Helps control and track spending
- Provides legal protection
- Enhances inventory management
Hidden Products for Specific Customers
Having products on your wholesale eCommerce site that only certain customers can access allows you to customize the site and build relationships with specific customers to new levels. You can have product listings that require a special login to view or customer-specific catalogs that you create that have been modified to suit their unique needs.
It’s no secret that every business has clients and customers that mean more to the bottom line than others. And while your customer service should be steady across the board, being able to give extras like hidden products to select customers in an automated system is a big benefit.
Easy Integration of Business Systems
The integration of various business systems that your company depends on to run efficiently is an added bonus of effective wholesale eCommerce sites. The overriding goal of any online sales platform is to have all of the components you need to carry on your day-to-day business and scale your business in the most convenient way possible.
Some of the systems that may be integrated include:
- 3PL (Third-party logistics)
- OMS (Order management system)
- ERP (Enterprise resource planning)
- CRM (Customer relationship management)
Benefits of eCommerce for Wholesale
If you have yet to embrace the advantages of having an eCommerce site for your wholesale business, here are some benefits that are hard to ignore:
- Ability to reach far more prospective customers
- Can scale and grow much faster
- Better customer service
- Less invasive for customers
- Greater customer retention
- Ability to collect more data about your customers
- Lower overall costs
- The store is open 24/7
- You can personalize the experience for customers
- Greater flexibility and freedom in pricing and offers
- Can process a high volume of orders easily
It’s no secret that wholesalers can take their business to an entirely new level with a quality eCommerce website, but it doesn’t end there. Having a sound marketing strategy in place that will magnify your eCommerce efforts is the most efficient way to reach your goals. Get in touch with us today to set up a discovery call and get the process started.