What are the benefits of a B2B platform on Magento? Monogo E-commerce News, 62
This does not mean that B2B sales have to look identical to B2C. What it does mean is that buyers no longer want to work on the clunky platforms that we are familiar with in this channel. It is no longer just about being able to make orders. Customers want to buy quickly while enjoying the experience.
Adobe's brilliant move
Adobe is best known for its launch of PDF and Photoshop, here the creative suite. However, that is not all. The company also has some excellent tools for working with clients in the digital world. The so-called Adobe Experience Cloud is made up of integrated applications from CMS, to analytics, to campaigning and finally to the online shop.
Adobe Commerce, as it is referred to, is actually Magento, which was bought by Adobe a few years ago. Since then, a great deal has changed in this very popular e-commerce engine.
Adobe has made sure to add B2B commerce capabilities, introduced a new architecture and carried out a deep integration with the rest of the Experience Cloud applications. And it is this move that I think is brilliant.
Adobe has executed well that the key to successful sales is customer experience. That's why it is busily bringing well-known B2C features to the B2B platform. A search engine supercharged with Sensei artificial intelligence, personalisation or a modern platform design.
Focus on business
Everyone is responsible for their business. Decisions at the platform selection stage, will have their effects for years to come. What I noticed in the early stages of the implementation project was a really strong focus on the platform itself.
However, once implemented, the e-commerce system itself ceases to matter so much. Since the platform is implemented then the focus can be on the business. And this is where the first hurdle starts to appear. If you choose a dedicated system, any idea will require a mini project implementation. With Magento, this may not be the case.
And all thanks to the fact that when you pay for a licence, upgrades are included. Adobe is constantly working to add new functionality. It regularly releases updates in 3-month cycles. These are either security patches or just new features.
Having a licence and a good supplier can effectively take care of the worrying about development. This will allow you to focus on your business.
Acquiring new customers
Probably one of the goals of implementing a B2B platform is to retain the customers you already work with. You want to give them new opportunities to order, view inventory and generally reach out to them with news, new information about your business or offerings.
But there is also some fallout from these opportunities to get information to the customer quickly. You can open up some of the information to the public and ensure that you attract new customers. Thanks to Magento's built-in tools, such as the CMS (Content Management System), you will be able to share content with people who are new customers. Or, in other words, potential customers.
At Monogo, we conducted an experiment in the B2B area that lasted almost two years. We prepared content that was available to the public, which after a few months started to attract new customers. Not resting on our laurels, we continued and saw significant increases of 20%+ every quarter.
As a result, we have developed a set of processes that we share when implementing B2B platforms with our clients. We are showing that content is a strength that any business can harness. And with a Magento implementation, you don't need anything extra to get started. This is the power of Adobe solutions. Many years in the market pays off with a really rich feature set.
A few words on the basics
Artificial intelligence, personalisation and CMS are not all you will find in Magento. This is only a small part of the possibilities that are implemented in this e-commerce system.
When you have been working with Magento for so long, you tend to forget about what is in the base. And there are a lot of modules there which are, above all, mature. This means that you can rely on them and not worry that something is about to go wrong.
A product catalogue, a shopping basket, the possibility to enter individual sales conditions and a powerful promotion engine. In my opinion, this and the marketing toolkit are quietly enough, even for years, to work effectively with a customer in B2B.
Integrations
What is a B2B platform without integrations? Nowadays, a kind of prosthesis to a real e-commerce solution. After all, nowadays, everyone wants to integrate with everyone else. Magento is not lagging behind in this respect.
What Adobe Commerce gives you as soon as you install it is already a good start. But the real power of this e-commerce comes from extensions. Many times an entire integration package can be purchased from one company. For very little money - an example? Here you go.
Xtento is a very mature solution that existed back in the days of the first version of Magento. Inventory retrieval -> there you go, there are many options on how this can be done. Flat files, APIs, JSON. Whatever your organisation has, there's a good chance it can be read by Xtento.
Sending orders to ERP? Here, too, Xtento has a solution. Exporting product feeds? There is. One could go on enumerating, but I think I have already proved my point. And this is just one company providing plug-ins. There are at least a dozen companies on the market. If you don't know which one to choose, pay attention to the certification that Adobe gives to its best partners.
A few final words
At Monogo, we are deeply integrated into Magento. Our strategic goal has been to build strong competences to achieve expert status. To date, we have not encountered a company or an implementation that could fail on Magento.
We rely on solutions and companies that have not disappeared from the market leaving our customers without licences, upgrades or care. Our greatest asset is servicing powerful online shops that value security and growth opportunities above all else. And these are certainly provided by Magento, Adobe and Monogo.