Are you planning to boost your sales through a B2B online store? Congratulations, you are aligning with the majority - over half of Finnish B2B companies plan to digitalise their sales channels in the coming years. At the same time, you are responding to growing customer demand: the share of digital channels in the revenue of Nordic B2B companies is on the rise and is estimated to reach 45 percent by the end of this year.

The digitalisation of B2B sales and processes can be achieved in various ways. An online store that meets the needs of a B2B company enhances business results through cost savings and improved efficiency. Ecommerce creates opportunities to grow internationally and to pilot new products. The digital engagement of customers also helps to anticipate trends and fluctuations in buying behaviour.

Now is the right time to tighten your shoelaces and refine your company's ecommerce strategy. Read what to consider in B2B e-commerce!

Steps for Establishing B2B E-Commerce – Starting with People and Emotion

B2B business often has its own characteristics that guide the sales process. However, the customer experience should be approached similarly to B2C retail. Even in B2B, the purchase decision is made by a person. Emotions resonate with us all - whether we are purchasing on behalf of a company or for personal needs. A successful B2B online store is customer-focused, offering a smooth, seamless, and emotionally engaging experience, which increases customer satisfaction, improves sales, and strengthens the company's brand.

1. Realistic and Clear Goals – Without Forgetting Sanity Check

Rome wasn't built in a day, but good planning often means you're halfway there. Start with your customers and clarify your goals and milestones for the long term. Be realistic in setting goals: continuously doubling year on year might not be feasible without significant investments. If a tripling of growth is your aim, you'll most likely need robust integrations and support structures that extend beyond just the online store.

Ask yourself:

• Does your company already have B2B customers?

• Is your company acquiring B2B customers? Or perhaps D2C customers? 

• What added value can a B2B online store provide for them? For example, do you want to enhance the customer experience, streamline the ordering process, or reach new markets and customer segments?
  
  
  

Proceed from these and clarify your target:

• Where does your company want to be in five years?

  • Don't consider anything in less than five years: formulate a realistic five-year plan and a clear roadmap to get there. Also, ensure that plans are based on real figures and informed assumptions.

  • Set measurable business goals: The realistic growth percentages for the online store should be set for each year, aligned with the necessary resources, such as marketing and recruitment investments.

Example: If the revenue target for the first year of the online store is 100,000 euros and 200,000 euros for the second year, by the 200,000-euro milestone, you should have at least a part-time employee and ideally a partner focusing on the development of the ecommerce.

2. Remember MVP – Start Lightly, Scale Agilely 

Plans may be grand, but the best results in ecommerce projects are achieved through agility and piloting. By adopting the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) approach, you can start with a basic, feature-focused online store, testing the market and customer needs at an early stage. This helps avoid unnecessary investments and allows for the development of key functions without a significant upfront investment.

When selecting an ecommerce platform, ensure it scales with growth and integrates easily with other systems. The platform should enable, for instance, ERP and CRM integrations as well as expandability with new functionalities as needs and business grow. This way, you can build an online store that performs well in the light MVP phase but expands effortlessly with new features as required.

The MVP approach is particularly valuable in B2B commerce, where customer needs can vary significantly across different customer segments. The minimal viable solution facilitates the testing of buying paths, provides essential feedback, and lays the foundation for sustainable growth as scaling begins thoughtfully.

3. Test and Develop the Online Store – Never Stop

Testing is inherently inexpensive and easy, but neglecting it can be costly. A successful ecommerce makes continuous testing and development a process that actively seeks new opportunities for scoring and additional growth opportunities, even when business is booming. The market changes quickly and forgetting testing, development, and overall technical innovation risks falling behind and increasing digital debt relative to competitors.

Modern ecommerce platforms lower the threshold for testing in terms of time and cost. Many platforms, such as Shopify, support built-in A/B testing and analytics tools. These allow easy experimentation with different pricing, product placement, and user interface elements without heavy technical implementation. When A/B testing is used continuously, companies can leverage data to understand what works best and what brings tangible improvements to customer experience and conversion.

MVP and testing go hand in hand – small trials can achieve great results. For example, a standalone trade show ecommerce can be set up at very low costs for the piloting and sale of special editions. Overall, optimizing the online store is about refining gaming strategies: by bravely experimenting and testing various options, you can find the best angles and solutions to keep the online store competitive and responsive to changing customer needs.

4. Benefits of Ecommerce Integrations – Start Gradually

Efficiency, precision, and customer satisfaction – integrations are a major key to B2B ecommerce success and make an online store a flexible growth platform. The implementation of integrations should be planned as part of a B2B ecommerce growth strategy. Initial integrations with ERP and warehouse management systems typically provide the greatest and most immediate operational benefits and significantly reduce the amount of manual work when product prices and inventory balances are always up to date.

CRM system integration becomes necessary at the latest as the ecommerce customer base grows, allowing customer data to be utilized in marketing automation and sales targeting different customer profiles and segments. Depending on the ecommerce development, this can come into play, for instance, after 1-2 years. Additional integrations, such as connecting logistics systems and analytics tools to the ecommerce, especially support the growth phase when the company has sufficient data for deeper analytics utilisation and optimisation of delivery processes.

Integrations propel the success and growth of the ecommerce in the long run. When orders, logistics, billing, and customer service operate as one cohesive unit, the ecommerce scales easily and adapts better to changing demand. This ensures a high level of customer experience even as order volumes increase.

5. Remember Ecommerce Management and Marketing

Although we talk about integrations and the importance of marketing automation for the success of B2B ecommerce, ultimately, growth comes from people. While a good plan, careful roadmap, and thoughtful tools set the stage, scoring requires a skilled and dedicated ecommerce manager who rolls up their sleeves and takes responsibility for the ecommerce growth. A competent ecommerce manager not only understands the operation of the ecommerce but also marketing, B2B sales processes, and salespeople, as well as partner relationships and their roles in the business.

In addition, multichannel digital marketing is needed to ensure that customers find their way to the ecommerce and return for repeat purchases. Search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, email campaigns, and social media advertising can all drive customers to the online store. Analytics should be sensitively utilized for targeting optimization and to closely monitor where conversions are coming from. Personalized marketing and targeted campaigns often provide additional value to B2B customers and engage them in the long run.

Interested? Would you like to hear more about the possibilities of ecommerce for your B2B business? Get in touch!

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