Discover the top practices for seamless B2B buying with product discovery, composable commerce and generative AI.
As B2B eCommerce continues to grow and evolve, it’s clear that business buyers expect consumer-like experiences when buying on behalf of their employers. But even as B2B companies create more engaging shopping journeys, the B2B buying experiences can be quite different from B2C, as they require a wealth of specific functionality ranging from personalized product catalogs, pricing and discounts to customized fulfillment.
Creating frictionless customer experiences that marry B2C elements with B2B-specific features doesn’t have to be challenging. By leveraging a composable approach across the buyer journey — from product discovery to loyalty — B2B companies can craft hassle-free eCommerce that builds brand loyalty and captures market share.
The fundamentals of B2B product discovery
Making products discoverable in B2B remains a challenge as 61% of sellers report lost sales because their site search wasn’t good enough. When you factor in that 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience, it’s evident why product discovery ranks among the top three considerations for global B2B buyers when making purchase decisions online.
To succeed in product discovery, the first step is to invest in clean, comprehensive and organized product data. When allied with robust search capabilities, you can provide customers with the detailed product information they need to make informed purchasing decisions. By enabling buyers to search for partial SKUs and highly numeric, measurement-based products, you can further streamline the discovery process and reduce friction for your customers.
Consider the following practical tips for product discovery and search:
Leverage type-ahead, predictive responses and synonyms at scale.
Apply sitewide opportunities such as the use of real-time clickstream data, plus past browsing and purchase history.
Feature recommendations for related or alternative products.
And more: See more tips in the guide!
The fundamentals of B2B digital commerce
According to Gartner, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers are expected to occur in digital channels by 2025. To meet this demand, B2B organizations must prioritize digital commerce solutions to create seamless experiences for buyers. This includes offering customizable products, implementing buyer approval systems and providing omnichannel support.
Thanks to composable commerce, creating frictionless journeys from search to loyalty no longer has to be a complex endeavor, as you can integrate new components, like search or a new payment method, in a straightforward and risk-free process for your business.
Consider the practical tips to leverage digital commerce with composable:
A composable, API-first commerce platform supports complex, configurable and customizable products, as well as seamless integration with digital storefronts, systems of record (e.g., ERP, OMS) and fulfillment.
All commerce services in the cloud to eliminate dependencies on servers, including storage, hosting, scaling, etc. Being cloud-native, composable commerce gives you exceptional scalability at reduced costs, which is particularly important for B2B players to scale eCommerce performance during traffic peaks or high SKU processing times.
Robust self-service and support for multi-layered organizations with efficient buyer approval flows, quote generation, reorders and subscriptions.
What’s the role of generative AI in the B2B buying experience?
Generative AI tools within existing platforms and new technologies provide new levels of scalable, dynamic and omnichannel buying experiences — without the time and resources previously required.
In short, integrating robust AI solutions enables your business to offer faster and more customized shopping experiences that range from product data clean-up to compelling product descriptions, assisted shopping and search.
Frictionless B2B customer experiences
Utilizing a composable-based approach, your business is best positioned to create, adapt and evolve the digital footprint. To support you in this journey, commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B and Constructor Product Discovery provide a modular, easy-to-integrate and AI-powered product discovery solution with a composable commerce platform under the hood, so your business is ready to deliver exceptional customer experiences across all channels, at scale.
Frictionless B2B buying experiences start here! Download our guide to learn how commercetools and Constructor can support you in this journey.
Manuela Marques Tchoe is a Content Writer at commercetools. She was a Content and Product Marketing Director at conversational commerce provider tyntec. She has written content in partnership with Facebook, Rakuten Viber and other social media platforms.
Noelina has been working as a content marketing strategist and writer for over 6 years, specializing in B2B tech and SaaS. When not at work, she’s probably traveling — or making plans to do so.