There’s no second chance for the first impression. This is especially true for digital touchpoints — and particularly for sales channels such as online shops. But what creates a good impression — a good customer experience? Unfortunately, the answer is: it depends on the industry and the segment. However, there are certain pillars that are essential for successful online shops. From content to technical execution, here are the key aspects to focus on.
Are you looking for a new refrigerator? You likely place great importance on technical details, comparison options, warranty options, and delivery and installation services. In any case, you want to see how the refrigerator looks. On the other hand, the purchasing department of a construction company is likely less concerned with appealing product presentations. For them, price options (bulk pricing), delivery times, and possibly application information are decisive when buying construction materials. For those needing complex (customized) products, configurations and information about pay-per-use models are probably key purchase drivers.
Pillar One: Content
These brief examples show that the right content at the right place is crucial for a good customer experience in e-commerce. The key to presenting the right content lies in understanding your market, your competition, and most importantly: your customers. Non-negotiable are details about price and availability. This is especially challenging in B2B and can only be achieved with intelligent product data management. Ideally, all information comes from a single system, such as a Product Information Management (PIM) system, or at least is consolidated from this system. This ensures that information on the website, shop, portal, or marketplace remains consistent and doesn’t differ across platforms.
Pillar Two: Design (UX)
User Experience is the second crucial pillar. It’s important to align the functions, content, navigation, and design language of the online shop with the customers’ expectations. Only then will users feel supported and proceed through the journey to the goal, i.e., completing the purchase (or another conversion). How can this be achieved? For example, by using the Human-Centered Design approach: designing an online shop based on quantitative and especially qualitative research methods that incorporate the target audience’s mindset. Taking this approach early will definitely pay off in the long run.
Key metrics for a good user experience include the maturity of the solution and individual features (effectiveness), elapsed time (efficiency), and user satisfaction, which can be gathered through corresponding surveys.
Pillar Three: Headless Architecture
The third pillar for a successful customer experience in online shops and portals is a modern and scalable architecture that optimally supports all online channels and offers simple integration and extensibility options. Just as important: for the storefront, there is no way around a mobile-first approach with responsive design. Nevertheless, you should keep the option open to later or simultaneously integrate native apps and other systems with commerce functions. The architecture should also support future integration with established online channels, such as websites or social media.
These requirements are covered by a headless architecture. In this base architecture, the frontend is designed as a separate application that consumes the actual commerce functions of a backend commerce server via web services and also executes transactions via web services with the commerce backend.
One benefit of such a headless approach is that the storefront application can be focused on usability and user experience (see the second pillar), while the commerce backend can focus entirely on data, transactions, and business logic (see the first pillar).
Conclusion
The three pillars — content, UX, and architecture — are the foundation for the success of your B2B online shop. They are not magic, but they do require a dedicated strategy and experience in implementation, especially when it comes to integrating the critical third-party systems that deliver relevant content such as pricing. And of course, there are many other success-critical factors, such as driving traffic to the shop. Here, the placement of the webshop in popular search engines (SEO) and the integration of marketing automation are crucial. But don’t be overwhelmed by this. The importance of online shops, especially in B2B, is increasing significantly and will continue to rise in the coming years, making it essential for your business. By clearly defining and systematically addressing the three pillars mentioned above, you will be on the right path.