E-commerce companies rely on high conversion rates to gain a competitive edge, increase sales, and ultimately grow their businesses. However, for new e-commerce companies, B2B conversion rates typically hover around a dismal one percent. Those with established e-commerce sites can expect to see conversion rates reach six to eight percent, while others see conversion rates at 30 percent or higher. If you want to increase your conversion rates, then you must first answer two vital questions: 1) where are your customers getting stuck in the process, and 2) how are your customers interacting with your site.
Understanding The Barriers To Conversion
In order to understand where your customers are getting stuck in the purchasing process, you must successfully identify the barriers to conversion. Identifying the barriers is as easy as putting yourself in your customers' shoes. Ask yourself the following scenario-based types of questions:
- Is the search for a product taking too long?
- Is the checkout process taking away precious seconds from a busy day?
- Is real-time inventory displayed?
- Is the order going to arrive at its destination before the "hard deadline" hits?
- Is a scaled price used, so that it represents the quantity being bought?
- Can the best warehouse be chosen so that the item can be shipped faster (and cheaper, if applicable)?
- Can the appropriate subsidiary or division be billed?
As seen through the above list, there are a lot of questions that a B2B customer must ask before they complete an e-commerce transaction. In addition to answering these questions, you can also implement the following five strategies to further increase your conversion rates.
Implement 5 Proven Strategies To Increase B2B Conversion Rates
At the end of the day, if your customers are visiting your site and leaving empty-handed, then you aren't doing your job properly. The following five techniques can help to alleviate the common barriers that prevent e-commerce companies from achieving the optimal conversion rates.
- Implement SEO Best Practices: If they can't find you, then they won't be able to convert; it is as simple as that. Leveraging best practice SEO approaches are vital to the success of any e-commerce company. The five golden rules to live by for B2B e-commerce SEO are: Use the right research tools, stay customer-focused (especially when it comes time to choose your keywords and long-tail keywords), create the right content by remembering that it is 50 percent art and 50 percent science, understand the wants, needs, desires, goals, and challenges of your intended audience, and get back to the basics by letting your products and services shine.
- Use SOLR Search: SOLR is a unique open source search platform that will index and search multiple sites. After searching through all of the sites, SOLR will make recommendations based around the related content. The latter data is then used to make vital decisions about the content, display, and overarching approach to your e-commerce site.
- Create An Easy Payment Process: When a store checkout process is too complicated (or takes too long), you will inevitably have low conversion rates. You will also have a higher rate of abandoned shopping carts. To avoid the latter two issues, you should ensure that your checkout form is a) easy to understand, b) easy to fill out, and c) loads quickly. Finally, whenever possible you should add customized formatting that expedites the checkout process. For example, use a date dropdown in the date field and format the credit card field so that it makes it easier for users to see what numbers have already been typed.
- Optimize For Mobile Use: According to a recent Forrester study, mobile devices accounted for approximately 33 percent of all retail sales in 2018. In other words, you are automatically missing out on sales if your e-commerce site doesn't have a good mobile experience. From creating streamlined content to font adjustments that are based on smaller screens, to expediting the checkout process, there are countless steps that you can take to enhance your mobile e-commerce site.
- Leverage A Solution That Displays Live Data From SAP: Did you know that live SAP data can help your B2B customers automatically overcome common barriers and challenges that lead to lower conversion rates? In fact, real-time SAP data has the following added benefits for e-commerce companies:
- Removes uncertainty while simultaneously speeding up the buying process.
- Increases confidence by displaying real-time inventory data.
- Ensures that the purchases will arrive at their destinations before "hard deadlines."
- Offers real-time pricing to encourage the scaled price associated with the selected quantity.
The Bottom Line: Take The Steps Needed To Increase B2B E-commerce Conversions
By successfully placing yourself in your customers' shoes, understanding the barriers that lead to abandoned shopping carts, and implementing the above five tips, you can successfully increase your B2B e-commerce conversions. Finally, with the help of the right technologies, you can further increase conversion rates as you reach new levels of success. Schedule a free demo today to discover how CNBS can design a customized e-commerce solution that increases your B2B conversion rates.