Announcing New Pre-Composed Solution™ for B2B Commerce

B2B Digital Transformation: Easier Said Than Done

Your customer: “How much does that cost?”

You: “Well… that depends.”

As a B2B business, maybe you don’t do set pricing. You can’t do it. Maybe your offerings are too complex. Maybe you like to treat every single customer differently. Maybe you manufacture from base materials that are vulnerable to rapidly fluctuating commodity prices. Maybe you’ve just always done it that way. Regardless, you have your reasons and so your business relies on quoting. But you’ve held back from implementing automated, digital quoting because of the perceived complexity and expense.

The ubiquity of digital commerce, however, has set different expectations and it’s no longer good enough for you to entice your buyers with an amazing discovery experience only to end up at a “Please call for pricing” pop-up.

A New Approach to B2B Digitization

With our new Pre-Composed Solution™ for B2B Commerce, co-developed in partnership with Systems Integrator DigiCommerce, B2B brands can quickly launch and optimize the automated, digital B2B commerce experiences (including quoting!) that your buyers demand. Powered by Composable Commerce, an approach that enables brands to bring their unique digital vision to life by leveraging multiple best-of-breed vendors composed together into a complete business-ready solution, brands no longer have to compromise between the rigid B2B commerce solutions of the past or taking on the risk of stitching together modern technologies.

This solution composes core B2B commerce functionality (like Account Management, complex catalog support), Role-Based Access, etc.) from Elastic Path Commerce Cloud, with pre-built digital experiences for B2B buyers and sellers to make quoting, and other core B2B experiences, possible.

Power The Convenient Experiences Your Buyers Demand

These pre-integrated B2B features are used to power the digital-first experiences that your customers demand.  The granular system of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), allows your customers to fully model their organizational structure – who can order what and for how much, who can transact, etc.  Within this controlled context, your customers can easily:

• Create carts (orders) manually or via convenient CSV upload
• Share carts across their organization
• Save carts for later use including often repeated orders
• View all their orders and their status
• Submit an order for quote, as well as modify and re-submit
• Accept a quote and transact via credit card or purchase order
• Split the resulting order fulfillment across multiple delivery addresses

…And Digitize The Key Processes Your Account Reps Rely On

The same RBAC system allows you to model your side of the equation – who manages what, who can set prices, approve quotes, etc. right down to who manages Betty’s accounts when she’s on vacation. Your account reps can easily see the orders of their assigned accounts in detail and manage them accordingly.  In addition, the Pre-Composed Solution™ also comes with a powerful built-in dashboard that provides, to those with adequate permissions, rapid analysis of all orders across the entire organization.

Another great capability comes from the fact that essentially everything your customer can do with their order, so too can an account rep. This enables what is known in the B2C world as buying on behalfof or shopper impersonation. Maybe some of your customers are a little old-school or maybe they’re in the field and just can’t get to their computer. In these cases, the rep can create the order, share with the customer, provide the quote, and move it along in the process. When you combine that ability with our flexible catalog and multiple price book model, you’ve instantly (and inexpensively) put a powerful tool in the hands of your field reps whether they be online, on the phone, or on the road.

Whereas your end customers drop by your site, conduct some business, and move on, your employees live in these systems all day every day. There are still plenty of folks out there (even one is too many in my opinion!) who spend hours tabbing their way through complex legacy “green screen” systems to get the job done. One of the most enduring benefits of this solution will be just how pleasant it is to use. Despite packing in a lot of really high-powered functionality, this Pre-Composed Solution™ offers a UX that is highly intuitive and logical in its flow and a UI that is clean, giving the users power with an easy learning curve and no cognitive overload. Your team is busy keeping the customer satisfied. The last thing they need is to struggle with their tools.

Transformation + Trust = The Future of B2B eCommerce

Your core business isn’t easy. If it was, someone else would be doing it for less. Our highly flexible solution acknowledges the inherent complexity in what you sell and how you sell it, and helps you transform from what has been a high-touch offline process to a new frictionless digital experience for your customers without jeopardizing your most valuable asset – their trust.