What should be able to personal account of a wholesale company in 2013?
Introduction
The growth in the number of online stores does not surprise anyone. 2013 will not be an exception. More than one thousand online trading projects will appear. At the moment, few speak of a huge problem - a small number of suppliers who are ready to work “on order”. Small online stores cannot afford to purchase goods at the warehouse, so they need the opportunity to reserve goods from the supplier immediately after the order is received from the customer, pick it up and deliver it to the customer the next day. But for any wholesale supplier, this means getting a huge operating load. To effectively sell goods to online stores, wholesalers are introducing B2B systems.
Definitions
There is currently no exact definition of a product that solves the problem of automating work with orders with synchronization with an ERP system (for example, 1C). B2B - a system, an online distribution system, an online distribution system, a wholesale online store - these are definitions of the same product. It allows the wholesale company to create a personal account for customers on its website, which has all the necessary functionality so that customers stop communicating with managers on operational issues, and solve them independently, conveniently and quickly. At the same time, there is a constant exchange of data between the supplier's ERP and personal account.
Why should the functionality of a B2B system in 2013 be different from the functionality that was before in B2B systems?
habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/ea1/7e5/ecd/ea17e5ecdf39d7dc85d0c7fefc01b667.jpg »alt =" the functionality of a B2B system in 2013 should be different from that which was in B2B systems before "/>In 2012 it increased the number of medium and small online stores. At the beginning of 2012, most large wholesale companies did not even look at online stores as their customers. Now the situation has changed a lot, and in 2013 it will change even more noticeably. Previously, the B2B system had to take into account only the needs of offline customers of the wholesale company, and in 2013, the interests of a huge audience of online stores should also be taken into account.
What is the difference between an ordinary customer of a wholesale company and a small online store?
Everything is simple:
- an ordinary customer takes a batch of goods from the warehouse and pays for it (on various payment terms).
- a small online store places the supplier’s goods on the window of their store, receives an order from the customer, immediately reserves the goods from the supplier, and so several times a day. At the end of the day he writes out one team order and arrives for it, for example, the next day in the morning, and delivers the goods to customers.
From the principle of operation, it is clear that an offline seller in a B2B system needs a catalog of goods with current prices and current balances and, in principle, that's all. But the online store needs much more functionality (more on that below). Based on the number of requests from online stores, it is not profitable for suppliers to deliver to this channel without a B2B system.
Work with leftovers
One of the main functions of any Internet distribution system is to display to the customers of the wholesale company the actual stock balances. Some of the suppliers show the quantity, someone shows just "many, few." This is a familiar product catalog, a key feature is the RELEVANCE of information on the availability of goods.
An invisible feature of the catalog is that, depending on the type of client, different prices and even different groups of products may be shown to him. Thus, the supplier relieves itself of the task of sending price lists to its customers.
Working with the catalog is the prerogative of those markets where the visual component of the product is of great importance. Clothing, shoes, toys, costume jewelry, etc.
In the case when the product has characteristics that do not require a visual assessment, for example, plastic dishes, pharmaceuticals, spare parts, tools and so on, the customers will work differently. Either the order will be imported from Excel, or the contextual search for goods will be used.
Work with orders
A huge number of routine operations occur at the stage of working with orders. One of the main reasons for implementing B2B is the reduction in the number of operations that sales managers perform.
Operations:
1. Coordination of the availability of goods and prices
2. Creation of orders
3. Indication of the method of shipment (pickup from a specific warehouse or delivery address)
4. Indication of jur. the person with whom the payment will be made.
5. Indication of the type of contract by which the shipment will take place
6. Adding a comment to the order.
The functionality that is required by online stores to work with a supplier and is not very necessary for offline partners:
7. Quick reservation of goods immediately after order creation.
8. The ability to download content (images and descriptions)
9. Information about the balance should be as relevant as possible. Ideally, it should be updated from ERP, the online provider system. If it’s 2-3 minutes, also not bad.
10. E-mail or sms notifications of changes in order statuses.
11. Import of goods
12. If the product does not need a visual assessment, then a contextual search of the goods is necessary. It is convenient when the remains are displayed in the search:
Finance
The least used functionality of the online distribution system also helps save the wholesale company from routine operations, such as reconciliation requests. In a B2B system, a client can create an act on any date range independently. Additionally, the client will be able to see the history of financial interaction with this provider.
PS
Despite the thousands of online stores created every year, most of them are closed after 2-4 months of operation. In our opinion, the main reason for this is the overestimated expectations of the creators of sites about receiving relatively high income with minimal costs. The revaluation by many beginning entrepreneurs of the value of various methods of “promoting” an online store also negatively affects the implementation of projects. Many believe that if they know how to promote the site, then they can easily sell the product, because they will attract a lot of traffic to the site. It is not that simple. For example, the selection of a supplier is one of the most important tasks of a novice entrepreneur. If the supplier does not have an Internet distribution system, then it will be extremely difficult to work with him. We hope that in the new year the number of suppliers who understand the requirements of online stores will be significantly larger and the growth of the e-commerce market in Russia will break another record.
Owners of small online stores will also benefit from our articles:
What you need to pay attention to when opening a small online store;
The main mistakes when opening a small online store