Brands and manufacturers are tasked with the unique challenge of engaging and connecting with two separate audiences: Customers and wholesale B2B clients. But the gap between the ideal B2B and B2C buying journey continues to narrow, with shoppers of all kinds seeking relevant content, high-definition images and detailed product information to make the best decisions.
Home furnishings manufacturer Company C has implemented the SaaS platform from MarketLive to improve its e-Commerce strategies across the entire business.
In addition to its customer-facing web site and three stores, Company C has a network of more than 1,000 wholesale partners. With MarketLive, Company C now has an improved B2C site, and a dedicated B2B portal for wholesale partners and designers. Through the portal, partners can place orders, look up product pricing, access inventory levels and sift through selling tools and collateral.
Advertisement
Although the business has a 20-year history, Company C recently established a multichannel strategy to help differentiate the brand, according to Walter Chapin, President and Co-Founder of Company C. “That requires building a relationship directly with our consumers.”
To better connect with customers and wholesale partners, Company is steering away from siloed strategies that force customers to hop between a catalog, desktop/laptop or mobile device. Now, the company is focusing on “giving partners a dedicated site where they can get all the tools they need to succeed,” said Chapin in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “We want to convert the web to be a digital platform and grand central for all people we interact with, whether that’s consumers, wholesales or media.”
With the new dedicated B2B portal and improved B2C site, Company C will be empowered to help customers make the best decisions, and buy “how and when they want to buy,” Chapin said. The new e-Commerce site was designed to give all customers a 360-degree view of products, creating “a hub for everything they may want, whether it’s a technical view of products, basic content or photography.”
With the MarketLive platform, the Company C team will be able to make enhancements to the web sites in a more agile fashion while ensuring site uptime.
Company C previously made manual adjustments to custom-built components, making it difficult for employees to maintain the site, according to Chapin. “We wanted a cohesive platform that would be easier for our customers to use and us to maintain.”