• Part 1 focuses on vision, recent developments, and omnichannel experience.
• Part 2 gets you started with your e-commerce strategy, order management, content, customer experience and with choosing the right platform.

The eBooks are filled with practical knowledge, best practices, and customer stories. Get your overview of challenges, strategies, and solutions for B2B digital commerce now. Download part 1 and part 2.

The post Engineering Digital Commerce in B2B and Wholesale appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

According to research conducted by KPMG and Bitkom Research, almost two-thirds of all companies are using a cloud service. It is predicted that this number will increase.

Intershop is a leading supplier of innovative e-commerce solutions for the B2C and B2B commerce market, focussing on omnichannel solutions.

The post Intershop launches Commerce-as-a-Service cloud solution appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

How can the retail industry survive (and overcome) the new customers’ demands? In a decade of digital transformation, customer behavior has dramatically changed. In 2017 nearly 20% of UK retail sales took place through non-conventional channels and customers spent £18bn on mobile shopping only. Retailers not offering a hassle-free multichannel experience, whether it’s in store, online or mobile, are missing out.

In 2020, being truly omnichannel will no longer be a luxury but a requirement so getting to grips with it NOW will be the only way retailers will stay ahead of the competition.

InternetRetailing EXPO (IRX) 2018 brings together the expertise, best practice and technology retailers need to enchant the customer and deliver a seamless shopping experience across channels.  On 21-22 of March, 5,000 digital professionals will gather at the NEC for the UK’s largest festival for digital and multichannel retail. With the largest educational programme in e-commerce, +80 retailers will unveil the solutions to the most pressing problems in digital retailing of today, harnessing the latest technologies across Mobile, Virtual Reality, Payments and more.

From creating your first e-commerce website to optimising your mobile experience or expanding internationally, IRX 2018 tackles today's retail challenges no matter the size of the retailer.

Be inspired by over 100 hours of content

IRX 2018 boasts 8 conference tracks featuring a stellar line-up, including Nigel Blunt, Head of Operations Development at Sainsbury's Argos, Mark Cody, Mobile Product Lead at Eurostar, Caroline Hazelhurst, Operations Director at Deliveroo, Tom Rooney, Senior Mobile Apps & In-Store Digital Manager at John Lewis and Daryl Hughes, eCommerce Manager at Facebook & Instagram UK. During IRX 2018, visitors will also be able to experience the latest innovations and developments from over 300 exhibitors, namely Ingenico Payments, Visa, Magento, Worldpay and many others.

Neil Gaisford, Managing Director for InternetRetailing Expo, commented: “Black Friday 2017 saw online sales overtake the high street for the first time, with £1.4bn taken on Friday. However, standing out in a competitive sales period like this isn’t just about who has the best promotions. The biggest differentiator can often be the customer service you deliver. Effective omnichannel; making it easy for customers to communicate, select, buy, take delivery and return, as they wish to, no matter which channel they’re using – mobile, desktop or in store. Omnichannel is the future of retail, and retailers not embracing it, will stay behind. “

Register for your free pass

For further information and to register free for IRX 2018, please visit internetretailingexpo.com. Get involved on Twitter by following @etailexpo and with the hashtags #IRX18 #EDX18.

The post InternetRetailing Expo is back with a focus on omnichannel appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Findings show that delivery is often the deciding factor between two brands. Each purchase decision is made based on multiple considerations on the part of its target customers. Delivery is one very important aspect of this. Providing easy and effortless delivery and return processes is highly linked to brand loyalty.

On average the 150 biggest online retailers offer on average 2.7 delivery options and 1.9 return options. Standard average delivery costs are 3.59 Pounds. There is a significant increase in In-shop returns which is likely to increase due to technological developments. The cost of returns is likely to hit bottom line profits, due to standards set by giants like Amazon. However, leaving customers out of pocket will never drive loyalty. The different on- and offline channels to return via leaves retailers with the need to develop omnichannel customer experiences.

Want to read the full report? You can download it here.

The post European eDelivery Index 2017: State of European Delivery & Returns Market appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Wholesalers have always pursued a multi-channel strategy. In earlier days, it may have consisted of using a catalog, a brick-and-mortar store and sales representatives. Digitalisation and the Internet resulted in a big shift, with merchants starting to sell online, creating a whole new pattern of expectations. A lot of these e-commerce companies obviously focused on B2C, but what are the benefits for B2B platform-users?

A Forrester Research showed that two-thirds of all B2B customers expect their interaction with a company to be seamless across all channels. For them, it does not matter if they communicate by phone, desktop PC, mobile devices or even an old-fashioned paper catalog. The experience needs to be the same through every channel, providing the same products, information, price, and services. It is not always easy, for every seller, to create an equal experience through multiple channels. However, it does offer some important advantages. The research noted that about one-third of all omnichannel customers spend more, while half of the omnichannel customers are more profitable overall. The obvious downside of failing to implement an omnichannel strategy is even more telling since the internet. When a product is listed in a catalog but not online, it is so much easier to search for it on a competitor’s website.

Wholesalers have pursued a multi-channel strategy for a long time, using brick-and-mortar locations, catalogs, sales representatives, call centers and many more channels to interact with the customer. With the internet and digitalisation of business processes, harmonisation of all channels is even more important in an omnichannel strategy. A strategy that holds coherent, consistent pricing and branding, with customer-specific rather than channel-specific income statements, to deliver a decent customer experience across all areas and channels. To achieve such an omnichannel strategy often requires a change in thinking, in (re)creating perspectives, changing old ways of thinking as areas of ownership are inevitably transformed.

When B2C and B2B customers connect with a company, they provide useful information through various channels. This helps wholesalers to gain a better understanding of the needs and wishes of their customers. Based on these needs, wholesalers can implement solutions that offer a tailored experience across multiple channels. This benefits the consumer, but will help the wholesaler to improve cross- and upselling as well.

Going online has offered wholesalers a bunch of new tools to provide their customers a quick and easy order process, which adds to the customer satisfaction. Faster transactions, larger selections, products at a lower price and comprehensive after-sales services are main reasons for customers to buy online. This goes for B2C consumers as well as the general wholesale-consumer.

There is a danger in these developments; B2B e-commerce in the wholesale industry is becoming increasingly complex. It is particularly important that wholesalers tailor their quotation management and order entry system to the preferences of business customers – among all available channels. As this is executed successfully, a wholesale-consumer can place their order independently. The buyer controls the entire process, at any time and place of their liking. An example: using a digital sales platform, it is possible to assign a unique order-value limit or personal budget to each individual buyer. If an order value is higher than the assigned limit, an approval request is automatically sent to the manager responsible, guaranteeing full transparency for both buyer and seller and reducing the number of additional manual processes. The buyer is, and remains in control.

According to Gerrit Enthoven, Sales Director at Intershop, an integrated B2B e-commerce solution provides important features and information. These aspects will streamline business processes to make the order-entry more comprehensible and productive. Examples of important features are special customer price lists, custom product offerings, master agreements, block pricing, integrated quotation processes, full order histories, a full overview of all available items at all locations and special logistics options. When using these features, it is possible to coordinate all customer interaction across all available channels as well as replicate sales and order management processes as part of the digital platform. This way, e-commerce in B2B sales provides wholesalers with an additional, very useful sales channel.

More Information on digital commerce in wholesale.

The post Digitalisation: a B2B approach appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.