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~ Intershop ~

INTERSHOP:

“SELF-SERVICE

IS A BUSINESS

ACCELERATOR

FOR B2B

E-COMMERCE”

Text: Sanne Leenders // Photos: Intershop
Intershop Communications AG was founded in 1992, being the very first e-commerce
platform in the world. The company is an independent provider of cloud-based B2B

commerce solutions. Upon request, Intershop orchestrates the entire omnichannel
commerce process chain – from the design of online channels to the implementation of
software to fulfilment. More than 300 enterprise customers run Intershop solutions. We sat
down with Markus Klahn, CEO of Intershop, to discuss the differences between B2B and
B2C, some interesting B2B trends and Intershop’s services and future plans.

elf-service is a business accelerator service is a business accelerator, and if it is combined with
“Back in the day, sales representatives would visit the right recommendation and personalisation, you can sell
S(potential) customers to convince them to buy their even more. Thus, we do not have to completely rely on a sales
service or product. However, this is a very outdated way of representative anymore,” says Markus.
doing business nowadays. With an e-commerce platform,
there is a somewhat neutral layer where companies can B2B companies know their customers better
provide information to the customers. Not only that, the “The B2C buyer is normally unknown and anonymous at
customer can choose which information is necessary for first, and B2C companies have to predict who is in front of
them without having to listen to all the information that the screen. When it comes to the B2B industry, the company
the sales representative might tell them. The customer can already knows its customers very well. Therefore, we are able
decide the level of information, and for the unlikely cases to personalise the entire experience. Ultimately, this leads to
where customers might have questions or problems, they a new dimension in AI because we no longer have to rely on
can easily open a chat conversation with an expert. Self- mass data and customer predictions due to the fact that we

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