Creating a high-quality buyer experience

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“Build it and they will come” goes the old phrase. If only it were that easy. Selling online involves far more than simply having a marketplace or eCommerce site. 

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Getting buyers to your website is one thing, but converting sales is what actually keeps you in business. And doing this well requires a variety of features that combine to create a seamless, high quality buyer experience.

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The ease and sophistication we’ve become accustomed to in consumer eCommerce means meeting the expectations of B2B buyers is now tougher than ever. 

Most buyers expect an array of payment options at checkout. Catering for preferences, such as cards, bank transfer, direct debit and wallets, increases conversion and the number of regions you can do business with. Tapping into trade credit, such as buy now, pay later (BNPL), lending and factoring, increases liquidity and facilitates bigger order sizes and more transactions.

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The ease and sophistication we’ve become accustomed to in consumer eCommerce means meeting the expectations of B2B buyers is now tougher than ever. 

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Another way to streamline transactions is around compliance, verification and KYC (Know Your Customer). The more seamless your authentication process, the less friction for your customers before checkout (and significantly less risk of fraud risk for you).

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Developments in conversational commerce make it easy to engage with your buyers in real time. By helping them find the right products you can increase the likelihood of them placing orders.

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Build vs Buy?

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But with all these moving parts, what’s the best way to implement? At some point, most businesses will face the question of whether to buy off-the-shelf software or build these capabilities in house. It always comes down to a trade off between time and cost.

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This is particularly front of mind for early-stage B2B marketplaces. On one hand, purchasing SaaS and financial services products will increase your operating costs. But on the other hand, purpose-built apps can be deployed much faster, meaning you’ll see the revenue benefit far sooner. Crucially, they also allow your team more time to focus on developing your core product.

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Consider the complexity of insourcing critical features too. For example, financial and payment services are highly nuanced and complex. So it’s rare for businesses not to partner with a specialist software provider to offer them.

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If buying purpose-built software means you can get to market faster and offer a better service, then it’’s a smart move.

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Another angle to consider is future scalability. When your commerce site starts processing a higher volume of transactions and running your business becomes more complex, in-house-built solutions can become limitations pretty quickly. For example you might need a highly flexible checkout to orchestrate payments from multiple regions, currencies and payment methods. Or the need to update product descriptions in real-time. Delaying here can dampen your growth and restrict your ability to capture market-share.

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So, on balance, if buying purpose-built software means you can get to market faster and offer a better service, then it’s a smart move.

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Focus on features that will have the most impact

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Even when buying off-the-shelf solutions you’ll still need to prioritise. 

Focus on the features that increase liquidity. This means improving your checkout conversion and increasing the flow of interactions between supply and demand on your site, which in turn, leads to network effects like referrals and repeat business.

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Not only do these capabilities have an impact on your revenue, they can build trust between buyers and sellers on your marketplace, and loyalty to your eCommerce site.

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Find a trusted partner

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If payments and embedded finance is an area you’re looking to develop then Kriya can help. We have over 12 years of experience helping B2B merchants grow with our buy now, pay later trade credit and invoice finance solutions. 

To find out more check out our popular article on how B2B buy now, pay later works. Or get in touch via the form below, we’d love to hear about what you’re building.

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