Category: eCommerce

With extensive experience in Digital Commerce, we constantly face challenges that drive us to innovate and find scalable solutions for our customers. Our priority is always to address their key business problems and ensure customer satisfaction and steady growth.

Recently, I worked on a project for a client to enhance their Order Management System for better stock visibility and control across the company. This article will delve into the crucial aspect of order management, printing and shipping, and explore the difficulties we encountered and the solution we devised.

What is Printing and Shipping module, and how is it an integral component of order processing?

When an online shopper places an order through an eCommerce platform, it involves three critcal steps at the backend, to fulfill the order: pick, pack, and ship. These three steps are handled by the order processing team in the warehouse. 

The first and essential step for processing orders is to decide which order to process first. In the web application, when a customer places an order, he can select a courier service during the checkout process. It aids the buyer in getting orders as per his requirements and urgency. So, if a buyer needs his delivery done in a day, he will have to select the appropriate service, such as the express delivery option, and pay extra charges. Apart from that, different courier services have different times for picking up and shipping the items. In that case, the team needs to know which orders they should prioritize and prepare first so that the shipment can reach the destination at the earliest.  However, for the team to  figure out which orders need to be ready first without an automated system is time-consuming and error-prone.

The team faced a challenge in determining the priority of orders. To resolve this, we designed an order processing system that prioritizes orders based on courier schedules. Additionally, we incorporated intelligent picking to streamline the order picking process in large warehouses.

Here is a quick overview of the solution

To start with, we divided the order processing system into various blocks corresponding to different courier services that the buyer can select while placing the order. When an order comes into the system, the order gets added to the respective courier block chosen by the buyer. 

Based on the courier block and its priority, the system generates a list of orders.

The order processing team can then view the orders, start processing them based on priority and begin printing the shipping labels and related items needed to prepare the package. The number of orders they can process at a time is 30-50, which saves them a lot of time.

Another issue that this system prevents is order mismanagement. Since several people might be involved in order processing, we must ensure that each order is processed only once. To make this happen, as soon as a user accesses a set of orders and starts processing them, those orders get locked until they are processed.  

Once the processing is done, the system generates PDFs of orders, commercial and dangerous good invoices & shipping labels. After PDF is generated, the user gets the printout from the printer which they can use for packaging . 

The pitfall

This solution was beneficial and efficient and worked perfectly fine. But with time, as the application scaled and the orders increased significantly, so did the number of courier services, and the system started encountering issues.  

Two major issues:

1.) Loading speed: As the number of orders increased, the load speed of the order processing panel started to suffer dramatically. It would take about a minute to load and display the details. 

The root cause of the issue was: 

When an order was placed, we made an AJAX call at regular intervals and updated the order details in the system through the database. We performed various operations to display the intended order details, such as fetching the respective order data and sorting that data based on different priorities. But when there were several orders, fetching and sorting order details directly impacted the loading speed and caused delays in updating order details in the order management panel. 

2.) Process several orders at a time: To ensure that each order is processed only once, we have implemented an order-locking mechanism. Initially, when handling 30-50 orders at a time, our existing solution of using MySQL queries to lock and reserve the orders worked well for us. But more orders in the pipeline increased the backend load due to increased database calls, impacting the overall system’s efficiency. In addition, we wanted the system to be able to process and print the shipping labels for 100 orders at a time without faltering.  

In order to address these, here is what we did:

The proposed solution

1.) Using Elastic Search to prevent the load on the database

We implemented elastic search to fasten the order updation process in the admin panel. So instead of making that AJAX call to update our database, we used elastic search. Whenever the order is updated in our system, we update the latest data on ElasticSearch and load orders directly from it.  Since Elasticsearch serves as an index store for retrieving data pretty fast, it helped us with instant updation without increasing the load on our database.  It also helped us make our system robust enough to handle the increasing order values. The load speed was reduced from 1 minute to 7-8 seconds.  

2.) Implementing Redis to lock the orders until they are processed to prevent mismanagement

To make our system more efficient, we put in place a lock feature using Redis. This meant when an order was being processed by one person, it was locked using Redis and couldn’t be duplicated. This resulted in the system being able to handle 100 orders at once, lightening the load on the main database.

The solution successfully allowed the system to handle up to 500 orders daily. We’re always working on upgrades, like automating order picking through RPA, and have more improvements in the works. So keep an eye out for updates on our journey to a future-proof system.

 

Online shopping has changed a lot over the years and the pandemic only made it grow faster. With so many eCommerce websites, businesses must find ways to stand out and meet customers’ changing expectations. Simply having a website that works well is not enough anymore. To succeed and grow, businesses need a good front-end and an even better back-office system.

As a mobile app developer for eCommerce, I’ve worked on many different projects with different needs and challenges. In this blog, I want to share my experience working on a warehouse management app module. The goal of this module was to help the warehouse’s inventory management team process orders more accurately and quickly.

Let’s take a closer look at the challenge of processing orders, the complexity of back-office operations, and how we developed a powerful solution to help.

A quick overview of the eCommerce back office operations: 

For an eCommerce website to deliver orders on time, it needs a strong system that supports the back office operations. This includes an order management system to handle order processing (picking, packing, and shipping), an inventory management system to make sure the business always has enough stock, and a warehouse management system to run the warehouse smoothly and make the best use of storage space. When all these systems work seamlessly, then it helps with the smooth processing of orders.

The challenge

Our client’s eCommerce website caters to retailers and wholesalers. So, each order received in the system is a bulk order, meaning that the quantity needed for a specific order is usually large. Sometimes during the order processing, when there is not enough active inventory to fulfill any order, there is an immediate need for more stocks for order fulfillment.  If there is a delay in fulfilling the order, it directly impacts the delivery time, and the customer will not be able to receive their orders as per the schedule. This affects the customer experience and has a direct impact on return customers and sales.

The challenge was that the warehouse receives 200-300 new purchase order boxes for stock replenishment daily; some of these boxes contains the products needed to fulfill the orders which are being processed by the back office team currently. But to find the product, the back office team must check all those boxes, which is insanely time-consuming and laborious. Secondly, they also need to know whether there is the desired quantity of the product per the order. What if they can find the right product in a box, but there isn’t enough quantity to complete the order? 

The solution 

The mobile app we made for the warehouse team uses Swift, Coredata, and storyboard. It helped them manage tasks such as checking the stock, picking items, and assigning storage spaces (called bin locations) to make inventory management easier.

To solve the current challenge, we added an additional functionality to this app particularly to search for products in a purchase order that is received daily by the warehouse team by introducing a QR code. When the purchase order boxes are prepared for shipping at the procurement center (source from where the warehouse receives its stocks for further sales and distribution), they will be assigned a unique id. The procurement unit will use this unique box id to store the product details and quantity of the goods packed inside the box in the system.

Each box id will then be used to generate a unique QR code that will be printed on every box, before it is shipped to the warehouse.  So, when the boxes are delivered to the warehouse, the inventory team can use these QR codes to find the intended products by simply scanning it. 

How did the new search functionality work?

1.) Searching for the product and quantities inside the box

The warehouse team will open the mobile app and navigate to the search functionality. With the help of the search bar, they will enter the details of the products that they want to search for. They can select the product to be searched in various ways, which are:

• a drop-down menu that lists all the products related to the terms entered into the search bar  
• manually type the details
• scan the respective product barcode if they have the intended product that they want to search for at hand 

Once you have entered/selected the product to be searched, it automatically triggers the next action that is enabling the camera for the warehouse team to scan the QR codes of the purchase order boxes that have arrived.  A QR code stores information as a series of pixels that any digital device can interpret. In our case, the QR code stores the unique box id decoded by the phone’s camera during the scanning process. 

After the scanning, the next action involves triggering API calls to the web server using the unique box id and retrieving the data for that id.

The retrieved data is then matched against the entered search item. When there is a match, a green frame appears around the QR code and displays the product details and quantity; if there is a mismatch, a red frame appears. The person scanning the order can skip the boxes with the red frames and go ahead and open the boxes with green frames to prepare the order shipment.


2.) Scanning multiple boxes at a single time using multithreading

The next challenge was to make the process fast because there are about 200-300 boxes to be checked, and checking one box at a time isn’t feasible. So, we implemented a technique that allows them to scan 5-10 packages simultaneously. To accomplish multiple-box scanning, we used Swift’s multithreading concept. Multithreading allows you to run several processes simultaneously, keeping the user unaware of the changes because the thread switch happens quite quickly.   

The user will use their phone camera to scan one or multiple QR codes at a time. For example, if we want to scan five boxes at a time with the help of multithreading, we make 5 API calls at the same time to the server and get the intended details immediately.  
 
Through this minor feature addition which may seem small, it created a huge impact on the warehouse team, making them efficient in processing more orders in a day while saving cost. Most of the solutions we have developed for customers are always focused on helping businesses automate their processes and reduce redundancies, manual labor, and unwanted errors while saving costs.

If you are a regular internet user, you must have observed something unusual and effective at the same time on the web.

How about seeing an ad for your recently searched product on Amazon. Other than this, Netflix provides you with movie suggestions similar to the ones that you just watched. Lastly, Hulu informs you about the upcoming episode of the show you are watching.

These examples are not the end; there are many of them. The core motto of the brands behind these personalization messages is to enhance user experience and conversion.

As per Accenture[1] , 91% of the customers say that they will shop with a brand that provides relevant offers and recommendations to them. On top of that, Statista[2]  suggests that 90% of U.S. consumers find company messages that are not personally relevant annoying.[3]  These stats clearly prove that e-commerce personalization can be the cannon for your brand if implemented well.

For those who have an eCommerce B2B business, it is time for you to leverage the power of e-commerce personalization. If you already are, it is time to make some tweaks for better results.

This exhaustive guide will uncover some great aspects and techniques of e-commerce personalization for you!

How does E-commerce Personalization work?

Amazon can target product ads to you! Ever wondered how it does that?

Amazon and every other business giant target its users with relevant content by collecting their information. It may seem like a privacy issue to you right now. However, most of these firms use customer data responsibly and with user consent.

The data used by firms like Amazon are purchase history, search history, previously reviewed products, and demographics.

Based on this obtained data, users on the eCommerce platform are divided into different segments. After this, relevant content for each user segment is generated and targeted based on their position in the marketing funnel. This is about e-commerce personalization for the B2C model.

E-commerce personalization for B2B is a bit different from B2C. How? In B2C, the brand only has to convince the customer that its product is better than the competitors. Therefore, customers follow the impulse buying method as they only see the benefits and needs of the product.

On the other hand, the target entity here is a business. Brands cannot convince them easily. Businesses that buy from the brands tend to do thorough research about the products and services. As they have their dedicated sales, finance, and other teams, the collaborative logical analysis of all of them is considered before making the buying decision. Therefore, personalization works differently in B2B, and there are many factors that play a critical role, such as search, catalog, orders, promotions, etc.

Key E-Commerce Personalization Practices and Trends of 2023 for B2B!

As you are well aware of what ecommerce personalization is and how it works, let’s move on to the trends and practices that make e-commerce personalization better, efficient, and faster.

AI is the future

If we look at the technology, industrial, and other business sectors, AI has disrupted almost all of them in one way or another. The disruption is so intense that the market for AI is skyrocketing. The AI market size stands at $387.45 billion in 2022 and is expected to go up to $1,394.30 billion by 2029.

If we talk about eCommerce, it also shares a slice of this market. As of now, the adoption is slow, but it is happening. Statistics show that around 30% of retailers use AI for personalization. Amazon and eBay are two of those online retailers.

Artificial Intelligence coupled with machine learning and big data analytics can help eCommerce companies easily predict changing user behavior. Furthermore, this changing behavior of the users, whether it is the surfing pattern, viewed products, products added to cart, or whatnot, can be used for various purposes. AI can track these aspects to deliver personalized product recommendations and ideas about content type and its placement.

As there is no human intervention, AI can serve as a one-on-one personalized agent for the customers and small businesses. Further, AI can also help eCommerce businesses scale personalized recommendations. Retailers can use the recommendations provided by AI to further refine content and offers for better performance.

AI can track aspects like visitor behavior, third-party data, and historical data to make changes to the product details. Apart from these, AI can also be used to review ads and see if the right ads are delivered to the right audience.

Here are some AI in e-commerce personalization examples-

1. TELUS International uses e-commerce personalization techniques and AI technology to deliver more personalized ads that convert

2. Companies use a combination of Diderot effect and AI-based personalization to influence the buying behavior of the users.

Product Recommendation

B2C product recommendation is an easy and straightforward process. You analyze what the customer brought, and you can target them with similar products. B2B product recommendation works a bit differently.

In the B2B process, you not only have the opportunity to increase your average order value, but you can also work on e-commerce personalization for product recommendations.

For example, if a mobile repair franchise owner purchases bulk mobile repair devices like flex cables, you can recommend products related to those devices like a Front Camera with Face ID Proximity Sensor or mobile phone motherboards.

Enable Corporate Accounts

B2B buying may seem like B2C, but it is not. Unlike B2C, B2B buying has a lot of different minds behind it. As a B2B account can be an entire firm purchasing from you, brands need to provide a single account with the ability to handle multiple users along with multiple access role functionalities.

For example, the company hierarchy of a B2B client can have multiple members with various access roles(like, one can have permission to just shortlist the products while the other can place the order). To ensure that the overall process of accessing the eCommerce platform from a single account is easy, create a corporate account with access roles.

It can be the company’s senior manager shortlisting the products but an assistant manager placing the order. On top of all these, B2B clients also require real-time details about credit status, inventory levels, and invoices history.

Provide Informational Resources

One of the primary challenges that a vendor faces is knowing about the product. For example, if there is a new product in the market (say, a virtual assistant like Alexa), it can be difficult for the vendors to know if it is capable of captivating the audience or surviving the competition. So, being a part of the B2B model, you need to produce personalized informational assets for the clients.

These assets may include:

• Specification sheets: These sheets can include figures about the demand for the product along with aspects like customers’ expectations and market needs.

• Explainer videos: These videos can be a perfect e-commerce personalization asset that can be targeted to a B2B client. It can help them understand the product and its related terms easily.

• Whitepapers and eBooks: Big brands tend to produce product-related ebooks and whitepapers that clearly highlight the pain points of the users and their respective solutions.

The Useful Quick Repeat

E-commerce Personalization is not just about targeting users or SMBs with recommended products. It is much deeper than that. As we have already talked about real-time access to credit status, inventory records, etc., one more thing that can go in the B2B e-commerce personalization basket is the quick repeat functionality.

If a business is ordering products in bulk, it will be an arduous task for them to find the same products again and again when re-ordering. As reordering the same products is a common practice for businesses, you can add a feature like a button on top of their corporate account saying “Repeat the last order.” Further, you can add information about the last order just below the button. This single-click order function can reduce a lot of hassle and time for business prospects.

Handle the Checkout Process

As it is crucial for brands to introduce corporate accounts, it also becomes necessary to alter the checkout process based on that. For example, in a firm, there can be many people who could be placing orders for their respective product departments. The checkout process should compile these orders to get approval from the purchase manager.

Another example can be a business with multiple franchises. When multiple stores of the same franchise place orders, the checkout process should compile the orders into one and place a bulk order. The process can eliminate confusion and streamline the checkout process.

Leverage Email Marketing

Email may not seem like a good way to engage with business customers, but it is much more powerful than you think. As per stats, $1 spent on email can harness an ROI of $36. This is only possible if you stand out from the crowd.

As there are countless ecommerce businesses undertaking personalized email marketing, you need to distinguish yourself.

It can be done by sending personalized business emails to your business customers. Based on the time of the year or a special occasion, like Black Friday, you can send personalized emails with the banner “special discounts on bulk orders.” Moreover, you can shoot emails with offers like Order over 1000 units and get 1000 units of a supporting product free.

To keep your prospects updated with your deals, inform them about your new products via personalized emails.

Final Words

E-commerce Personalization is not a one-time job. It needs to be done as the organization grows and as the trends and buying behavior change. It is a never-ending process. However, if you do it carefully enough, it can provide you with limitless opportunities and revenue for an extended period of time. As of now, AI, machine learning, and augmented reality are some of the important technologies that can enhance the e-commerce personalization game for businesses.

Arrange for a personalized consultation with us at [email protected] to get started.

Imagine a day when you casually scroll through Facebook and see an ad suggestion for a product you recently searched for. You click the link to check out the product and end up buying. Or take another situation where you were searching a product on the web and came across a detailed blog centered around that product. You find a link in that blog that takes you to the respective website, and you start checking what they offer.

If you think about it from a marketing perspective, in the first case, a product was sold, and in the second, you came to know about a brand that you would not have known otherwise. Both these cases cater to different touchpoints of a customer’s buying journey and go beyond only selling. It is a small snippet of what digital commerce looks like, but it has a lot more to offer that we will discuss in the next section of the blog. So, now let’s delve deeper into the what, why, and how of digital commerce for businesses.

What is Digital Commerce ?

Digital commerce is often used with eCommerce interchangeably, but eCommerce is only about selling products online, and digital commerce covers a broader landscape. It spans all the customer touchpoints, right from searching for the product until they make a buying decision. It includes an engaging website design to a consistent user experience across various devices (e.g. on mobile, desktop, browser) to email marketing messages to website content (e.g. blog posts, eBooks, videos etc). The interesting part is that all of this provides customers additional value beyond just selling.

Some of the common examples of  digital commerce are :

1.) Product descriptions: A good product description is a part of a digital commerce strategy that helps convince the user to buy a product. It may seem like an insignificant tool, but it hugely impacts the purchasing experience.

2.) Email marketing:  The emails are part of the digital commerce that helps you promote your products and offers or let people know of new launches. It helps you reach your customers in a well-targeted approach based on which stage of the buyer’s journey they are in.

3.) Blogs and website content: The content shared on the website in the form of  blogs, case studies,  whitepapers helps with brand awareness, increases  traffic to your website and all of this helps you expand your business and visibility.

Why do businesses need Digital Commerce?

Businesses need to evolve with continuously changing consumer behavior. Over the past few years, consumers’ buying behavior has changed drastically. Many factors influence customer buying behavior, such as a homepage with personalized recommendations, an interactive website that allows them to view a product thoroughly, or helpful customer support. So businesses need to create strategies that help them address their consumer expectations.

Now let’s have a walkthrough of why digital commerce is so important :

1.) Enhance customer experience

As per a report, 66% of customers expect companies to understand their needs. If the user experience is good then it becomes easier for businesses to have more returning customers.  And returning customers help retailers increase their orders with minimum effort.  An exceptional user experience is one where customers don’t have to work hard to find what they need. Incorporating an omnichannel strategy is also something that businesses should consider. The idea is to be present wherever your customer is and able to serve them when needed.

2.) Access to customer insights

When customers use digital platforms, it is easy to store and collect their data. So you can understand your customer’s buying behavior, preferences, gaps in your marketing strategy, provide personalized content, and do much more. Some of the other things that it can help you with are:

• Predict churn – Consumer insights can help you identify areas where you can improve customer service and potentially decrease customer churn.

• Better inventory planning and fewer markdowns : Leveraging consumer insights can help your quantitative inventory forecasting. As a result, you can have more accurate inventory levels and fewer markdowns.

• Determine optimal product pricing — 30% of retailers’ pricing decisions every year don’t align with their customer’s paying potential, leading to lost revenue. Retail analytics can help businesses set optimal product pricing to deliver the highest returns.

3.) Keep up with the evolving competition

As technology advances, new competitors come into play, and customer expectations rise. It is when the need to level up your digital commerce game also increases. For example, implementing technologies like AR for better product visualization or chatbots to help solve customer queries instantly.

All of this helps build your brand loyalty and gives the customer reason why they should recommend you to their friends, neighbors, or colleagues.

What technologies play an integral role in Digital Commerce?

 1.) Artificial intelligence and data

About 80% of the companies use AI as a component of their digital commerce strategies.  Artificial intelligence is spearheading the digital transformation in all industries. When integrated into digital commerce, it helps businesses to understand their customers in a better light. It also drives automation in supply chain management. From warehouse automation, predictive forecasting to automation of redundant tasks in the inventory there are a lot of other back-end  operations that AI makes possible.

Some of the popular areas where AI finds its applications are :

• Image and voice search

• Chatbots for customer service

• User behavior

• Voice support 

• Product recommendation

• Supply chain management

2.) Augmented Reality

 A technology that helps you bridge the gap between real and virtual environments. AR in the eCommerce space is proving to be a powerful tool that brands use to improve customer experience and build brand loyalty. A significant application of AR is to help customers make confident purchasing decisions by assisting them in viewing products in a 3-D environment. Many brands such as Sephora, Amazon, and Nike leverage AR potential to enhance user experiences.

3.) PWA

Progressive Web App (PWA) is a web application built to run on desktop and mobile devices. It leverages the latest technologies to deliver a native app-like experience to users and runs on any browser.

Why do they play an integral role in Digital commerce? As per a report, 60% of traffic comes from mobile devices. But the conversion rates from a mobile account for only 16%. Many users lose interest in an app during installation – searching, downloading, installing. Google reports that eCommerce websites that switch to PWA’s witness a 20% of revenue boost. So, incorporating PWA’s in your digital commerce strategy is a smart way to engage your customers without getting them to work too hard.

4.) Personalized content

 As per Instapage 74% customers feel frustrated if the website content is not personalized. Efficient Personalization is the star of an eCommerce business strategy that helps you build a unique connection with each of your customers. Data coupled with thorough research about your customer behavior forms the crux of any personalization strategy. When businesses offer personalized content, you provide a great user experience , build customer trust and drive more revenue and sales.

5.) Blending content with commerce

The customers’ buying cycle (from research and discovery to buying ) utilizes various resources. A simple example of this could be customers searching the Internet to find the right product or finding solutions to their current concerns. Publishing Commerce content such as buying guides, blogs, whitepapers, or detailed product descriptions is a great way that answers your customer queries organically. For instance, providing customers with a buyer guide article that includes product descriptions, comparisons with similar products, and testimonials. Or product-centric informational pieces that can nudge the customer to buy a specific product or visit a website.

6.) Customer analytics

 If you want your marketing to be efficient then a data-driven strategy is a must. Customer analytics refers to data collected about the customers that tell you what they are interacting with, what devices/channels they are using, what tempts them to make decisions, and a lot more. It is an excellent tool for understanding customers’ ever-changing behavior and optimizing your digital strategy accordingly.  Some of the powerful customer analytics include daily pageviews , bounce rates , avg time spent on webpage etc.

A customized digital commerce solution can help businesses manage their ever-evolving customer demands. The key is using a data-centric approach to understand consumer behavior and leveraging the right set of technologies to improve ROI and conversion rates.

It can be challenging to understand which tools and technologies to consider for your business needs. But with proper assistance from the right partner, you can always find the right solution that works best for your business needs.  Drop us an email at [email protected] to start your business transformation journey. 

We recently wrapped up our work-from-office week, which was all about meetings, work, and a lot of fun. Since many of us have been working from home for a good two years, experiencing office life all over again was a welcome change. It was a happy reminder of the good old days. But it also taught us some key lessons we didn’t know we needed.

So here are the four key learnings from our work from office week that we have curated after connecting with everyone :

1.) The power of knowledge transfer

When we work remotely, everyone is focused on doing their tasks and has less scope to tap into other team members’ unique knowledge base. 

But as we worked together in the office, we realized how easily knowledge flowed within the teams and across cross-functional teams without extra effort. Even the spontaneous chat sessions during the lunch or coffee break led to a lot of sharing and crucial learnings and lightbulb moments. It made us understand various aspects of the same project that weren’t apparent to us otherwise. Knowledge sharing helped us find better ways to accomplish a task.

Many of our employees from the development team got to learn new technologies and tools such as GraphQL (an open-source data query and manipulation language), TestFlight (an online service that helps mobile test apps), creating mircoservices, and the parallax effect. It helped them in breaking the silos, understand what each team is doing and broaden their technical skill set.

2.) Good communication is the core of efficient teamwork

When all our employees worked in the same workspace, there were a lot of in-person team meetings and brainstorming sessions. If someone was stuck somewhere or had a mental block, they always had the option to resolve it right away because their team was right there. The ease of communication made processes faster, which was often a challenge in a remote setup.

Also, we organized interesting team building games and activities that led to some friendly banter, further strengthening team bonding. The employees got to know each other beyond work, which helped them overcome unwanted hesitance. Everyone also got the chance to meet cross-functional teams and understand what they do and how each team plays a crucial role in contributing to the organization’s bigger vision.

3.) Understanding the company’s vision help establish the right work mindset

As Tecstub has been expanding at a phenomenal pace, there have been a lot of internal developments. But most of the employees didn’t get the chance to get acquainted with the latest advancements. The office week involved several town hall meetings and presentations from various departments and clients that gave employees a better understanding of where Tecstub is heading, the expectations of the clients, and a roadmap of the future. It made them understand how their efforts can contribute to the bigger picture. When employees deeply connect with the company’s vision and goals, it helps them align themselves and understand the value of their work.

4.) Meeting cross-cultural people broadens your vision

One of Tecstub’s core values is promoting inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Our teams are a mix of individuals from different backgrounds and cultures. So, during the work-from-office week, everyone got a chance to meet people from all around India and understand their unique perspectives and cultures. The cross-cultural conversations were often the funniest highlight of the day, where expressions and emotions spoke more than words.

As we come to the end of the blog , we would like to add that working remotely is always great, but when you sit with your colleagues beside you, the work becomes fun, and learning becomes effortless. Also, it instills a sense of belonging and makes you feel more connected with your team and other people in the organization. Interestingly, when we asked our employees if they would like more such workation weeks, the response was a 100% yes!!! 

Want to work with us? Do, visit our career page to explore open positions.

The eCommerce industry has witnessed a phenomenal expansion in the past few years, and the pandemic has significantly boosted the growth. The central idea behind most trends revolves around providing the customer with the best user experience.

In the words of  Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, “If you’re competitor focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.”

As per a report by  Digital Commerce 360 42% of distributors say creating a more sophisticated website to meet customers’ needs better is their most significant challenge for the coming year.

1.) Augmented reality

The first and most popular stint of Augmented reality dates back to 2016, when PokemonGo hit the world. Although augmented reality technology wasn’t something brand new, PokemonGo put it on the mainstream map.

As time passed, the relevance of augmented reality extended beyond gaming, and therein came AR in online shopping. According to Google’s 2019 AR Survey, 66% of people are interested in using AR  for help when making purchasing decisions. AR allows users to view products in a 3D virtual environment. A great example is Ikea that caters to B2B as well as B2C, which enables users to see how furniture pieces can jazz up their homes/office spaces. The B2B ecommerce industry is no more aloof from the AR revolution. Statista reports that the augmented reality market is projected to have 2.4 billion users by 2023. So, it is evident that AR is here to stay and will become a significant component of E-commerce businesses.

How can AR impact sales for B2B businesses?

Increased conversion rates  :A 3D & AR commerce company Vertebrae reported that retailers who implemented AR technology during the pandemic saw a 19% increase in customer engagement. Increased customer engagement plays a crucial role in increasing conversion rates.

Accelerates sales cycle  :As per a report by Adobe, 38% of B2B buyers claimed AR can accelerate their buying cycle since it helps businesses visualize the features and capabilities of products in real-time. In addition, it saves them time to go through heavy product specifications to understand how it works. 

Increases Brand loyalty and builds trust : When buyers buy a product, they don’t want to be surprised, meaning they should get exactly how it looks in the picture or a video. Sometimes even after putting up spot on images, they might not do justice to the customer’s needs. It is where AR can help by providing a thorough 3-d overview of the product and help customers get crystal clear understanding of the merchandise. 


2.) Omnichannel marketing

Omnichannel is a lead nurturing and user engagement strategy in which a business gives consumers and prospects access to its goods and services across all platforms, channels, and devices. At different stages of the buying cycle, the customer prefers to interact through various channels such as face-to-face, online chats, video conferencing, or online /eCommerce marketplaces. So, it has become imperative for the B2B marketers to work on an omnichannel strategy to retain their customers.  

Take Amazon for an example that allows its user to access their account through their website, mobile apps, its voice-assistant Alexa, tablets, and more. You can ask Alexa to reorder something or set up a recurring delivery.

As per a report by McKinsey, the B2B buyer behavior has changed dramatically after the pandemic. They interviewed some US-based B2B decision-makers and the results were:

•  B2B customers use ten or more channels to interact with suppliers (up from just five in 2016).

• Buyers are ready to spend big amounts remote or online. 35% ready to spend $500,000 (in a single transaction) and 77% ready to spend $55,000 or more.  

Here are list of potential benefits that omnichannel marketing has to offer for B2B :

Help customer retention: According to the McKinsey report, 8 in 10 B2B decision-makers will look for a new supplier if their needs are unmet.  It indicates that Brand loyalty is something that B2-B marketers will have to try hard for, and omnichannel marketing is one of the solutions.

B2B marketers can’t address the needs of their customers through one channel, so they need to provide their customers the flexibility and combination of options that include (face-to-face interaction, remote, chat support, and video conferencing ) as per the needs of the customers. 

New avenues to grow : Shifting loyalties gives options to B2B marketers to grow where they can target their competitor customers who are looking for new solutions. According to Forbes, the idea is to take help from intent monitoring that leverages data and helps marketers find their potential customers. The data is related to website visits, search engine queries, content downloads, and then strategically approaching these customers. The McKinsey report further added that today, 94 percent of B2B decision-makers say the new omnichannel sales model is more effective than the sales model they used before the pandemic.

3.) Personalised user experience

Personalization is about providing users with relevant information as per their preferences. To provide personalized content, companies leverage data related to the user’s past viewing history, items in the cart, location, and more.  It includes custom catalogs , custom pricing , process and roles and more.
 Personalization is not limited to a website but extends to emails, chatbots, videos, personalized ads, and much more.

The personalization game in B2B is more elaborate and complex. However, trends show that B2B buyers also want a personalized user experience.  Some of the big names acing the personalisation game are Amazon , Netflix , Spotify , Hubspot amongst many others. Personalisation is about making educated guesses of what your audience are looking for and accordingly serving them.  

A personalised user experience can help B2B businesses with : 

Directly impact sales : According to Econsultancy, 80% of companies see a lift in sales after implementing personalization.  Personalisation helps you to build unique connections with your customers. It not just helps improve customer experience but also makes them feel listened to. When you provide the right message at the right time and place then the chances of them buying are more. For instance ,  you can offer personalized offers to customers residing in a demographic where a holiday season is soon approaching.

Improves your Brand image:  Everyday the Internet is becoming noisier. There are so many brands offering similar services and products. Personalization can play a crucial role in helping you stand out from your competitors. Customers want to connect with platforms that understand them and their specific preferences.  A whopping 65% of business buyers have stated that they will find another brand if a business doesn’t use personalization. Thus , it can help improve customer retention. For example, personalization allows you to have dynamic content on your website. So, when a user visits, they see a page tailored to their interests. It makes them engage more, buy more, and push them to visit your website more often. All of this results in high customer retention and an improved brand image.

4.) Metaverse

Metaverse is the next big thing in technology that combines several technologies such as AR (Augmented reality), VR (virtual reality), and BCI (brain-computer interface) and bridges the gap between the real and virtual world. Think Metaverse as a parallel world where everything exists, from shopping malls to leisure rooms to meeting rooms to workspaces, and the list can go on. Metaverse allows users to create avatars that represent or mirror them in real life.

In Metaverse, businesses can set up their virtual stores or even attend and organize events and conferences to build, foster and nurture business relationships. By 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social, and/or entertainment, according to Gartner, Inc.  Although Metaverse is in its nascent stages, companies need to start focusing and planning on the basic technologies so they don’t lag behind in the game.

Imagining how Metaverse can really help a B2B business is hard so here are some quick ideas to get an overview :

In-person meetings and collaboration  : Nothing can beat the impact of in-person meetings. Metaverse will allow businesses to meet prospective customers in virtual environments and build long-lasting relationships. Also, they can collaborate with their competing brands, tap into fresh markets, and leverage new target audiences.

Immersive customer experience : Metaverse will allow businesses to provide customers with a hyper-personalized digital experience. Besides, it will offer the buyers excellent product visualization capabilities that are currently limited in online shopping. Imagine having a virtual store that your customers can visit and comb through different products. Brands like Gucci, Nike, Louis Vuitton, and Forever 21 have delved into metaverse-based marketing campaigns. B2B brands can also include a virtual assistant to provide their customers a guided tour of their product specifications and solve queries related to quotes, bulk pricing, stock availability, etc.

Increased sales and ROI :  Metaverse can help businesses improve their sales and ROI as it gives companies access to potential customers and buyers all around the globe. It also opens up new avenues for advertising that are more impactful compared to traditional forms. For instance, gaming metaverses such as Fortnite allows businesses to build brand awareness engagingly. Wendy’s – a fast-food chain in the USA, participating in the Metaverse game Fortnite that allowed it to reach 24 million daily users playing the game. They uniquely crafted the game that conveyed their brand messaging to millions of users that their beef is fresh and never frozen.


5.) Fraud prevention and Enhanced payment methods

According to a report, in 2018, the retail industry lost $40 billion (US) to fraud. Another study states that 52% of retail and manufacturing leaders consider security as the top challenge of eCommerce business. Since the pandemic hit, the eCommerce industry has recorded astonishing growth but what has come along is the increased frequency of cyberattacks. So, in the upcoming years, companies will also heavily focus on technologies that help prevent security breaches, have stricter control over cloud services, and limit access to sensitive data and systems.  

6.) Flexible B2B payment options :

B2B payments are more complex than B2C, and one of the most common differences is the pricing and quoting, which are not the same for all the customers. But with the pandemic being the catalyst and digital transformation picking pace, there has been a shift to cloud-based and automated payment systems. As per a report by Gartner, by 2025, 80% of the transactions will take place digitally. 

Some of the digital trends to look for are :

1.) Smart payments: The traditional electronic payment approach involving ACH (automated clearing house) is efficient but has limitations. To understand it better, when a B2B payment is made, the details related to the respective remittance, such as invoice number, payment method and amount, etc.) are not attached. So, a separate account specialist manually matches the ACH payment with the respective invoice that leads to a lot of unwanted work. A smart payment allows the amount and the data related to it to be stuck together. Hence, making the amount getting attached to the respective invoice.

2.) Flexible payment options support: Payments made in B2B are diverse, and eCommerce marketers must take note of that and provide their customers with flexible payment options. It will allow them to accommodate their customers’ varying needs, leading to customer retention and brand loyalty in the long run.

3.) Blockchain and Cryptocurrency: The Blockchain provides a decentralized infrastructure that helps process transactions 96% faster than the traditional model. It eliminates the need for intermediaries such as banks. Although cryptocurrency has always received mixed reviews, companies will still have to consider crypto payments as well, given how cryptocurrencies are picking pace and constantly evolving.

7.) Digital Supply Chain Management :

A digital supply chain leverages digital technologies to improve the efficiency of the conventional supply chain model. A well-optimized supply chain helps businesses reduce recurring issues of the conventional model. Lack of transparency and higher dependence on manual work are some of the several issues that it addresses. As  per a report by Oracle digital supply management can help improve efficiency and productivity by 40- 70%.  It helps with automation of the repetitive processes , establishes better coordination with stakeholders and smart inventory management.

Benefits of digital supply management:

Improved supply chain planning:  From manufacturing to delivery everything is effortlessly  managed with a digital supply chain model. Businesses could identify any issues such as delays or problems with quality control early on leading to better coordination with stakeholders such as vendors, intermediaries, third-party providers, and customers involved in the supply chain.

 Data and advanced analytics: Digital supply chain management leverages data-driven technologies that improve inventory management, aid in preventive maintenance, and help identify and improve operational inefficiencies.

End-to-end customer engagement: Digital technology can improve customer experiences. For example, supply chain managers can manage their customer queries with seamless transparency as they now have real-time data access. As a result, in case of an issue or delay, they can better prepare them to deal with customers. Also, the customer can receive timely automatic updates of their booked orders, giving them a clearer picture.

Final words

Many businesses are steadily adopting revolutionary technologies to keep up with the changing buyer needs. Personalization has already cemented its position from nice to have to a must-have, and augmented reality is also gaining enormous traction for its powerful and interactive features. Currently, Metaverse is utilized for advertising and brand awareness, but given the buzz around it, it will only get mainstream with time. Businesses should first thoroughly analyze their customer behavior and then accordingly draft a plan of which technologies they should prioritize. The idea is not to do all of it at once but to understand your customer behavior and preferences and develop the right action plan.  

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