In this episode we sit down with Tom&Co agency founder Tom McCaul, who has helped a wide range of ecommerce businesses launch, scale and optimise B2B storefronts.
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Tl;dr
- Understanding the B2C2B ecommerce tech stack
- Exploring key B2B features like trade accounts, quotations and loyalty
- Adobe Commerce spotlight: key strengths for B2B, platform challenges and workarounds
There are many businesses that have a strong ecommerce site for B2C for whom trade sales is a significant % of revenue, yet they don’t have a dedicated ecommerce platform or haven’t invested in the same way for trade customers. In this podcast we talk an ecommerce agency owner who has helped a wide range of ecommerce businesses launch, scale and optimise B2B storefronts, covering the key features B2B customers need to make the website work for them, as well as technical considerations for merchants.
Listen to experienced ecommerce agency founder Tom McCaul share the knowledge he’s gained implementing B2B storefronts for a wide range of market-leading ecommerce businesses including Topps Tiles and LeMieux.
Discussion notes
- We all know replatforming is challenging, I used to have hair – you work with a lot of B2B2C retailers like Topps Tiles, can you talk us through the B2B specific challenges these retailers face when migrating to a new platform?
- What usually makes the difference when it comes to B2B tech selection – what influences the platform decision and why?
- Let’s talk specifically about Topps Tiles, who I believe have more than 125k trade customers – you’re using Adobe Commerce: so what are the business/technical reasons for using this platform for B2B?
- We know no platform is perfect, so what are the Adobe native functionality limitations where you’ve needed to customise/add 3rd party tools into the stack & how you approach this to solve the problems?
- You have other B2B customers like LeMieux; how far are you pushing the trade account capabilities in terms of the structure of business customer accounts you can support?
- Quotations is a big and potentially complex area in trade; how do you use the ecom platform for initiating & managing quotes in the front and back-end?
- What customer facing features do you find are the most important for your customer’s B2B sites, which get used the most once live e.g. quick order?
- We find that B2C2B retailer projects often focus more on the B2C user journey and site design, less so on the journeys for trade customers – what do other retailers need to know if they’re planning a project, how should the approach differ?
- What are the risks of not treating it differently – what issues have you seen in other retailers?
- Do you have a view on where Adobe’s B2B roadmap is headed – is it a focus, or are they likely to be more focused on the B2C
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