You are not sure what return on investment mobile eCommerce can offer your manufacturing company. You have heard the hype around B2B eCommerce, but your company implemented some online ordering in the past and it didn’t work. But you can’t deny that the world is moving to the web. You have a nagging feeling that if you don’t do something you will miss out. But what should you do?
What solutions are proving the most valuable to other manufacturers? The answer really depends on how you sell, what you sell, and your business initiatives and goals. Here are a few areas where we have seen manufacturers grow their profits using mobile eCommerce.
Increase replacement parts sales and grow your bottom line
Depending on your business, selling replacement parts online can be a great starting spot. When your customer needs a part, they likely need some help from your company in determining the right part for their product. This likely falls to your overburdened parts department or customer service team today. What if your customers could use their mobile phone to look up the part they needed and order it quickly? The result would be a satisfied customer, less work for your internal staff, and higher profits for you.
Provide sales reps with better systems to grow revenue
Do any of these situations sound familiar?
- In your company, today, there is one person the rep calls to find out how much inventory exists for a product. If that person is not at their desk when your rep calls, the order gets delayed. Or what if the rep is talking to a customer after your company has closed for the day. The speed of information is money.
- Your reps currently fax or email orders to your office. Your internal team takes those orders and enters them into your system. On the faxes, the handwriting cannot be read and on the emails, reps end up leaving our required information. Orders get shipped with the wrong product or may not get placed for a few days until an issue can be resolved.
The more efficient your sales reps are in getting customers the answers they need and the faster they can place an order, the more money you will make. You can set up a mobile eCommerce site to enable reps to see your product availability and place orders online.
Grow your business from each customer
Your customers are used to ordering products online. They love working with your rep, but they need things between when they talk to your rep. What if they want to quickly place an order at 10 PM one evening?
You can allow your customers to order at their special price and still keep your rep central to the online relationship.
You can provide your customers with access to product manuals, tech specs and your MSDS sheets on your website. Thereby positioning yourself as the market leader, a value-added vendor that is looking to make your customers life easier. You will grow your customers' loyalty to you and grow your business with that customer.
Provide online solutions for your distributors/resellers to grow your market share
Do you sell through distributors or resellers? You may find it beneficial to offer websites or web-based tools to your resellers to enable them to take orders that are automatically transferred to your ERP software for drop-shipping. This gives your resellers more incentive to carry your products, grows your market share, and improves the speed and efficiency with which end-customers will receive their products. Win-win-win!
Questions?
Are you looking to implement mobile B2B eCommerce and not sure where to start? We would love to learn more about your situation and help however we can. Fill out our free consultation form or call us at 414-425-4069 x3.
