The internet has seen the invention of various technologies and innovative solutions, and an ever-increasing number of web-savvy customers. This has created a great opportunity for both manufacturers and their consumers.
eCommerce for manufacturing is redefining how consumers access product information, compare and select the right products, make online purchases, and even how they use these products and services.
Over the last 10 years, the adoption of eCommerce solutions by manufacturers has evolved from a basic transaction-and-communication platform that connects sellers and buyers to an integrated end-to-end platform that includes all stakeholders in the chain. Manufacturers are driving this collaboration by looking to improve sales through product promotions. Consumers, on the other hand, are looking for great personalized online experiences offered through various eCommerce solutions.
Top 5 Advantages of Deploying Effective eCommerce for Manufacturers
Engaging with your customers and creating a buyer-centric online experience are two factors at the core of an effective eCommerce platform. In addition to accessing great business opportunities, manufacturers have so much to gain from eCommerce platforms.
Here are the top five benefits of an eCommerce platform:
1. Enhanced Efficiencies
Manufacturers benefit from great efficiencies due to the integration of eCommerce platforms with back-end business systems like enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. This means that customers can conveniently place orders online and customer support can focus entirely on customer service roles instead of just taking orders.
Keeping eCatalogs up-to-date is an integral part of the ordering process, which is also key to attaining enhanced efficiencies. This ensures that customers can easily find the right part at the right time. The need to enter data on different systems is also eliminated through this addition. As a result, manufacturers benefit from improved shipping processes, elimination of potential errors, and increased conversion throughout.
2. Scalability
By using eCommerce software, manufacturers can easily grow and scale their businesses to meet the ever-changing customer needs and market demands by reaching new market segments across the globe and opening new channels for sales on a continual basis.
3. Access to More Customers
Manufacturers can reach new B2B customers by featuring their product catalogs on public-facing B2B eCommerce website pages. This is a powerful way for manufacturers to reach modern buyers who prefer and expect online shopping.
OEMs can leverage the power of search engines as more B2B and B2C buyers use the internet to find the best equipment parts and prices; search engines like Google are ready to index the pages of your eCommerce platforms as well. To do this, you need to optimize your parts pages for search engines so that users making search queries relevant to the parts you sell see your product catalog pages displayed on search results. Other than locating potential parts customers, your web pages can also be used to convert new visitors.
4. Increased Brand Awareness
eCommerce solutions enable manufacturers to increase their brand awareness in the online marketplace. They create search-engine-optimized pages for search engine crawlers to index for future related searches. Thus, your audience is more likely to know about your brand based on their search history.
5. More Sales
Effective manufacturing eCommerce solutions do not just allow manufacturers to reach a wide audience of potential customers, but also enable them to easily deploy an automated upsell and cross-sell recommendation program. This offers clients visiting the website relevant suggestions, encouraging them to buy similar items with better functionality and attributes.
By deploying an effective eCommerce solution, your manufacturing business will not just reap these benefits, but also gain a competitive edge in your industry.
See the benefits your manufacturing company can enjoy by using GenAlpha. Contact us today to request a demo.