Table of contents
- Choose the business model to work with
- Consult with your stakeholders
- Analyze between service models
- Estimate TCO (Total cost of ownership)
- Why does your enterprise need a feature-built eCommerce marketplace like Growmax?
- How can distributors and manufacturers benefit from the D2C business model?
- Conclusion
Enterprise marketplace might seem like a large-scale concept, and getting into the right enterprise marketplace to build and establish your online presence can be tricky. But, if you are looking to make your mark in the enterprise domain, you are in good hands. We'll be focusing on D2C space exclusively in this article and how the D2C model can benefit the manufacturer, distributor, and customer. So, let's get started!
How to choose an enterprise eCommerce platform?
If you're looking to work with an enterprise marketplace for the first time, the number of options available on the internet can be overwhelming. If you're already working with an enterprise eCommerce platform, then finding a platform that you can move to can be even more hectic.
Modern-day enterprise marketplace come with multiple features that can be sophisticated. Still, they usually are less user-friendly and require some effort for the process of installation, integration, and learning to use the platform to its best ability. In addition, deployment, integration with third-party applications, and configuring products are time-consuming processes.
This is precisely why choosing the perfect enterprise eCommerce platform is essential for an enterprise business that is looking to thrive in this domain. But, first, you have to make sure you get in contact with the right people to work with.
1. Choose the business model to work with
Make sure to get a platform that works well with all three types of business models. Talk to your vendor prior and ask them to show you the working demos of their software concerning all three eCommerce business models.
Here's a basic comparison of the business models:
B2B- The transaction period is longer in the B2B zone. There is a necessity for more managed company accounts. The communication between the seller and the buyer has to take place before the orders are fixed.
B2C and D2C- On the other hand, these business models have a faster buying process and are less communication-dependent. B2C eCommerce platforms, in general, lack the features essential to suffice long-term business relationships that most B2B enterprises marketplaces need, such as corporate accounts, request for quotations, split shipping, multi-tier user access, and integration with customers relationship management.
2. Consult with your stakeholders
Choosing the perfect enterprise marketplace can be challenging when done alone. Instead, try involving multiple departments in the process of decision-making. The backend team, for example, needs to ensure that the software can integrate with demanding systems.
Likewise, the marketing team will need to ensure the platform has the customization and merchandising features to work effortlessly.
Having a word with each department will give you a clear idea of what you need and make your process of selecting an enterprise eCommerce platform easy.
3. Analyze between service models
Although most of the enterprise eCommerce platforms are based upon the cloud, there are specific different service models:
- Software as a Service (SaaS)- Software as a Service (SaaS) allows you to access data from any device that is web-enabled. Software as a service vendor will host and manage your databases and application code for a specific monthly or annual subscription fee. They have low startup costs, easy to maintain, and have easy access to.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the aggregate of a cloud provider's hardware and software infrastructure. This includes databases, storage space, and networking capabilities. You can set up infrastructure through the provider, and they'll take care of and maintain it. IaaS possesses robust internal controls, is highly scalable, and is free to customize while keeping low startup costs. One of the critical disadvantages of IaaS is that it is too time-consuming to set up, and the clients manage the upgrades.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)- A Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider constitutes an environment that you can use to install your software applications and databases. The PaaS provider offers critical services, such as hosting, while you'll have to deploy the eCommerce software yourself.
PaaS has the perfect environment for growth. The testing period and implementation period are instant. In addition, PaaS does not have compatibility issues to worry about. While the downsides have a limited range for scalability, and it is exceptionally platform-dependent.
4. Estimate TCO (Total cost of ownership)
The total cost of ownership can significantly impact the success of a re-platforming. Still, most organizations fail to estimate the entire costs of a brand new platform from the initial stages of implementation to the ongoing expenses. For the performance, you need to consider many charges, like consulting fees, the total cost for development, and many other costs to get the platform running efficiently. After the stages of implementation, you will still have multiple recurring fees for factors like licensing, web-hosting, support retainers, etc. You have to consider how these will affect the total cost of ownership before you decide to commit to a platform.
Why does your enterprise need a feature-built eCommerce marketplace like Growmax?
Using an enterprise eCommerce software built explicitly for the enterprise-level eCommerce platforms means that the software is customized and is established with an understanding of the working of enterprise businesses and what it takes to run an all-around company's requirements. As a result, the substantial benefits may include higher engagement in sales, increased brand awareness, management of multiple sites, increase in efficiency, seamless integrations with the ERP, customization, unified customer data, and straightforward deployment. So, how Growmax can be an efficient enterprise eCommerce platform?
Well, Growmax commerce cloud is an efficient enterprise marketplace for you and your business modules. As a platform, Growmax provides both B2B and B2B2C functionalities with headless commerce from the business plan. In addition, it has inbuilt Quote Management, Order Management, Customer-specific Pricing Management, Product Management, and customer support system, etc. The benefits to reap from Growmax are truly immeasurable:
- Growmax aims to provide a powerful yet easy-to-use portal for your customers to place their orders out of the box or via headless commerce options in no time.
- The app is built to support both online and offline ordering, i.e., the customer can order themselves or via your sales rep.
- Growmax provides customized pricing plans to customers based on their business needs, thus helping in maintaining an excellent cost-to-benefit ratio.
- It also facilitates collaboration internally with teams for a better customer experience.
- The platform provides leads, tasks, quotes, orders, support & top-tier analytics to take your business to the next level. Thus, helping you to extract the best version of your business!
Well, Growmax indeed has all that it takes to be one of the best enterprise eCommerce platforms in the market.
How can distributors and manufacturers benefit from the D2C business model?
Revenue is typically the most significant factor used to measure the success of D2C e-commerce compared to the other business models. But people have to understand that D2C has more benefits to add, like better customer experiences, and can also strengthen brand loyalty.
There's a slight misconception in the eCommerce world that distributors benefit from the D2C model, and manufacturers are the ultimate sole beneficiary. But the larger profit margins and the whopping number of buyers continue to be an aspect that distributors can take advantage of. Here are some clear-cut reasons that showcase that distributors can take advantage of D2C sales:
- The D2C community is a large community with a whopping sales of $6.6 trillion. Which means more opportunity for the distributors.
- Most manufacturers claim that D2C sales have boosted their brand awareness and have seen a rise in the number of leads for their distributors and partners.
- About 54% of manufacturers claim that their channel partners and themselves saw a visible boost in sales when distributors handled their order fulfillment activities for larger orders via the D2C business model.
- Around 27% of distributors intend on letting their manufacturers fulfill orders for smaller orders. This allows distributors to only focus their time and energy on moving the products that generate more profit.
- Around 14% of distributors have claimed to experience more success by allowing the manufacturer to test run new products through D2C sales before selling them via retail.
At the end of the day, what's important to understand here is that D2C sales generate a higher sales volume in total. Still, the actual benefit is the platform you get to connect with your customers in the most convenient and easy way possible.
Conclusion
D2C is a relatively new business model in town that is being adopted by many new businesses and big players in the market. However, several companies have adapted to it. The benefits they have reaped are unimaginable, which has acted as a testament to why businesses can be highly successful if done the right way.
If you're still skeptical about transitioning to a D2C brand, sure, the work to put in is enormous. You will be required to divert a lot of your energy towards setting up your distribution channels, creating your social media presence, and more. But, if you have a running business model or plan of starting one, then maybe you can step up your game and see how the D2C business turns out for you. Good luck!
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