B2B sales: what sales leaders should evaluate
Account pricing, repeat purchases and order service: business criteria for evaluating a digital channel for business customers.
Business purchasing has its own rules
A portal for business customers should reflect the existing commercial relationship. There may be negotiated prices, buyers with different permissions and orders that need confirmation. Copying a retail experience without reviewing these rules often moves manual work onto another screen.
Start by describing what each account type can view and do. One buyer might create orders while someone else at the same company reviews the history.
Define the source of prices and availability
Decide which system manages commercial terms and how the portal receives updates. If information arrives on a schedule, show when it was updated and which details require confirmation.
Displayed prices should follow agreed rules for taxes, units and discounts. Permissions must prevent customers from viewing another account's terms, including by changing an address in the browser.
Make orders easy to understand
Customers need to understand whether they are sending a request, a quote inquiry or a confirmed order. Statuses should be meaningful to their operations and match the internal process.
Include useful references for repeat purchases: product codes, pack sizes and previous orders. Do not add features before checking that the main journey works.
Account for difficult cases too
The connection to your management system should account for discontinued products, blocked accounts and price changes. If an update fails, the team must know what happened and who should resolve it.
Evaluate controls to avoid duplicates and a reconciliation procedure. These decisions matter as much as the catalog design.
Validate with a group of customers
A pilot with different account profiles helps uncover friction in access, search and order creation. Gather feedback from customers and from the team receiving requests.
JALB B2B Commerce is a concept in development for this scenario. Capabilities and commercial availability must be confirmed when the product is defined.