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Consumer-focused retailers were quick to embrace ecommerce when it became a practical sales platform more than two decades ago. Today, the majority of B2C retailers have an ecommerce store. B2B suppliers, however, were slow to adopt ecommerce. B2B sales relationships are quite different to those in the B2C world, often involving contractual negotiations, personal relationships between procurement and sales professionals, and a host of other concerns that don’t apply when selling to consumers.

Even today, it is estimated that 80 percent of manufacturers and distributors process orders manually rather than via an ecommerce store. However, the winds of change are blowing through the B2B commerce space as millennials begin to dominate procurement roles. Half of B2B researchers and buyers are digital natives who expect B2B sales to offer the same convenience as the consumer stores they are familiar with.

Businesses that fail to embrace B2B ecommerce will soon be at a substantial competitive disadvantage compared to their more forward-looking competitors.

Business Buyers Rely on Google

Once upon a time, a procurement professional would pick up the phone and talk to a supplier’s sales advisor when their company wanted to buy a product. 

That’s no longer the case. Most B2B product searches start with Google. On average, B2B buyers carry out 12 searches before they interact directly with a potential supplier. If a B2B seller doesn’t have an online presence with a detailed description of their products, they won’t even be on the buyer’s shortlist.

Online Catalogs are Non-Negotiable

A survey conducted earlier this year found that 83 percent of B2B buyers will spend more to make a purchase “from suppliers that offer a robust ecommerce experience.” 

Why would they willing to spend more? Because ecommerce reduces the complexity of B2B procurement and the amount of manual labor involved. The cost efficiencies of ecommerce-based procurement are of real value to businesses looking to reduce procurement spending. Buyers are often prepared to pay a little more to suppliers because ecommerce reduces their overall procurement spend.

Ecommerce Offers Easier Integration

We have already noted that business buyers prefer solutions that allow them to find cost efficiencies within the procurement process. That’s why so many businesses have invested in eProcurement and spend management platforms. EProcurement allows businesses to see what they’re spending and where, to implement rigorous procurement policies, and to eliminate manual labor. 

However, eProcurement platforms are only as good as the data they have access to.

Many B2B buyers now require suppliers to integrate with their eProcurement platform to automate the transfer of data. They want catalogs, purchase orders, and invoices to move between the buyer and the seller automatically. An ecommerce store makes integration relatively straightforward; there are many solutions that can integrate eProcurement platforms with major ecommerce applications like Magento and WooCommerce.

Businesses without an ecommerce store can’t offer the level of integration buyers expect, and they’re unlikely to win sales from businesses that prefer suppliers who can offer close integration.

A B2B supplier without an ecommerce store is invisible to a large part of the market and unacceptable to many buyers, which puts it at a competitive disadvantage.

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“Be careful online.”

It’s a phrase uttered by parents, corporations, and law enforcement in relation to browsing and interacting with the web. We’re told it almost daily by internet watchdogs and security policies. But how careful are people actually being?

Over the last several years, expectations with regards to user interface (UI) and design have standardized. This has meant that many web users feel they have full control over the actions they perform online. This includes the products and services they buy and subscribe to, and the buyer’s journey they undertake. 

Yet for UX designers, the truth is far “darker”. Years of behavioral research and design have gone into creating user experiences that trick buyers into purchasing and consenting to actions they otherwise would not have. These user experiences are what are known as “Dark Patterns” and they can be incredibly damaging to a store’s reputation and bottom line. 

This article aims to provide store owners with a better understanding of what Dark Patterns are, and why they should be avoided. Keep reading to learn how to provide your customers with a user experience they return to time and time again and avoid delivering one they dread. 

What Are Dark Patterns?

Before we go any deeper, think about your own buying experiences. Have you ever started out your buyer’s journey with a specific product in mind, only to find yourself lost in a maze of alternatives you don’t want? If so, you may have experienced dark patterns: techniques used by ecommerce websites to lure customers towards buying products and making decisions they may otherwise not have. 

They do this by taking advantage of a user’s UI assumptions. Modern UI standardization has meant that most users just skim a page’s content instead of reading every word (imagine the time it would take to read each Amazon listing you look at). This allows for sites to make a page look like it’s there for one reason, when actually it’s serving an entirely different purpose.  

“Dark patterns” have been around for as long as ecommerce sites have exisited (almost) but the actual term was first coined in 2010 by Harry Brignull. Along with coining the term, he also registered darkpatterns.org; what he calls a “pattern library with the specific goal of naming and shaming deceptive user interfaces.” 

Don’t think that Dark Patterns are rare. In one recent study over 1,818 instances of Dark Patterns were found across 11k ecommerce websites. What’s worse, the data indicated that the more popular a site is, the more likely it was to employ Dark Patterns in its UX. 

Why Are Dark Patterns Bad?

You could be forgiven for thinking that Dark Patterns aren’t that bad. After all, they’re present in many everyday online activities everyone takes part in. Recently, a Norweigan watchdog group called out Facebook for steering “us into sharing vast amounts of information about ourselves, through cunning design, privacy invasive defaults, and “take it or leave it”-choices.”

But by tricking users into making decisions they otherwise wouldn’t, Dark Patterns create a bad user experience. For store owners, this can lead to a loss of returning customers and brand loyalty, and an overall downturn in a store’s performance.

It’s not just a store’s performance and reputation that is at stake. Dark Patterns have also become more relevant following the enforcement of GDPR. Several of the Dark Patterns identified above cause issues regarding consent and to what degree it is given willingly. 

If deemed to be “Dark” enough that a user has been tricked into consent for something they had no knowledge of, it’s very possible for a site to find itself in breach of GDPR. Similar privacy laws are regulations are also finding their feet across the pond in the US. 

Most recently, this has been in the form of the Deceptive Experiences To Online Users Reduction (DETOUR) Act. This act aims to stop large online platforms from using deceptive user interfaces that trick users into giving away information they don’t want to. Social media companies are particularly under fire. 

“For years, social media platforms have been relying on all sorts of tricks and tools to convince users to hand over their personal data without really understanding what they are consenting to. Some of the most nefarious strategies rely on ‘dark patterns’.”

Sen. Mark Warner

Examples of Dark Patterns

A look at Dark Patterns wouldn’t be complete without some examples identified by Harry and the wider world of Dark Pattern seekers. If you’re interested in seeing a full list – or getting involved – visit the Dark Pattern Twitter to see more.

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The year of content has passed. That doesn’t mean it’s not still a priority, it just means that other areas are starting to require more attention. The adoption of omnichannel, the creation of unique and memorable purchasing experiences, and the creation and delivery of content in the best way possible.

This year’s IRCE saw all of these topics, and more, touched upon in informative sessions that provided merchants with actionable takeaways. From these sessions, we’ve collected the most insightful and useful learns of the year.

If you didn’t manage to attend this year’s IRCE but still want to know what was being talked about, and how ecommerce is evolving, keep reading.  

Omnichannel Is Making Waves

Omnichannel is here and it’s here to stay. Not only has 2019 already seen an increase in the number of stores adopting new channels, it’s also seen a large number of them doing it successfully.

For many stores, executing an effective omnichannel strategy means finding and targeting customers in the best, most efficient way possible. To do this, retailers need to find customers where they are at each stage of their journey. 

In a survey of 1,600 consumers, 29% said they browse items online before shopping in person. For brick and mortar shops, making the transition to ecommerce means making themselves present during both the awareness and decision stages of the buyer’s journey. 

The importance of digital in omnichannel delivery is further supported by two takeaways from Gartner: 

1. 80% of buyers use digital information during each stage of their journey.
2. 61% of buyers visit a supplier’s website at least once during their journey. 

Hibbett Sports, a brick and mortar retailer that operates more than 1,000 stores, talked about how they managed to launch an online store smoothly by waiting until others had already done so. Two of their main takeaways included the importance of categories for allowing consumers easy access to products, and speeding up fulfilment to ensure the omnichannel journey still appeals to consumer immediacy needs. 

Site Speed Is Important 

A statistic thrown around this year was that a 3 second delay in page load time leads to a 53% loss in mobile visitors. Previously, we mentioned that a 1 second delay in page load can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions. 

The importance of site speed is real and it’s only growing. 

And it’s not just in terms of visitor numbers or conversions. Multiple SEO experts at IRCE talked about three SEO tactics that don’t require ad spend. They were almost always backlinks, content, and speed. 

  Experience ecommerce hosting optimized for site speed automatically. Learn more. 

Not sure how to test site speed? Simple. There are three main tools that can help.

• Google PageSpeed Insights
• Google, Mobile-Friendly Test
• Lighthouse (built into Chrome)

Each of these tools have their own testing parameters and can help site owners to optimize specific areas. We recommend getting started with Lighthouse.

Experience Is Everything

Susan Tynan of Framebridge said: “Don’t nickel and dime your way to an experience where the customer says ‘meh’.”

That was really the theme of this year’s IRCE. The customer experience is important: provide one that will make you and your brand stand out. Doing so won’t only lead to a clearer brand image, but also increase conversions. 

For Digital Commerce 360, optimizing the purchasing experience was one of the easiest ways to do this. At the top of their list was simplifying the signup and checkout process, with an 88% increase in conversion rate, followed by providing better product information, with an 84% increase. 

Other speakers also spoke about optimizing the purchasing experience, with each touching on the importance of efficiency and speed. Wrapped up in this experience is the fulfilment experience. As was discussed heavily during this year’s Meet Magento Australia, Shipping and Logistics are a top priority.  For many ecommerce businesses, one of the biggest divides between businesses is their ability to deliver on customer expectations of immediacy. 

As Andy Dunn of Bonobos said “It will be less about delivering inventory and more about delivering an experience”. That experience is one of immediacy.

And it’s not just the purchasing experience itself which is important. DevaCurl talked about how they have created a community of authentic brand representatives as opposed to transactional influencers. Together, they generate over 500 organic posts every day and contribute to the unique experience that they’re able to share with their customers. 

B2B Ecommerce Is Big But Merchants Need to Improve

The US Census Bureau shows that between 2006 to 2016, the percentage of US manufacturing delivered through digital channels rose by 34%. That trend looks set to continue. 

In one report provided by Paul Demery, 35% of manufacturers and 40% of distributors planned to increase ecommerce spending by 10-25% within the next year. 

But while B2B ecommerce is a big market, a lot of suppliers are not providing the experiences their clients expect. In fact, one statistic from IRCE mentioned that 20% of B2B digital users dropped a supplier after having a poor website experience. 

Part of the reason for this is omnichannel expectations held by clients. Gartner, in one of their surveys, talked about how 33% of B2B buyers would not make a purchase online unless they spoke with a sales rep. 

Despite this discrepancy, many B2B businesses understand that it is present. One report even stated that streamlining the customer buying journey is top of the list in terms of priority for most B2B businesses. It will be interesting to see how businesses solve this problem in the coming months. 

Content Is King

For years content has been praised as the most effective resource for ecommerce marketers, and been placed at the forefront of talks and presentations. For years, new channels, new metrics, and new guidelines have been published by marketers, business owners, and retail experts; all with the aim of providing a clear framework on how to implement a successful content marketing strategy. 

This year, content didn’t find itself at front and center. Instead, it found itself circling almost every talk and every topic in brief mentions and clear references. 

Talks on experience focused on providing consistent and clear messaging, with one statistic stating that 74% of customers are frustrated by irrelevant messaging. Talks on influencers discussed how authenticity was the most important attribute of content. Talks on businesses development talked about nailing your value proposition through your content, with guarantees of conversion increases. 

Overall, the biggest takeaway from this year in terms of content was that its still big, it’s still important, and it’s still one of the most significant parts of any marketing strategy. However, it’s also different across different channels and for different brands. 

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Online retailers can bet on two facts. First, every customer has an email account. Second, they receive hundreds of marketing emails every week, most of which go unread. The first fact makes email a perfect marketing channel for eCommerce. The second fact means retailers have to work hard to get their customers to open marketing emails, read them, and take action.

There are over 3 billion email users in the world. According to Marketing Week, email generates almost $40 billion of retail sales each year. Three-quarters of marketers think email is the marketing channel with the most significant ROI. Over half of millennials prefer to receive marketing messages by email. Email should be central to your eCommerce marketing strategy.

Effective email marketing isn’t sending a monthly newsletter with a random promotion — although that might work to increase sales a little. The best email marketers build a coherent strategy, create content that meshes with that strategy, and relentlessly test the performance of content to discover opportunities for optimization.

Email Marketing: What Is It Good For?

Before embarking on an email marketing, ask yourself what you want to achieve. Increased sales throughout your store are the ultimate goal, but the aim of a marketing campaign should be more specific. You might consider:

• Introducing customers to a new line of products.
• Increasing sales of a subset of products.
• Promoting discounts, product bundles, or cross-sells.
• Asking shoppers to leave a review.
• Informing customers about events, promotions, special occasions.
• Increasing mindshare for your brand and advertising its unique selling points.
• Promoting content, such as blog posts or white papers.
• Asking customers to take part in a survey.

All of these are good uses of an email marketing campaign. Once you have decided what you want to achieve, it’s time to think about the best way to achieve it.

Types of Marketing Emails

There are several types of marketing email you might send a customer, each with a specific purpose and type of content.

The newsletter. The role of an email newsletter is to provide useful and engaging content to customers. The content should relate to products, but it should not be primarily focused on sales. Typical content for email newsletters includes news about the company, promotion for blog posts, product guides and introductions, original content (like a blog post but delivered over email).

Newsletters are all about engaging customers without the hard sell. If you push sales too vigorously, people are likely to unsubscribe. The email newsletter is the heart of your email marketing campaign.

Welcome emails. When a customer gives you their email or makes their first purchase, send them a brief welcome note, highlighting information about your brand, products, and services that may be useful to them.

Abandoned cart emails. Around 70% of carts are abandoned. Some customers fill carts as the online equivalent of window shopping — they had no intention of making a purchase. But a small percentage welcome a reminder of their incomplete shopping trip and will complete the transaction if prompted.

Leading eCommerce platforms, including Magento and WooCommerce, provide tools to automatically send emails to users who abandon their carts.

Promotional emails. Promotional emails, as the name suggests, promote products, events, sales, and special occasions. For example, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to send users promotional emails that focus on products relevant to the holiday, along with other related content.

Devise An Email Marketing Strategy

A coherent strategy will help you to focus on what you want to achieve and the best way to achieve it. There are several frameworks around which you might design an email marketing strategy. One of the most common is the purchase funnel — an idealized journey that moves customers ever closer to making a purchase.

The purchase funnel is divided into stages: awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and purchase. Content is created to move customers from one stage to the next. To put customers in at the top of the funnel — the awareness phase — a retailer might create interesting and valuable email content about a topic related to their products, but they wouldn’t target customers at this stage with hard-sell content about specific products.

The purchase funnel concept is handy when building an email marketing strategy. Track Maven has an excellent blog post that examines in detail each of the stages.

Time To Write

Once you have a goal, a strategy, and have decided what sort of email you want to create, it’s time to start writing. It is difficult to offer concrete advice because every retailer is different, but the following will prove useful:

• Focus on the subject line. The subject line determines the success or failure of a marketing email. It is as — if not more — important than the content of an email. An unopened email is a waste of marketing money, and it’s the subject that influences customers to open. The subject line should be short, concise, and attention-grabbing. Good subject lines make customers curious about the content of the email.
• Don’t forget about the preview text. The preview text is a snippet drawn from the body of your email, usually the first few words. It is displayed adjacent to the subject line in email clients. The preview text should support, expand, or respond to the subject line, strengthening the curiosity of the recipient.
• Keep it simple. You have a fraction of a second to grab the recipient’s attention. Don’t try to be overly elaborate, funny, or clever.
• Limit the sales patter. If your subject line reads “SUPER CHEAP CUPCAKES. BEST YOU’VE EVER TASTED!!!!” recipients will reject your email as spam. We all know what spammy subject lines look like, and you want to avoid pattern matching for spam at all costs.

We started this article with some statistics that showed why every retailer should invest in eCommerce email marketing. But we left the best until last: every dollar spent on email generates a $38 return — making it three times more effective than social media marketing.

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Every product starts with an idea, but good ideas are rare. There is a long road between a spark of inspiration and a profitable product. Investing in a product idea that goes nowhere is dangerous. Few retailers can afford to manufacture or buy products that sit on warehouse shelves for months. For every dud product, there is a product which might have sold well if only the retailer hadn’t wasted their time and money on an idea that didn’t work out.

Product evaluation tries to sort the winners from the duds early enough to avoid a wasted investment.

Is The Product Idea Feasible?

Ideas may fall at the first hurdle because there is a challenge that is too difficult or expensive to overcome. It’s better to find these challenges in the early stages of planning, rather than later when money has been spent.

For example, you are inspired to build an eCommerce business around direct-from-the-farm strawberry delivery. There may be a market for fresh strawberries, but there are also challenges. Sourcing strawberries from farms is a complex logistical operation. Strawberries spoil quickly, so short delivery timelines are essential. They should be stored in chilled warehouses and transported on chilled trucks, which is expensive. It’s not a bad idea, but it may involve a substantial capital investment that makes it impractical.

Regulations can be a challenge to the feasibility of an idea. In some parts of the world, fireworks are heavily regulated. To sell fireworks, you have to carry out identity checks on buyers, apply for licenses to buy and sell commercially, pay for expensive liability insurance, and use secure storage. Compliance may make it difficult to sell fireworks at a cost that is competitive compared to industry incumbents.

When developing a product idea, it’s essential to establish that there is a market, but you should also ask whether you are best placed to serve that market.

Is Anyone Interested?

A product idea may not find a market. Perhaps it addresses a need, but customers aren’t prepared to pay enough to build a profitable or sustainable business. More likely, there is little interest. There are several ways to establish whether a market for a product exists. For a preliminary survey, Google Trends and the Google Keyword Tool are useful.

Google Trends tracks the interest in search queries over time. Consider our strawberry retail idea. Google Trends shows that there is some interest in strawberry delivery, but it is generally low with a large spike. The spike occurs in February around Valentine’s Day.

If we look at the related queries section of Google Trends, we discover that people are likely to be looking for “chocolate strawberry delivery” and “chocolate covered strawberry delivery.” That’s not our product, so some care has to be taken to understand what Google Trends is telling you.

Google Keyword Planner can help you to discover how many searches there are for a product keyword and what the competition is for that keyword. If we look at strawberries deliveries again, we see that there is a low number of searches, but competition for the phrase is high. Again, most of these searches relate to chocolate strawberries, not to our idea.

Let’s refine our keywords. If we look at “fresh strawberry delivery” in Google Trends, we see that there isn’t enough search volume to tell us anything.

Google Keyword Planner tells a similar story. The number of average monthly searches for “fresh strawberry delivery” is low, but competition for those keywords is high. Google suggests alternative keywords that include “fresh fruit delivery,” which has a lot of searches and high competition. Perhaps an eCommerce business that focuses on delivering strawberries from the farm to the door isn’t such a good idea.

It’s worth taking the time to try many different keywords to work out if anyone wants a product and what the competitive market looks like. Once you have established that you can implement your product idea and that there is interest in the product you want to sell, it’s time to consider its potential profitability and the competition. We will take an in-depth look at both in a future article.

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