In addition to Ecommerce wholesalers, distributors and brands, there is another category of B2B Ecommerce that is often overlooked: Franchises. In the past, a franchise was an easy-to-identify entity: typically, a fast-food chain, shop in a mall or a service company were the standard franchises in the brick-and-mortar world. However, as more business and shopping has shifted from in-person transactions to online purchases, many more franchise businesses have also migrated to online sales.
Ecommerce Franchise Businesses
A franchise is an independent business who has purchased the rights to use the trademarks, proprietary knowledge, products and services of an existing business, which is typically an established brand. In the B2B Ecommerce world, franchisors play a major role in supplying items in bulk to other companies, such as packaging materials, flatware, utensils and more. This is all done in an internal ordering portal, which like any online ordering system, can experience challenges:
- Order Fulfillment: This is one of the big ones — a stable platform is required for every Ecommerce franchise businesses to keep its business going with strategic order fulfillment.
- Multiple Orders: Most franchises receive orders from different customers that aren’t captured in one centralized platform, causing inefficiencies and errors. A bad order management portal (or multiple portals) is a time-waster and puts stress on other aspects of your business.
- Customer Experience: Poor customer experience equals less customers. And with online reviews and rating sites proliferating, negative customer reviews about your site will certainly taint your good reputation.
7 Benefits of the Zoey Platform for Ecommerce Franchisors
Zoey’s Ecommerce platform enables users to establish a credible web presence for B2B Ecommerce. Zoey offers three major solutions for any online B2B business, which include a mobile app for taking orders from any smartphone or tablet; a self-service web portal for Ecommerce and web-based administration tools that allows product, customer and order management. Additional features include net terms and credit limits, sales quotes generation, customer groups, quick order capabilities and access restrictions.
Likewise, there are multiple benefits of the Zoey platform for online store franchisors:
1. Time Savings
Zoey’s platform is optimized to hit the ground running and be able to get your operations online quickly so you can begin collecting orders from franchisees for what they need. The platform allows you to centralize order management, as orders are placed directly through the Zoey platform.
2. Minimize Operational Costs
The technology behind Zoey’s platform allows many formerly time-intensive tasks to be automated. Processes that waste a salesperson’s valuable time are efficiently handled by the backend software, allowing your sales professionals to spend their time doing what they do best — selling.
3. Automated Order Processing
The easy-to-navigate order portal allows B2B and wholesale customers to log in and place orders seamlessly. It allows users to see customized catalogs, place orders, request quotes and track orders and shipments. For your franchisees, they can get what they need, whether supplies or merchandise, quickly, and you don’t have to be hands on with every franchisee to accomplish this.
4. Centralizing Orders
Having one portal for all your ordering will pay dividends — saving time, money and eliminating stress. Zoey’s one centralized portal takes the challenge out of the process, providing a streamlined simplicity for ordering for your B2B Ecommerce franchisees. Once you orchestrate your data and ordering across one seamless platform, it becomes a much more manageable task.
5. Reporting
A strong analytics or reporting tool will allow you to analyze data and trends — giving insight to important information such as customer buying habits, trends and inventory, among others.
6. User-Friendly Interface
The design of the online store or online portal allows B2B and wholesale customers to easily navigate the site with virtually zero issues. Using the Zoey mobile app allows your salespeople to create orders and quotes, anytime, anywhere, even when out of the office or on the road.
7. Stellar Customer Support
The helpful, friendly support service is fast to respond, within minutes to hours during business hours (not days). Because Ecommerce sites need quick answers to avoid being stuck getting work done, having a support team that is responsive ensures you won’t be stuck awaiting an answer to move your day forward.
Work With Zoey
Zoey is a provider of B2B and wholesale businesses Ecommerce solutions that delivers a powerful array of solutions to help Ecommerce franchise businesses grow. With the ability to migrate to digital orders quickly, take advantage of technology to move their business forward and grow sales. Zoey combines the expected capabilities buyers have come to expect from online commerce, with specifically designed B2B capabilities.
Zoey empowers businesses to secure sales faster and more efficiently by enabling companies to capture orders 24/7, anywhere around the globe and on any type of device. To see how Zoey can help your B2B or wholesale business, request a demo.
